The Best Advertisement For Your Business

It is no secret among internet marketers that writing articles is a great way to market your website. With all the article distribution services and all the websites looking for free, unique content, writing a quality article can bring you more links to your website in one day than an entire month of working out link exchanges and submitting to directories. The benefits of writing articles have been written about time and time again. Yet in order to enjoy the benefits of article writing, your article must first be accepted by the publishers who receive your submissions. This article will focus on a few key points to help increase your chances of getting your article accepted by the Internet's top publishers.

Proofread Your Own Writing

Proofreading is very time consuming. If you want your article to be widely accepted, it is your job to make the publisher's job easier. The first step in making the publisher's job easier is to check, double check, and triple check your spelling and grammar. If you have someone that can review your article, have them read it over. Tell this person to look for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and poorly worded sentences. They will be able to point out mistakes that you may never have seen. When you write an article there is a tendency of getting overly familiar with the content and thus you could miss a glaring mistake in your writing. Consider the following exercise by reading aloud what is written:

London
in the
the
spring
x x x

What did you read? If you identified that the word 'the' is written twice, than you can consider yourself one of only 5% of people who get this exercise correct. 95% of people who read this exercise only see "London in the spring X X X". (If you still do not see it, read it aloud again, but this time point to each word as you read it.)

The point of this exercise is to show you just how easy it is to miss obvious mistakes. Add in the element of familiarity with the writing and you are likely to miss even more mistakes. By asking someone else to read over your work, you greatly reduce the chances of missing a glaring error in your writing.

Rule to Remember: Proofread Your Own Writing, and then Proofread Again

Offer Something of Real Value

Articles are an incredible source of free traffic and free advertising for your business. However, articles are not supposed to be advertisements themselves. There is nothing you can do to get a publisher to delete your article faster than writing an article that is nothing more than a long-winded ad copy.

If you want to get your article published, once again you must get into the publisher's mind. The publisher is always looking to offer his or her readers with fresh, insightful, and helpful information. Commentaries on industry trends, useful strategies, tutorials, observations and theories all make good articles. As an owner of a business, reviewing one of your products, offering a teaser of the information you sell, or blatantly marketing your products by including your hyperlink throughout the article makes for a horrible article that will likely not be published.

Think back to the time when you first started your online venture (this may not be very long ago) and remember how thirsty you were for good, quality information. When writing your article, remember how valuable this information was to you when you found it. Every author has the right to a resource box which serves as your advertisement; if you prove to the reader that you are an expert in your field and give them information that only you can provide, this will serve as a stronger advertisement than if you spend 2,000 words on a long-winded, self-promotional article.

Finally, when writing your resource box, it is best to be as concise as possible. Resource boxes that appear to be about as long as the article themselves show that the author has no concern about the content of his or her article. Limit the number of links you put into your resource box to no more than three links and keep the resource box to no more than four or five lines.

Rule to Remember: Write a Good Article, not a Good Advertisement

Be Clear and Concise

Many people fall into the trap of thinking they have to develop an eloquent, graceful writing style in order to be published. What these people seem to forget is that an article is written with one main point: to deliver information. Be concise, be clear, and be direct. When writing your article, you should actually aim to be slightly boring with your writing style. What is slightly boring to you is probably very clear and direct to the reader.

It is important to note that most online publishers have much more to deal with than the writing styles of the authors who submit articles to them. Publishers are more concerned with grammar, spelling, and content than they are with how eloquently a writer can make his or her point. One thing that a publisher will take notice of, however, is a writer who has a confusing and difficult to follow writing style.

Your article should encourage readers to read through the entire article. If a reader gets a few lines into the article, or even a few paragraphs, and finds themselves confused, you can be sure that they will never get to your resource box and thus never visit your website. To keep a reader interested in your article, give them quality information and give it to them directly and clearly. A reader will only continue to read an article if they believe there is a good chance that they will gain something further by finishing the article. Although it may be counter-intuitive, boring writing does just that.

