subject: Article Marketing Strategies: Getting In Your Prospect's Shoes [print this page] When you're creating articles, it's important to focus on providing helpful information to your readers that will improve their lives in some way, rather than trying to draw attention to your business or products.
In the article marketing world, articles that focus on the author's website, products, or business are called "promotional" (or sales oriented), and that is the number one reason why articles are declined.
In order to change your approach to writing, it helps to think of yourself as a teacher rather than a sales person. Be sure that you submit articles that are on the same general topic as your website, and focus on using your expertise on your niche to help readers interested in your field.
You need to get into the minds of your readers. Here are some questions that you can ask yourself:
*What are some common misunderstandings that people have about my field?
*What are some of the most frequently asked questions that customers ask me?
*What are some key ideas regarding my niche that readers really need to know?
There are a few ways to find out what your readers are thinking:
1 - Just ask them. If you have a blog, every once in a while put up a post soliciting questions from your readers. Encourage them to ask you anything that they're wondering. You just may get some really great questions that you never would have thought of on your own.
2 - Pay attention to the comments on your blog. Many times readers will leave comments that have questions embedded in them. Sometimes the answers that you give to comments left on your blog are worthy of being turned into an article.
3 - Use Twitter to ask your followers if they have any questions for you. You can then turn around and write articles to address your follower's questions.
4 - Do keyword research. It's not complicated, and it can even be free if you use Google's free keyword research tool. The information you can gather doing keyword research is a direct reflection of what people in your target market are searching for online. You can write articles to satisfy these searches. That perfectly positions your articles to be listed high in the results lists when people search for those keyword phrases.
The main thing to keep in mind is that the article should not be about your business or website. A sales oriented article is a huge turnoff to a reader, if it even gets that far. Most times, articles that are promotional will be declined straight away at the publisher level and won't even be seen by readers.
It may seem counterintuitive, but it's to your advantage not to write articles promoting your business or website, and to instead write solely to answer questions that your readers have. These may be questions that actual readers or customers have asked you, or they could be questions that are being asked via searches in Google, and then you write articles that provide the answer.
By writing in this way you'll be building your reputation as an expert in your field, and you'll become known as someone who is genuinely helpful. This puts people at ease around you--they're more likely to visit your website, sign up for your newsletter list, and maybe even buy your products if you take a more subtle approach and just focus on their needs.
