Article Writing and the Resource Box

The General format I and many others follow is the one most of use were taught in school when writing an essay and the one used in newspapers.

It is to:

•  start the article by telling the reader what is about in the first few paragraphs

• The Body should contain supporting information that reinforces the opening statements

• The final paragraphs summarise what has been covered .

You should aim for an article length of 400-700 words. If you need more then you should split the article into an article series. Because the article will be read on a computer screen keep the paragraphs short (6 lines max) and use bullet points when you can.

You should also carefully research the keywords to use in the article and include them and variations within the article. You should never try to sell in and never include an affiliate link. Most article directories will reject articles that contain affiliate links.

The Resource Box

This is arguably the most important part of the article. All article directories allow you to include one but they place limits the number of live hyperlinks that they can contain and the number of words (60 is about normal).

A resource box should contain the name and a brief description of the author and a brief description of the sponsoring site with a link or links. You should consider the resource box to be a mini ad for your site/newsletter/product or service.

You should never try to sell in the resource box and never include an affiliate link.

From your perspective the resource box has several uses

• To provide a link back to your site.

• To send traffic to your site.

For maximum effect you must choose the link anchor text carefully. What you use as your anchor text depends on where you direct the link. Most direct it to the home page.

I would recommend that you direct the first few articles that you write direct to your home page and after that try to link to a page within the site. This is extremely easy if you write a multi part article.

Here are two examples that illustrate both the above points:

You can also offer a complimentary article that make them click through to your site as below:

 


Let's Get Started With Some Advanced Lessons...

Ok, by now you should have your basic site up and running with several pages online and you should be getting some search engine traffic. Your site is most probably getting a few (or a lot) of visitors dropping by and reading your articles each month.

It's time to start to ramp these numbers up and get you earning consistent profits from your efforts so far.


This is the first of a series of lessons on generating extra traffic and turning your visitors into an ongoing income stream...


The other day I received a question from a coaching student, and my (edited and expanded) answer to her is so critical to your site's future development, I thought I'd use it here as the basis for this lesson.


Question - My site is up and running but I'm not getting the visitor traffic numbers I'd like to see. What can I do now to start boosting my visitor numbers and earning an income?

My Answer - Search engine traffic is a notoriously difficult thing to generate consistently, but it's the best place to start, especially using Site Build It because it helps you out no end by submitting your site to the search engines and following up every time it needs to.

The C T P M process of creating valuable, original content also helps as the vast majority of new web pages contain garbage these days. By creating original content, you increase your chances of attracting free visitors from the search engines immensely.

In order to generate more free visitor traffic from the search engines, I'd suggest you model your page titles, descriptions and keywords using the instructions in the superchargesbi ebook from the bonus page and coaching lesson 12.

This will make all of your on-page factors pretty much spot on; then it's time to focus on the off-page factors that you can control.

Three of the best ways of doing this are to -

Write articles and submit them to article directories (see a list at the end of this page)

Exchange articles (instead of just exchanging links) with other related sites, and

Keep building more additional content on your site.

Writing and submitting articles

Here's an article I wrote recently so you get the idea...

How To Profit From Your Hobby In Three Easy Steps

If this doesn’t get you excited, nothing will…you’re about to discover a proven system for following your dream and turning something you love into a profitable business.

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions –

What would I really enjoy doing for the rest of my life?
Where is my ideal retirement paradise? How can I live there and do what I want to do too?
Do I want to work alone or with a partner? If with a partner, who?
Then this 3 step system will show you how…

Step #1 – Find a need, then fill it

If you love doing something special, if you would do it every day if you could, and if you could spend the rest of your life enjoying this one thing if you didn’t have a care in the world…you can bet there are probably thousands of other people feeling just the same way about it right at this very moment.

Every person who wants the same thing as you do has a need they want filled in order for them to pursue their dream.

One way you can discover what other people need and want is to look at what annoys you about your current hobby or pastime.

Are materials difficult or impossible to find locally?
Are parts and accessories very expensive and/or of inferior quality?
Are suppliers lax in their delivery times or keep you waiting for hours when you call them or send an enquiry by email?
Is quality information like How-to courses, instruction manuals and tutorials difficult to find?
All of these problems create opportunities for you to build a business around your hobby and fill the needs of others. If you have the problem, you can rest assured that you aren’t the only one…

Find a need related to your favorite hobby…and fill it

Step #2 – Create the solution to the problem

Once you have found a need, your job is to find the solution.

