One Stop Web Support Newsletter #76

October 5, 2008

Last week we looked at how to overcome the fear of writing article and find good article ideas.

This week we'll look at how to make write them so that people read them and follow your link into your site.

Driving Visitors to Your Site With Articles - How to Write a Visitor-Attracing Article

It doesn't pay to write articles if no one ever reads them. And it doesn't pay to have articles all over the Internet if no one ever clicks your link to visit your online business.

If you write articles, you want them to bring you visitors. It's as simple as that. Here are some tips to help you accomplish that goal.

Choose popular keywords that attract interest

Always choose a keyword that people are searching for as the topic of your article. Two keyword tools that I particularly like for finding keywords are NicheBOT or Wordtracker.

And for a devastatingly effective new way to write a powerfully optimized article around the keyword you choose, check out a new technique I just discovered in a free video that I'll link to below.

One thing about the technique in the video, though. You might get the impression if you don't pay enough attention that all you have to do is string random keywords together to get a search engine friendly article. (I'll talk more about that later.)

There's more to it than that and I know that the people behind the video would never suggest that you create a junk article by randomly throwing words together.

If you combine this technique with the determination to create a quality, meaningful article that readers will find useful, the tips in this free video cangive you a killer technique for creating high ranking articles. Just go to the main Keyword Results Analyzer site and click on the link for KRA Pro up in the upper right hand corner. The video is on the KRA Pro page.

Use your keywords to attract searchers to your article

Make sure your attention-getting keyword is in the title and in the first and last paragraphs.

Create your title as a specific phrase that ties into some benefit that your readers want. Something like, "How (Your Keyword) Will Improve Your Health," or, "Why More People Are Choosing (Your Keyword) to Protect Their Families."

Writing a specific title actually helps you overcome potential writer's block and helps you write the article more quickly. If you're staring at an overly broad title, you have no idea where to start. If your title outlines a specific direction to take the article, it's easier to get started.

Once you start writing the body of the article be careful that you don't overdo your keyword phrase. The title, the beginning of the first paragraph and somewhere in the last paragraph are usually sufficient unless you're writing a 1,000 word or longer article.

Most new article writers think that the more you use your keyword phrase, the more both the search engines and the readers who see it will love it. You don't want a parrot-like article that stuffs your keyword in every fifth word

"Squawk! Polly wants a home video surveillance system. A home video surveillance system will protect your property. Make sure you get a quality home video surveillance system because you want a good home video surveillance system. Home video surveillance system! Squawk!"

Nobody wants to read junk like that. You want your article to offer useful information. Scatter synonyms and variations of your keyword phrase throughout the article (which is really the point of the video I mentioned above). The more your article sounds like a real person writing for real people, the more both the search engines and your readers will like it.

Use your article to attract readers to click from your article to your site

Ultimately, you want your article to act like a nice, steep, slippery slide that delivers readers directly to your website. Ever tried to stop halfway down a steep, slicked-up slide? Hard to do, isn't it.

You want your article to function the same way for your readers. How do you do that, though?

First, make sure your article contains truly useful content that demonstrates that you have the expertise to help them with their needs in that area. Make sure, though, that you don't answer all of the key questions they might have.

Demonstrate your knowledge, but leave them eager to find out more. Some ways you can do this is to tell them that there are three ways to deal with the problem, but focus the article on only one of them. Or you can describe the benefits something will provide, but gloss lightly over the exact steps they need to take to get those benefits. Whatever way you do it, hold back just enough to make them want to find out more.

Then in the resource box at the end of the article, the place where you get a brief opportunity to introduce yourself and your business, give readers a compelling reason to visit your site and, hopefully, to sign up for your list. Use the article to give them confidence that you know enough to have the answer to their questions. Use your resource box to invite them to get more detailed answers through coming to your site.

For example, instead of providing a resource box that says, "Joe Schmoe runs WidgetMania.com. Please visit our site and see all our products," say, "Joe Schmoe is a lifelong expert on widgets. Want to discover his four easy steps to completely widgetize your life? Click on our link to get a copy of Joe's special report, "Your Fully Widgetized Life."