Rule to Remember: Being Boring is Better than Being Confusing

Writing good articles is not difficult. When writing your article, think first about what publishers are looking for in an article. Focus on your grammar, spelling, clarity, conciseness, and content. Remember that your article should actually help people beyond just selling your product or service. Offer valuable information to your readers and they will pay you back ten-fold. Offer valuable information to a publisher's readers and they will be certain to publish your article and provide you with the best free advertisement for your business.

Copyright 2004 Mark Daoust

About The Author

Mark Daoust is the owner of http://www.site-reference.com. Discuss this article further at http://forums.site-reference.com/t120/s.html.

---

How to Use Free Articles to Explode Your Internet Business!

In this article I will show you how to use... Read More

Copywriters and Article Marketing: What Should You Write?

So you've decided to market your home-based copywriting business through... Read More

Publish Article

If you've spent any time online trying to promote your... Read More

Getting Your Foot in the Door (Or How I Finally Got Published)

This has to be the number one thing that most... Read More

7 Steps To Writing Articles That People Just Have To Read

This may come as a surprise... to you, but writing... Read More

Marketing Your Home Business in Just 30 Minutes a Week

It's all the rage. It's what everyone is talking about.... Read More

Article Marketing: Free Speech Means Free Plugs for Your Business

Article marketing works like this. The majority of webmasters are... Read More

5 Powerful Article Writing Tips

Writing articles is one of the most powerful, if not... Read More

Article Marketing 101 ? Article Writing Establishes You as an Expert

If you market online, whether it be your own information... Read More

10 Tips For Promoting Through Ezine Articles

What's the most powerful marketing technique on the Web? Search... Read More

Niche Marketing: The Power Of Articles

If you haven't considered the power of articles as part... Read More

Branding, Control, and Results - Submit Articles in Your Own Name

Article distribution is currently booming on the internet. Authors do... Read More

Powerful Article Marketing Tips

If you have submitted your articles to EzineArticles.com you have... Read More

How An Online Writer Can Easily Self-publish Their Way To A Fortune

Online writing is really self-publishing made easier and potentially much... Read More

Ezine Article Writing In 10 Easy Steps

1. Choose A Topic.You need to choose either a hot... Read More

Understanding That Online Writing is Business Writing Will Make You a Fortune

Never before in the history of the business of writing... Read More

Interviews with Well-Known Ezine Writers #2: - John Colanzi

MS: John, you must be one of the most prolific... Read More

Articles That Sizzle - Top Ten Topics

There's one key rule that every writer should understand before... Read More

Correct Formatting Maximizes Effectiveness of Online Articles

Understanding the rules of correct formatting for online articles will... Read More

The 2 Headed Dragon: Let Others Publish Your Material and Keep Your Site Unique

Is Putting your Articles in the Public Domain really a... Read More

Article Marketing: What Is It and How Can I Use it to Grow My Business?

Ever read one of those web articles written by an... Read More

An Affable Article

It doesn't really matter who you are; you definitely know... Read More

Direct Sales Reps CAN Write Articles - Heres How!

We all know that article writing is a great way... Read More

How Webmasters Can Become Experts and Write Expert Articles!

Write articles, be recognized as an expert, drive a surge... Read More

Adsense Authors: Who Are These People?

Adsense is a program designed by Google to help publishers... Read More

Ambition versus Dedication

All writers aspire to recognition, but are we dedicated? Ambition... Read More

How Your Online Business Can Generate Loads Of Free Traffic From Articles

The biggest challenge facing any online business today is how... Read More

Promote Easily With The Two-Step

Here's a really simple way... to promote your online business... Read More

Turn Words Into Traffic

A large portion of your business relies on your ability... Read More

Content and Articles to Improve Revenue

It is important for all webmasters to realize that if... Read More

Writing Articles to Boost Your Sites Traffic

Two important factors that play a part in the rankings... Read More

What Posting Articles Online Did For My Google Page Rank In 90 Days

Article Marketing Builds Momentum and TrafficWhen I started submitting articles... Read More

Exposing Your Expertise

Writing and leveraging articles is my most successful strategy for... Read More