Article writing on a continuous basis is one of the smartest things an internet marketer can do for keeping two important things flowing: traffic and money.

Articles do help you profit. They draw traffic to your site, they provide search engine optimisation, and they help you to continually build your brand.

A well-crafted and optimised article strategy can help you continually expand your ability to make money online. Here are some tips to help you keep online content flowing:

Join Challenges

There’s nothing quite like a good challenge to get you motivated. Ezinearticles has one called #HAHD. HAHD stands for Hundred Articles Hundred Days. Imagine the traffic, rankings, and potential sales that could come from 100 different articles pointing to your website(s)? Not just will you get those links but you’ll get links through social media and through article syndication as well.

Article Syndication

Speaking of article syndication, make sure that while you continually publish content on your website, blog, etc. that you also submit original articles to sites that allow for syndication. By publishing content on other sites, you get a valuable backlink and an increased chance of being noticed by new potential clients.

Subscribe To Your topic

One of the challenges of continually posting valuable content is to come up with ideas. The internet is an endless source of inspiration but you don’t always have the time to sit and research for ideas.

Don’t dismay. Get the research spoon fed to you. Set up your feed reader to get fed blogs and articles on your favourite subjects and set up some Google Alerts so that when you’re ready to sit down and write, you’ve got plenty of inspiration and ideas at your fingertips.

Schedule Your Time

Maybe you don’t feel it’s practical to sit down and write an article every single day but could you spend a few hours one day each week? Some internet marketers have designated days per month for various activities and you could spend time producing content for your blogs, article marketing sites, and creating for Web 2.0 pages and then space distribution out over the month.

Online content sells. It sells your brand, it sells ideas, it persuades, and it helps you gain valuable organic search engine rankings. Strategise to create as much content as possible and you will start to see a steady flow of traffic and sales or affiliate marketing commissions.

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketer
Learn Affiliate Marketing with Year Of The Affiliate © 2012

Great web copy presents you and / or your company well to the public and it also converts visitors into customers. Here are some tips and strategies for writing web copy that converts to help you succeed with internet marketing.

Pique Curiosity

Curiosity is powerful online. It’s what makes them click. Get someone curious and they’ll want to dig deeper. Get them interested in your title, your meta description, your headline, and make sure that first paragraph convinces the reader that they’ll benefit from reading further.

Get To The Point

When talking to potential customers, you need to get their attention quickly. Web surfers tend to have a rather short attention span due to all that’s at their finger tips. For this reason, you need to get to the point quickly.

Sure, there are sales letters that are more than 5,000 words but until you’re a master copywriter, you’re probably best to try to say what you can a bit sooner than that. A good rule of thumb is to grab your visitors attention before they need to scroll – so they’ll want to scroll past the fold.

Solve A Problem

If you want someone to buy what you’re selling, solve a problem for them. Help them overcome a problem, save them time, or earn them money. That’s what sells products online. Be convincing in that you can help someone achieve one or more of those three things in your web copy and you could do well.

Show Them The Money

A lot of people are programmed to be wary of online promises so when writing web copy, be prepared to “show them the money” in terms of demonstrating proof that what you are saying has merit. Testimonials, illustrations, photos, videos, and other media can help immensely, so can a money back guarantee. Illustrate proof and eliminate risk and you could be laughing all the way to the bank.

Walk In The Shoes Of The Customer

Read your web copy to yourself to make sure it flows, looks formatted properly, and doesn’t contain errors. Try reading it in more than one browser and consider printing it to help you proofread as well.

Test And Tweak

The top method for writing web copy that converts is to test it out. Some internet marketers test and tweak several times before they find a winning combination. You might try running multiple landing pages and analysing results. Check your conversion rate, your organic SEO, your Google score (if using pay per click advertising), and ask some colleagues or internet marketing mentors for their opinion.

Don’t hesitate to read web copy and internet marketing guides that could help you tweak and refine your overall internet marketing strategy and help you learn the secrets of effective copywriting. Writing web copy that is high quality can be hard work but develop these skills and the fruits of your labour could be delicious!

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketer
Learn Affiliate Marketing with Year Of The Affiliate © 2012

Any time you are writing online content – a blog post, an article, a web page or a sales letter, it is important to consider how people read.

There are several factors that have been identified as being essential for inducing the greatest number of visitors to actually read all the text on your website or blog. Here is a brief overview of the most important.

How We Read Online

As human beings, we read a book far differently than we skim through online content – and that is a key factor; we tend to skim through the page before deciding whether or not we want to invest time reading every word all the way through to the end.

Few people want to read a book online; instead they are searching for information. They want to quickly and easily ascertain whether or not the pages of your website contain the data they are seeking. Don’t make this difficult or time consuming; when it comes down to it, most internet users are lazy. Besides, the internet is supposed to save time, not waste it wading through lots of long pieces of text.

Distractions, such as an incoming email or IM message offer distractions that also make it less likely a reader will finish a long article or post.

Online Content – Style And Design Elements

Text pieces need to include white space. It’s a simple fact that when faced with a page of tightly spaced text with small font and run-together paragraphs, people simply won’t read it. It could contain some truly valuable or really interesting content but your visitors will never know because they will make it all the way through.

Here are some effective ways to design text that gets read:

• Group the text into small paragraphs with appropriate spacing between each.
• Use a font size that is easy to read (i.e., larger than 10 point).
• Skip the fancy fonts and stick with a tried and true sans serif such as Verdana or Arial.
• Use bold phrases sprinkled throughout to grab attention.
• Bulleted lists provide an easy way to read through a large amount of information.
• Refrain from using too much punctuation; particularly exclamation points!
• Dark text against a light background is easiest on the eye.
• Break up the text with graphics and photos.
• Add links, which appear in a different colour than the overall text font.
• Use fewer words to get across the same amount of information in printed format.

General Content Writing Tips

Think of your audience as you write. Not everyone knows the jargon of your particular industry or will appreciate a vocabulary your English professor would be proud of. Use short sentences and simple words that can be understood by any reader.

Limit the length of the pieces to no more than 500 words and articles to around that same number, wherever possible. Web pages can have more text but be sure you utilise the tips above so that blocks and paragraphs are appropriately separated and incorporate sufficient white space.

It is easy to shorten a piece if you include hyperlinks to pages that more fully discuss a particular topic. This is also a great way to build inter-site links, always good for page ranking SEO.

If you want your website visitors to read your online content, ensure that you lay it out properly and think about ways to get them from the top to the bottom of the page.

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketer
Learn Affiliate Marketing with Year Of The Affiliate © 2012