The below article is a guest blog post from Tim Gorman, Tim is an expert article marketer who drives tons of traffic to his sites with articles. Personally I read everything Tim writes, it is that valuable. You can learn more about Article Marketing Secrets by visiting Tim’s website.
There has been a large amount of discussion lately in regards to some testing and possible changes in the layout utilized by Ezinearticles.com focusing on the increase of the adsense ads they show on their website. Understandably this has caused some extreme discomfort and sizeable frustrations with many marketers that utilize Ezinearticles.com as their main article directory for submission on behalf of their article marketing campaigns.
After all, the thought of losing the ability to generate large amounts of targeted traffic to your website would make anyone uncomfortable and a bit angry…especially when you factor in the possibility of losing out on sales, opt-ins to a list or adsense generated income. But, one thing that we must all keep in mind, is that the people behind Ezinearticles.com are trying to make a profit with their online business model much like the rest of us are with our own Internet marketing business and we simply can’t fault them for feeling the need to test new ideas or make changes they feel are necessary for their own profitability.
Think about it, we constantly preach to each other the need to test and tweak our own sales letters and website copy until we finally hit a home run, so no need to get upset with Ezinearticles.com as they are only practicing what we market.
However, with all of that said and with the many changes that Ezinearticles.com has made in the past, is currently making and will continue to make in the future I thought it prudent to provide a post that will help in your ability to no longer fear changes from Ezinearticles.com. I base this around my own experiences with them since early 2005 because through every change they have tested and/or implemented they have still remained my number one source for targeted traffic and my online earnings have never suffered from any modifications they (meaning EZA) have made to their article directory.
So, what’s the big secret to succeeding with Ezinearticles.com even when they constantly implement change upon change with their website? It’s actually quite simple, because all you truly need to do when using EZA to consistently drive traffic with your submitted articles and continue to make money from your article marketing efforts is to focus on becoming better at what they cannot control, and that is the articles you submit to their website. In short, you need to write higher quality articles that can’t be ignored by Internet surfers.
OK, I know you are thinking to yourself what a load of garbage, but hear me out first because the information revealed below can and will keep your article marketing ROI at a high level of production.
I’ve broken down what it takes (for lack of a better phrase) to beat Ezinearticles.com and never again worry about changes they make to their website, into 5 main components of what I refer to as “Article Marketing Visitor Superiority (VS)”.
I’m sure you can already guess what the components are but just in case, here they are: The article title, the article summary, the article keywords, the article body and the article resource box. Additionally, I have allocated each component a specific VS (visitor superiority) percentage based on where I rank it in terms of importance when it comes to beating EZA for visitor superiority (VS). The percentages look something like this:
Article Title – 30%
Article Summary – 25%
Article Keywords – 5%
Article Body – 15%
Article Resource Box – 25%
Ok, now that we have the components identified and the percentages allocated let’s begin discussing what allows an article submitted to EZA win the battle for visitor superiority and make no mistake about it, this is a battle with EZA to see who can obtain the rights to the targeted traffic that shows up to their website as a result of your content and their favored status as an authority site in the eyes of Google.
The Article Title
The article title continues to be in my eyes the most important aspect of your article marketing campaign and quest to win the battle that takes place each time a visitor goes to your submitted article on the EZA interface. For that reason I allocate it a 30% VS weighting.
For the sake of brevity I am going to forgo discussing how I determine my actual keyword phrase primarily because I have shared it numerous times before and I’d rather focus on how to beat EZA instead of the search engines with this specific post. So, for the sake of argument let’s just assume we have identified a keyword phrase that we know we can rank for on the first page of Google.
I’m sure you already know that the title is the first opportunity to catch the attention of both a human visitor as well as the search engine spiders. As a result you have to make sure that you create a title using your selected keyword phrase that creates just enough of an impression/curiosity factor in the web surfers mind so that you can lure them into your VS article. Remember, initially your article is competing with the other sites that Google brings back as part of its search engine results so it is crucial that we win this first test of article marketing skills.
There are several versions of an article title that can be used to serve the purpose of obtaining the initial click when up against the other search engine results. I’ll go over each title in detail so you can see what I mean.
The “How To” Title
The “How To” title focuses on answering a problem that a person may have. For example: How to get rid of termites, how to build a box car, how to make money…etc. As you can see these type of titles provide a possible solution to a person’s problem but they are not sexy nor are they appealing to a human or search engine spider.
The “Numbered Sequence” Title
This particular title focuses on using a numbered sequence as its selling point. For example “Top 7 Ways To Make Money Online”, “Top 3 Methods To Safely Get Rid of Termites”…etc. There have been some studies that have determined the use of an odd number such as 3, 5 or 7 seems to work best for these type of articles. I’m sure you may have noticed that this title format offers a bit more sizzle for a web surfer but we are after the steak so a bit more work is required.
