A Guide To Successful Articles

By Ray Johnson

Articles are an important part of internet marketing. It is one of the best ways to generate free traffic to your websites. But what makes a good article? What do articles need to be accepted by the article directories? Most importantly, what has to be included in every article to make sure the article drives traffic.

There are six components to a successful article. When I say successful article I am referring to an article that can be accepted by article directories, will be picked up by publishers, helps your search engine ranking and generates direct traffic to your website.

The first component is the keywords you want your article associated with. You should know this ahead of time because you want to make sure you utilize your keywords in a normal fashion throughout your article. You will also need to list keywords when you submit your article.

Related to the keyword is the category you will want to list it under. It should be a category that anyone searching for your keywords would naturally look under. Again, you will need to have a category in mind when you submit to the directories.

The next component is the title. Your title should accomplish two things. It should create enough interest to motivate a reader to want to see the whole article and it should have some keywords in it.

Next is a summary. This is a one to three sentence synopsis of the article. Like the title, this should entice someone to want to read the whole article and should include a keyword phrase.

The main component of the article is the body. This is the full article itself. It needs to be interesting and relevant to the reader. It should contain useful information. It should be written in an easy to understand format, almost like you are talking to friend.

The body of the article must have correct spelling. There is nothing that destroys your credibility as an author faster than misspellings in your article. Lastly, while you need to have a number of mentions of your keyword in your article, you must not spam it with keywords. Use them, again, like you are explaining something to a friend.

The final part of a successful article is the most important. This is your resource box. Your resource box is where you sell your reader on the idea to click on the included URL to go to your site and sign up or buy. You should include your URL linked to two main keywords. That way the search engines will associate that keyword to your URL and help your ranking for that keyword.

The resource box is your chance to get the reader to take an action. That action is to click on the link you have in the resource box. You can have two links but not more than two. More than two will disqualify you from most article directories. You don't want to hard sell your reader but you do want to try and stimulate their curiosity enough so that between the useful information you gave them in the article and the message in your resource box they have no option but to click on your link.

Article writing is not hard but to do it right you need the six components discussed here. Each of those components has a specific purpose and need to be written to satisfy that purpose. If you follow these guidelines you will have successful articles.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

To find out how you can successfully make a living online, and follow a successful and highly profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - a top rated internet marketer. www.ray-johnson.co.uk

Internet Marketing Mistake #1: The Wrong Way To Build A List

By Ray Johnson

They say, in internet marketing, the money is in the list. Everything you read about, learn about, take courses about internet marketing all say how important it is to build your own list. Knowing how important a list is, many make a fundamental mistake in building a list. If you make this mistake it could cost you big time.

There are a number of ways to build a list. For the most part you must create a marketing plan, generate traffic, get subscribers from that traffic and slowly build your list. As with most things, people are always looking for a shortcut. List building is no exception.

As people look for shortcuts, there is always an abundance of those who try and take advantage of that desire. You may have seen on the internet offers to sell targeted lists. These lists are claimed to be fresh opt in lists of people who really want to hear about what you are trying to market.

In most cases, this can't be farther from the truth. This particular type of list is known as co-reg lists. Usually the names and address come from leads inadvertently clicking a check box or even more commonly not noticing that they needed to uncheck a box on a website where they may have purchased a product or signed up for someone else's list.

The purveyors of these lists make it sound like this is the easiest way to get up and running with a list. They make claims like: get 60,000 fresh targeted leads each month. I have seen some offering 1 million fresh leads a month. Sounds too good to be true. You know, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. This is a classic example.

Here is what happens with this list. First, you have to have your own autoresponder on your own server. If you are using a third party like Aweber, you will find that there is no way to import those lists into it. That is because Aweber values their reputation and won't allow you to populate lists on their site with Co-reg lists.

Once you have your autoresponder that you can actually load the list into, and you start sending emails, chances are upon trying to sign on to your site a short time later and find this message: ACCOUNT SUSPENDED!

This is because unless you bought a dedicated server, which costs hundreds per month you probably exceeded the hosts bandwidth. That results in an automatic shutdown of your site.

The next thing that happens is the host starts to get spam complaints. The leads you bought usually don't know or forgot that they signed up so they mark your emails as spam. Your ip address becomes banned from the major providers like AOL and Yahoo. Even if you get the autoresponder shut off and your account reactivated, future communication from your site will be difficult because now your site is known as a spam site.

There are some who claim they have had success with Co-Regs. That may be the case, but you will notice in any information that shows you how to use Co-Regs, they warn you to never use your main website. In fact they basically suggest you use a throw away site. They know that eventually it will be shut down.

Building a good list is very rewarding. It is the basis for your online income. Don't try and take shortcuts. Trying to shortcut your way to a big list by using Co-Reg lists can be a big mistake.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

To find out how you can successfully make a living online, and follow successful and highly profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - a top rated internet marketer. www.ray-johnson.co.uk