Easy Tips to Speak To Your Market

As the owner of a small business, I know how difficult it is to get noticed on the Internet. I also have a day job, so I often feel like I'm neglecting my website in favor of the game on TV or hanging out with my kids. These things are important, don't get me wrong, but so is boosting my revenue. Hey, kids are expensive these days! College and all that.

Even though it takes a lot of effort to pry myself off the couch after a long, hard day at work, I know that spending just 20 or 30 minutes writing an article about my website two or (maybe) three times a week can make a huge difference. So I just give myself a little pep talk, dash out an article, submit it using my online submission service, and Whammy! I'm back out with the family eating ice cream and watching Finding Nemo for the umpteenth time. Ah, pure bliss.

Let's talk a little bit more about the thought process behind article marketing and what I'm trying to do when I write those articles each week. There is a little more to it than just pounding out words and sending them on to someone else to post, but once you get the hang of it, it quickly becomes second nature.

First, you want to write quality stuff. It doesn't have to be The Great American Novel, and in fact the experts recommend that you write on an 8th to 11th grade reading level. You can check out your writing level using Microsoft Word (neat, huh?). This is a great relief to me, cause I certainly never made straight A's in English class!

Quality content means you're writing something helpful to someone else. It could be a How-To article, an explanation of an aspect of your business, a description of the products on your website compared to those on others' sites -- You name it, as long as it's interesting to someone. People won't get past the first two paragraphs of boring or sales-y articles.

Second, and this is important for honing your campaign, be sure to speak to your market. There are thousands of content sites, email lists and newsletters that could potentially publish your article, but if you put it in the wrong category on your submission service, people will skim over it. Nobody is going to click on an article called "When and Where to Wash Your Pet" when they're looking for information about different kinds of siding for their home.

That means you need to pay attention and choose the right specs for each article you write on an individual basis, not just mark "business" every time because you don't want to read the list. Check out all the categories your submission service offers. Who knows? You might even get some new ideas about things to write!

This is not to say that you have to write about different topics all the time either. In fact, it can be much more lucrative to write several articles on the same or similar topics. I'm not talking about running your article through a synonym-generator. That will get you in trouble and no one is going to read past a sentence that goes: "The canine and I ambled down the boulevard" in an article about walking your dog.

Series can be effective because they put your name out on the same sites over and over again covering different aspects of the same topic. When you get good at this, it's called identifying yourself as an expert. Once enough people see your name on their screen over and over again, they are much more likely to click on your article, read to the bottom and click on the link in your About the Author box. Plus, added bonus, they are more likely to trust what you say if your article is well-written and informative, and they have associated your name with your topic of expertise.

The last thing, as always, is just have fun! I may make it sound like writing is a real bummer for me, but the hardest part is just sitting down in front of the computer. I think of a topic and then I just start writing about it. When I'm done (which is always sooner than I feared) I have a finished product I can be proud of. That's probably the best reward of article marketing: Writing articles!

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