Saturday, November 12, 2005
Write Articles that Get You Better Results
Like I promised last night, here are tips on writing syndicated articles that get a burst of results. My first syndicated article was targeted at getting people who hadn't been to my site yet to sign up for my newsletter. In the week after submitting that article, my newsletter subscriptions jumped by 40%.
Granted, my article didn't follow all the points I'm laying out here; I consider my research still a work in progress and I'm improving my approach as I go. Take it as a blogosphere version of thinking out loud.
But here goes.
It roughly follows the classic AIDA approach: Attention; Interest; Desire; and Action—but with a twist.
The title of the article needs to get attention. Remember what your fourth-grade teacher taught you about writing titles? Now forget it—completely! No bland summary of your article is going to get your readers' attention. You need to stop them in their tracks.
Give them something that reverses common thinking, something that raises their fear of losing out on something, anything that raises a question in their mind that will drive them into your article to find the answer.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a great title I had seen in someone else's article: "Thinking INSIDE the Box." That title grabbed me by the curiosity and forced me to read it. I'm sure it's raising your curiosity as well. It described the pitfalls of focusing so much on unconventional thinking that you lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish. Now, if it had had the title, "The Importance of Structure," would I have had the same burning desire to find out what it was about? Would you? No way!
The title of any article must grab attention to have any hope of getting overburdened readers to dive into it.
Once they're in it, we get into the middle two parts of the classic AIDA structure. The article must hold their Interest and arouse their Desire. I add to the mix that it must subtly build your
Credibility as well (but for the sake of opera fans around the world, let's not mess with the AIDA acronym).
Holding their interest means that it must be relevant to their needs. It can't be merely recycled basic info, but must actually help them understand and grow in whatever they were seeking to find out.
By offering helpful information instead of just filler, you also build your Credibility. You change their mindset toward you into seeing you as someone who wants to and is able to help them with what they wanted to know.
This change in mindset helps to arouse their Desire. Nobody expects you to be able to completely cover a complex subject in 800 words. Ideally, your article should be helpful enough to get them wanting more of what you have to offer. It should answer basic questions while raising larger ones that lead them to be willing to take that next step.
Now, I want to stress at this point that the article should not deal directly with the product or service that you want to promote. The article deals with the problem or question that they want help dealing with. The article shows you are knowledgeable about that problem and could possibly help them find a solution.
The place where you start to offer the bigger solutions is in your resource box at the end of the article. This "About the Author" information should be more than just a dry list of facts about you. It must also stir them to take the Action you want them to take.
Instead of saying, "Pat Author is an expert in blah-blah-blah. Visit Pat's website at www.patauthor.com," dangle a carrot in front of them. Entice them with the specific solutions they can find at your site or can receive by signing up for your newsletter or by clicking further and doing whatever action you would like them to do.
In a sense, the resource box brings us full circle. The title aroused their curiosity to get them to dive into reading the article. Now the resource box must arouse their curiosity and their desire to get them to click into your site, where you start the cycle all over again.
And for the sake of example, here's a sample resource box I've used to entice people to sign up for my newsletter:
About the Author
Jeff Baas, is owner of One Stop Web Support. Sign up for his newsletter and get over $250 worth of gifts to help your online business succeed. Why would he offer this? Check his newsletter signup page where he'll explain how he can do this and why doing similar things can help you succeed online.
Get the idea? It works.
Jeff
Like I promised last night, here are tips on writing syndicated articles that get a burst of results. My first syndicated article was targeted at getting people who hadn't been to my site yet to sign up for my newsletter. In the week after submitting that article, my newsletter subscriptions jumped by 40%.
Granted, my article didn't follow all the points I'm laying out here; I consider my research still a work in progress and I'm improving my approach as I go. Take it as a blogosphere version of thinking out loud.
But here goes.
It roughly follows the classic AIDA approach: Attention; Interest; Desire; and Action—but with a twist.
The title of the article needs to get attention. Remember what your fourth-grade teacher taught you about writing titles? Now forget it—completely! No bland summary of your article is going to get your readers' attention. You need to stop them in their tracks.
Give them something that reverses common thinking, something that raises their fear of losing out on something, anything that raises a question in their mind that will drive them into your article to find the answer.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a great title I had seen in someone else's article: "Thinking INSIDE the Box." That title grabbed me by the curiosity and forced me to read it. I'm sure it's raising your curiosity as well. It described the pitfalls of focusing so much on unconventional thinking that you lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish. Now, if it had had the title, "The Importance of Structure," would I have had the same burning desire to find out what it was about? Would you? No way!
The title of any article must grab attention to have any hope of getting overburdened readers to dive into it.
Once they're in it, we get into the middle two parts of the classic AIDA structure. The article must hold their Interest and arouse their Desire. I add to the mix that it must subtly build your
Credibility as well (but for the sake of opera fans around the world, let's not mess with the AIDA acronym).
Holding their interest means that it must be relevant to their needs. It can't be merely recycled basic info, but must actually help them understand and grow in whatever they were seeking to find out.
By offering helpful information instead of just filler, you also build your Credibility. You change their mindset toward you into seeing you as someone who wants to and is able to help them with what they wanted to know.
This change in mindset helps to arouse their Desire. Nobody expects you to be able to completely cover a complex subject in 800 words. Ideally, your article should be helpful enough to get them wanting more of what you have to offer. It should answer basic questions while raising larger ones that lead them to be willing to take that next step.
Now, I want to stress at this point that the article should not deal directly with the product or service that you want to promote. The article deals with the problem or question that they want help dealing with. The article shows you are knowledgeable about that problem and could possibly help them find a solution.
The place where you start to offer the bigger solutions is in your resource box at the end of the article. This "About the Author" information should be more than just a dry list of facts about you. It must also stir them to take the Action you want them to take.
Instead of saying, "Pat Author is an expert in blah-blah-blah. Visit Pat's website at www.patauthor.com," dangle a carrot in front of them. Entice them with the specific solutions they can find at your site or can receive by signing up for your newsletter or by clicking further and doing whatever action you would like them to do.
In a sense, the resource box brings us full circle. The title aroused their curiosity to get them to dive into reading the article. Now the resource box must arouse their curiosity and their desire to get them to click into your site, where you start the cycle all over again.
And for the sake of example, here's a sample resource box I've used to entice people to sign up for my newsletter:
About the Author
Jeff Baas, is owner of One Stop Web Support. Sign up for his newsletter and get over $250 worth of gifts to help your online business succeed. Why would he offer this? Check his newsletter signup page where he'll explain how he can do this and why doing similar things can help you succeed online.
Get the idea? It works.
Jeff
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