Article Advertising – the competitive edge!
Learning how to write articles can be quite a daunting task. When I began my career in online marketing I didn’t see myself needing to write articles to secure quality incoming links and exposing my brand to the international and local community but like anything – us human beings are able to adapt and learn! The use of social media and news websites have become very popular amongst internet users
– regarding SEO there is a difference between the two which I’ll be discussing in future posts… but for now lets just stick just to articles which fall under both topics…
Time is a issue when writing and deciding what to write about can become a problem or maybe you think you will run out of topics to write about… These small stumbling blocks are the negative thoughts that enter our mind and prevent us from becoming successful and building a brand around our product and intellectual intelligence. More importantly the more you write the better you get and the likelihood of being noticed by other credible people in your industry, in time you will be known as the guru and being paid to talk and/or write will be second nature. No doubt this will take time but if you can get to this level of branding and credibility then passive income from books and intellectual knowledge will definitely be on the cards for you.
There will always be things to write about providing you surround yourself with other people in your industry – maybe not your direct competition but people that could compliment your industry, even mentioning them in your articles and giving them free publicity is a good idea. I am a strong believer in the saying ‘one hand washes the other hand’.
People enjoy reading articles about success stories or lessons learnt from their specific industry, so blog about mistakes that you have made, successes you have achieved or explain case studies in detail – each time drawing to a conclusion that will leave them coming back for more. Over time you will develop a following of avid readers and create many referrals from creating viral articles.
You are not the guru yet!
If you are reading this article you should admit that you are searching for help, right? So obviously you won’t recognise yourself as the guru in your field expertise yet but this leaves the door open to learn from others; take ideas and thoughts from gurus in your industry and mix them up to conjure your own thoughts and ideas, draw from these great people as they can help you become great as well! If you feel you have reason to argue the gurus beliefs don’t be afraid to challenge them, readers follow leaders.. if you have a strong enough case against a guru in your industry then the World Wide Web is the place to view your opinions but for the sake of us readers, please be tactful and diplomatic about it!
Your article topics should revolve around the following:
- Case studies
- Personal mistakes, explain to reader the lessons learnt
- Personal successes
- A mix of thoughts between your own and that of industry specialists
Final note:
Once you begin developing a large database of articles a very important rule of thumb is to find keywords within your article and link to other articles within your blog that relate to these keywords thus keeping the reader always interested. Stimulating the reader to find links really ‘deep’ within the blog is very powerful. This technique is not only beneficial for human visitors but also for the search engine spiders.
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neil@webgrowth.co.za • 27216856083
Neil Pursey 
Wiehan Britz 
Margot Knight 
Jean-Michel 
Shu-aib Benjamin 
Kosta Kontos
Good job on summing up these key points Neil. I especially like what you say about adding a personal touch to your articles. Putting our past mistakes (ie: learning experiences) out on display for the masses shows we’ve been around the block and helps convince our audience of the various beliefs we’ve assumed along the way.
Another way to look at it is that by not blogging about our difficulties, think of the wealth of information we aren’t sharing.
“Most men learn from their own mistakes. Wise men learn from others’ mistakes. And fools never learn.”
Hi Kosta
Yes, blogs were originally designed for personal use. Companies/freelancers have adopted the blog to expose their services to the online community. Bloggers must understand that readers want to leave a site a little more knowledgeable than when they first arrived at a blog. To do this, I think a good technique is to use case studies and success stories.. so basically go out there and prove that you can solve problems…
If you can solve problems you will become a wealthy man!
- Neil