The “Panning For Gold” Title
I’m sure you may have seen this form of a title on more than one occasion since it is grossly over used throughout the IM world. This particular title likes to focus on using words that attempt to grasp the attention of the web surfer by working on their emotions, specifically the curiosity/greed factor. Normally titles using this format focus on descriptive words like “secret methods”, “hidden secrets”, “little known”…etc, that work at making the reader of your title feel like they will receive some exclusive information that is known by only a select lucky few. This curiosity killed the cat approach to your title can be highly successful at getting your article clicked on when up against other articles using more mundane/boring titles.
The “Shock and Awe” Title
As the name implies, this article title is another emotional based article title that attempts to solicit an emotional reaction from the web surfer. Typically, this emotional excitement compels, no make that urges the reader to want more information that only your article can provide. This article title can have the reader at opposite ends of the spectrum – either agreeing with your shocking revelation or disagreeing in utter contempt with the message your title conveys. Either way, the shocking value of this title form is more than enough to suck in most readers.
The “Do You Know What I Know” Title
Another popular article title format focuses around asking a question to the reader with the intent of engaging them right from the get-go and funneling them further into your article in order to fully satisfy their need to know the answer to the question that is now burning inside their head. Please keep in mind that a truly gifted and skilled article writer will have better success using this title format because there really is an art to drawing in the typical web surfer. Expanding upon our previous examples an article title in this manner might look something like; “Do You Know The Top 7 Ways To Make Money Online That Are Never Discussed By The Internet Marketing Gurus?” or “Revealed, The Top 3 Methods To Safely Get Rid of Termites, But Are They Truly Safe For Your Home And Family?”
The “In Your Face” Title
The final article title that I will discuss is based around using an air of authority or assertiveness directed at the reader. For example, “Stop Wasting Money Chasing A Ghost And Finally Learn The 7 Secret Money Making Secrets Used By The Top Internet Marketers” or “You’ll never Get Rid Of Your Home Termite Infestation Without Using One Of The Top 3 Methods Prescribed By Professional Termite Exterminators”. As you can see this article title format is a bit on the confrontational side because it truly is an arrogant in your face style that is completely directed at getting the reader compelled to read more in order to hear what you have to say about the topic at hand.
Article Title Mechanics
Now that we have identified a few of the more popular methods to write an article title let’s focus on how we can make them more powerful by looking at the mechanics behind an article title.
I’ll start with the keywords used without going into the actual keyword research that takes place. Generally, I focus on having them as close to the front of the title as possible. Additionally, I like to use them a second time in a second article title located at the end of the total title provided it doesn’t appear to be in a manner that yells out keyword stuffing.
You can easily get away with this by using your exact keyword phrase at the beginning of the first article title and then splitting the keywords up with the second article title or you have the option of using the keyword phrase again without splitting the words up. For example: “Get Rid Of Termites And Save Your Home – 3 Quick And Easy Ways To Finally Get Rid Of Termites”
Another method is based on if you have uncovered 2 specific niche keyword phrases that you know you can rank well for in the search engines. You would then make 2 article titles and combine them into 1 single article title with each title separated by a dash (-). Whether you use this method or the method described above you must keep in mind that EZA can be a bit picky in regards to your article title as they don’t want the title to look like keyword spam, they want the title to make sense and relate to the actual article content and they will not allow you to use a title that has already been used by another author.
As an article marketer you need to understand that people read the search engine results provided to them in much the same way they read the newspaper by scanning through the titles. For this very reason you need to keep a few additional factors in mind when developing your article titles and they focus around things to avoid when writing your article titles.
As previously mentioned you need to avoid keyword spamming at all costs. Generally, a keyword spammed title ends up looking more like garbage instead of a title that engages the interest of your reader and it is a clear turn-off in the eyes of the article directories and search engines.
Outside of dollar signs ($) and percentage signs (%) I normally don’t use special characters when constructing my article titles. Realistically speaking having characters like ^, *, &, @, +…etc, in your title will not improve its chances for success and may draw the wraith of the article directory you are submitting your article to in the hopes of having it approved.
I mentioned this earlier but the practice of using an article title that has no relation or pertinence with the actual article should be avoided like the swine flu. First, EZA and many other top level article directories are extremely picky about the contents of your article title and when you use a title that has nothing in common with your article it is just begging to get slapped by the article directories. Even if you did use an article title that wasn’t pertinent with respect to your article in order to get a click from a viewer they will nearly in every instance immediately leave because they are not getting the information they want.
Final Thoughts
One final note in regards to your article titles, most of my research has shown that a longer title is more attractive and better at catching the attention of both the human visitor and the search engine spiders because it allows you to use many of the elements I have discussed above. Also, in the event you are having issues with finding good article titles to use for your articles you have the option of going to Ezinearticles.com and searching on their website using your keyword niche phrases. When the results come back you can then start looking at the various article titles used to see if you can spot any that catch your attention and use them as a starting point to creating your own visitor superiority article titles.
Remember, I consider the article title to be 30% of your battle with the search engine competition and EZA for visitor superiority. We still have 4 additional components to discuss but for now I’m going to stop here in order to allow folks to read and digest this initial post and to hopefully illicit some good discussion.