Get the idea? Instead of begging people to follow the link from the article to your site, offer them something that expands upon the useful information that they've enjoyed in the article. You'll see a lot more of them slip right down that slippery slide into your site.

We'll continue this series next week with tips on where and how to submit your articles so they appear on other websites.

Q and A with Jeff

In this section, Jeff answers your questions about starting a business online. Here's this week's question.

Why am I not getting any traffic despite first-page rankings?

First of all, congratulations on getting first page rankings! That's no small accomplishment nowadays. It seems that even those keywords that used to be lightly competed for have become more competitive.

But, as you've recognized, high rankings alone is not enough. You need those rankings to convert into visitors. And you need those visitors to convert into sales or opt-ins.

We won't get into converting visitors into sales this week. We'll stick, for now, just to that middle area of getting rankings to convert into visitors. In doing so, we'll ask three questions to see to what degree any of them are holding searchers back from visiting your site.

First, I'll give you a warning. If you're basing your expected search volume on the Google AdWords keyword tool, you may be looking at the wrong numbers. Many people look at the Broad Match numbers that Google defaults to and assumes that that many people are searching for their exact keyword.

In reality, though, Google's Broad Match includes MANY more than searches than those who searched for your exact keywords. Broad Match represents all searches that in any way approximate your keyword.

I've been skeptical even of Google's Phrase Match figures, which are supposed to be a lot closer related to the actual search volume for that exact keyword phrase. You don't think that a company that was trying to encourage people to bid on their ad system would "accidentally" inflate their keyword volumes to get potential advertisers excited about advertising with them, would you? Hmm...

Are people searching for your keywords?

The question of keyword counts, though, brings up an important point that many website owners overlook. Don't guess at what is going to attract traffic. Do your research. The tendency to do "guess marketing" will almost always leave you disappointed.

Even if the keywords you chose years or even months back looked promising when you chose them, you may find them producing only a fraction of the visitors you expected from them.

It's a tough time in many niches right now. I've been finding that many keywords that were bread and butter keywords for certain niches even a year ago now are searched by only a small fraction of the number of people who used to search for them.

Are your title and description intriguing?

Check what people see in the search engine results when they search for your keywords. Is your search engine listing intriguing enough to entice them to click? If you've paid too much attention to making your title and description search-engine friendly, you might have inadvertently made it appear dull and useless to the searchers who find it.

Make sure your title includes your most compelling keywords, the ones that best describe what people are looking for. Rather than trying to stuff as many keywords as you can into your title, though, write a title that reassures searchers that they'll find what they're looking for on your site.

Similarly, make sure your meta description (a tag that doesn't appear on your page, but often does appear in your search engine listing) contains your keyword, too. Make sure also that it is written in a way that reassures people that you have what they need and that entices them to check out your site.

Are you doing enough to stand out from your competitors?

What's the fastest way to stand out in a crowd of people who are all wearing black? That's simple. Wear white.

You can do the same thing with your search engine results. Stand out. Be different.

Look at what that other sites that rank in the top ten with you are doing and find a way to be different.

Are all of them the same length? Make yours shorter -- or longer -- just different.

Do all of them have the same kind of dry, boring, nothing-but-the-keywords title and descriptions so prevalent across the Web? Inject a little personality into yours.

Be careful that you don't change your title so much that you drop out of the top ten, but change it up so you stand out. Many times just being a little different from the crowd will win you more searchers' attention -- and their visits.

Final thoughts

Test these three tips out if your website is ranking, but not producing. Chances are you'll find in them either a flaw in your expectations or ways to get more searchers to click on your listings.

Hottest Offers

Each issue, I feature what I consider the best offers available each week on worthwhile business-building tools. Check here to see what's hot this week.

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/hot-offers.htm

Or check to see my growing selection of ebooks and training tools that you can use for free to build your Internet business.

Free Ebooks:

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/dir-ebooks.htm

Free Training tools:

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/ongoing-bargains.htm

Success quote

'Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day of your life.'

Confusius

This newsletter is published by One Stop Web Support, where our business is helping your business succeed.

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/

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