The Top 7 Article Marketing Mistakes Solo Entrepreneurs Make (and how to avoid them)

Offering "free-reprint" articles to targeted audiences is one
of the most effective and low-cost methods to become a recognized
expert on the internet, establish credibility and generate
long-term targeted traffic to your website. Well-written,
informational articles are always in great demand by thousands of
publishers and editors of websites, newsgroups, blogs and e-zines
who rely heavily on providing innovative and fresh content to
their readership and to attract search engines and site
visitors.

Unfortunately, many solo entrepreneurs who market their services
with articles are making serious mistakes that result in their
articles not being published and not getting targeted prospects
to their website. There are 4 factors that determine the success
of any article:

* the preparation you do before you write an article
* the content of your article
* the format of your article ("article mechanics")
* how you optimize and distribute your article

Let's take a look at what the most common article marketing
mistakes are and how you can avoid them.

Article Marketing Mistake #1 - Not Being Clear on the Reason to
Write Articles

The primary reason to write an article is to inform your
audience. If your article is not written with this purpose in
mind, few people will want to read your article and you will fail
to see all the benefits of promoting your article. Generating
links by submitting your article to hundreds of sites will help
to boost your search engine ranking but if you'd like to get
people to read what is in your article, and then click through to
your site, the solution is to produce better content.

Article Marketing Mistake #2 - Failure to Plan for Your Audience

Who are you writing for? You want only the people who are
interested in reading your article and in the services you have
to offer. You're not writing for every person browsing on the
internet. Ask yourself these basic questions about your target
audience:

* What kind of information are they searching for when they go
online?
* Do they have any problems related to what you have to offer?
* What is their occupation, sex, age, etc.?

Then strategically choose the title, keywords of your article
(more about this in Mistake #7). Did you know that the title
determines as much as 95% of the success of your article in terms
of how much traffic your article will generate back to your
website? In fact, the first 3-5 words of your title are the most
important. Then begin planning the content to make sure your
article provides useful information or addresses a problem with a
solution.

Article Marketing Mistake # 3 - Publishing Content That
Publishers Don't Want

If you want article marketing to work for you, write articles
that publishers would want to publish. They will not publish your
article unless it contains quality content that will give their
readers value. You will also have to adhere to publication rules
in order to have your article approved and listed. Rules include
the use of self-serving links, unique content, the use of HTML,
article length (aim for 700 to 1000 words), keyword anchor text,
resource boxes and affiliate links.

Article Marketing Mistake # 4 - Not Writing with Personality

In delivering your information, make it engaging and
entertaining. Use your sense of humor if you have it. Put a
little of your personality into your writing so that readers will
feel a connection with you. When making a buying decision for
professional services, the number one factor prospects consider
is how much they know, like and trust you.

Article Marketing Mistake # 5- Too Much Sales Hype

Article marketing isn't about selling - it's about pre-selling.
No one will publish an article that reads like a sales letter.
You get to promote yourself in your Resource Box at the end of
the article where you include your name, brief professional
information, your unique selling proposition (USP) and a call to
action with links to your website.

Article Marketing Mistake # 6 - Failing to Maximize the
Promotional Opportunities of Article Marketing

In order to maximize the benefits of article marketing, it makes
good business sense to optimize your articles so the search
engines can list the website associated with your article on the
search engine results pages. You will get free and targeted
traffic from these listings! Include keywords in the title and
content of your article and create metatags for your article
pages. You can also include anchor text links in your resource
box (the words you click on when you click a link).

Please note: there are best practices concerning these techniques
so I recommend that you consult a professional to help you.

Article Marketing Mistake # 7 - Not Distributing Their Articles
for Maximum Exposure

Many solo entrepreneurs don't know the top sites to target for
maximum exposure. They often end up submitting their articles to
over-hyped and under-maintained sites. Moreover, article
submission is very time consuming and tedious so they do a few
submissions but not enough volume to give them the exposure on
the internet they need.

So my recommendation is don't just start writing. Plan ahead and
write strategically to increase your article marketing success.
The choice is yours - you can get a little exposure from
increased link backs, or for a little extra work, enjoy massive
exposure. If you have passion for a subject and can explain
things like you would to a friend over a cup of coffee, you can
write articles people will want to read. Just do a bit of
planning first.

To write or not to write? That isn't the question. The
questions that you must be able to answer are: What's in it for
the reader? What's in it for the publisher? Does my article
provide value? Savvy solo entrepreneurs generate thousands of
dollars from Article Marketing each year. So can you!

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Michele O'Reggio helps entrepreneurs grow their business
and get more clients by delegating and using systems.
Claim your FR-EE report "The Top 7 Clues that you Need
Help and Systems" - email top7clues@getresponse.com.
Discover a self-promotion system that works at
http://www.ArticlesPromote.com .