For example –

If materials are difficult to find locally, find an offline or online supplier who will drop ship them to the people who need them and work out a referral fee arrangement where you receive a commission on all sales made through you
If parts and accessories are expensive and/or low quality, find quality wholesale merchants who offer a money back guarantee and set up referral arrangements with them as outlined above
If suppliers take forever to send your products, find merchant’s who offer guaranteed fast delivery and offer a referral program so you can earn a commission on all the sales you make. You will often find with some searching that one or two merchants will fill all of these criteria at once…
If there is a lack of quality information available, take your knowledge of your favorite hobby and create the manuals and how-to guides you wish you had when you were starting out
Find a need, and fill it…using the information you already have in your head and freely available resources such as newspapers and the Internet to do your research.

Step #3 – Distribute your products and information

By far the most difficult part of this process is in finding says of distributing your products or information to the many thousands of people you’ll need to find to create any sort of lasting success.

You can attend hobby and craft fairs where you man a booth and display your products.

You can use an online auction system such as eBay to promote your products to a much larger audience, but the problem is that eBay owns the visitor traffic arriving at their website, so you have little chance of contacting people who don’t buy from you initially to follow up and persuade them to buy later

You can use a website purpose designed to generate free, targeted visitors from the search engines, PRE-sell them on the idea of buying from you, and then send them to your preferred merchants or dedicated sales pages for your information products

Long term, the third option of building a well put together website is the most likely to generate the best results because you have the leverage potential of the Internet working for you and you can automate just about every part of the process.

But building a website that does this is not usually an easy task.

There are many things to consider and you need a proven system to guide you if you are to have any chance of success.

You need role models to follow, steps to take, and tools that make life easier. Most websites fail to reach anywhere near their potential and never get found by search engines, meaning no visitors to buy your merchant's products.

By finding and then following a proven system, your chances of success are much improved.

In summary…

Find a need in an area you love

Work out a way to fill it with a product or service you can either create or source from another vendor on favorable terms

Create a distribution system that automates everything as much as possible

That’s all you need to do to turn your favorite hobby into a successful business...

About The Author - Rocky Tapscott is the author a free 7 Part Mini Course “How To Build The Perfect Home Based Business Around Your Favorite Hobby, Pastime, Sport Or Skill” which uses 6 real life case studies to show how others have discovered a need in their chosen field and found a way to satisfy it.

Drop by www.hobbyandlifestyle.com/ecourse.html to grab your free copy.

End of article...

Important Note - If you would like to learn exactly how to write articles like this that virtually force your readers to click on the link at the end to visit your site, Jimmy Brown is the man.

You already know that I subscribe to his List and Traffic membership site and devour everything he writes every month.

He also shows you what to do with them when they arrive :-)

To get all the details on how to write articles that work overtime on generating targeted traffic to your site, I recommend you watch Jimmy Brown's Video Lesson 2 from his List And Traffic site.

When you log in, click on the Videos tab at the top of the page, then scroll down to where it says -

List and Traffic™ Video Newsletter Issue #2

This lesson covers everything you need to know to create articles with links to your site that your readers will want to click on, how to get them onto a list, and what to say to them once they are subscribers.

Also read through and listen to the audios of his List Profit System at the top of the main page.

With these two enhancements to your site, I'm sure you'll notice measurable results.

If you aren't a List and Traffic member yet, I think it's the best 10 bucks a month you'll ever spend online.

Following Jimmy's advice has literally made me thousands...

As you can see, the article above uses Jimmy's formula of making the final point the most important of the three, having the other main points dependant on the final point for a successful outcome, then directs people to the solution in the resource box.

I LOVE this strategy and it works a treat.

Sidebar - Make sure you visit the page above and subscribe to the free mini course.

You'll see how I use the Sitesell case studies sites to PRE-sell Site Build It to people who are interested in turning their favorite hobby or pastime into a business they can run from home.

The case studies sites do a wonderful job of this and you should look for affiliate programs that offer similar promotional tools for your market, they are very helpful.

To learn exactly how to set up this entire system for your niche market, log in to List and Traffic and follow Jimmy's guidelines for article creating in Video lesson 2, then listen to the audios and read through Jimmy's List Profit System which you'll find there as well.

End sidebar

One other tip here - Instead of just swapping links with other website owners, exchange articles instead. You'll get a lot better click through rate to your site from well written articles that follow the formula outlined above.

If possible, make your article's goal to attract people and get them onto a newsletter list like I have done here so you can start to build a relationship with them over time.

This way you will have multiple chances of them buying from you or at least allowing them to click on some of your ads :-)

OK, now you've created your killer article, where do you get it published?

Here's a list of some of the largest article directories to get you started once you have your articles ready.