Article Marketing | Converting Readers to Customers

While article marketing is a great internet marketing tool, you don't want people just reading your articles and moving on. What you need to do is find a way to convert your readers into customers. Customers not readers are what draws income.

What you should have in your resource box

It is important to realize that as effective as article marketing is that you understand the value of your article mainly lies in effective use of your resource box.

Your name - Clearly you want your personal name (or your pen name) in your resource box. This will help your audience feel more comfortable, knowing that they are dealing with a real person;

Company Name - Your company name is a must if you wish to have your products or services associated with your company. You want your readers to associate your work with your company and also your company with you.

Links for added information - Since the premise behind writing articles is to drive traffic to your website or blog, failure to add a proper link back would render your article useless in terms of link-building and customer building.

Finding the Right Article Tone

It is simple to write a vague article about a product or service. What is more challenging is writing compelling text that draws traffic and catch the attention of customers. Here are some tips:

Getting your article read - not only do you need a compelling headline, but your writing should convey a sense of excitement. It is quite hard to entice someone about your product or service if your writing is boring;

Great information helps - always write your article from the view of a potential customer. Provide them good information about a topic that will mean something to them. Also, try not writing in first person - e.g. I feel, I expect, I understand - write from a second or third person position instead;

Avoid techno talk - try to avoid making your articles sound too technical. The more basic, the more likely it is to intrigue readers. Write for an audience that is likely to purchase your product or service. Use the "readability statistics" in your word processor to make sure you are not writing over the head of your target audience;

Use proper formatting - whatever you do, avoid providing an article that lacks proper breaks. Your articles should be well formatted and provide short, concise paragraphs. Typically the rule of thumb would be not more than 3 - 5 complete sentences per paragraph;

Opening and closing - just like your title is likely to get the attention of a reader, your first paragraph is your "hook". This hook should be well written and be capable of encouraging the reader to finish reading your article and not click "back" to get away from it. Similarly, your closing paragraph should be a brief statement that not only captures the overall information, but ties back to your opening paragraph as well. Failure to add a summary in your article could result in it appearing unfinished. Your summary should also include an action statement.

Summary

Now you understand that article marketing is more about quality than quantity. Your article marketing efforts should be designed to draw readers and convert those readers to customers. This is a long term strategy that works. Do make sure that you are writing compelling content and submitting to the right article directories to grab attention and draw in a client base.

About The Author Pilar Torres - Take a look at our Free Jargon Free Web Marketing Strategy videos aimed at beginners. Check out our Professional Website Hosting Services website. We also offer Reseller Hosting and other services such as Online Website Builder, Dedicated Servers, Domain Names, Data Backup, Web Design, Web Design Templates, Email Marketing, 0800 Numbers and VPS Hosting.