LifestyleDesignUnleashed

photo credit: Tamara Manning

At first sight article marketing can sound like a dream come true. Do some keyword research to find “low hanging fruit” keywords. Write an article about each one, add a short “about the author” bio file at the end that links back to your website and then submit your articles to the high quality article directories like Ezine Articles and Go Articles.

Some of these articles will attract visitors from the search engines who will then read your article, click the link at the end and visit your website as a result.

It’s free to write articles. It’s free to submit articles. And there’s a lot of potential traffic out there for you to harness. All good so far.

Except things often don’t work out like that. Writing dozens – even hundreds – of articles can quickly get boring. Churning out hundreds of articles on keywords that are so similar you struggle not to repeat yourself isn’t much fun.

Of those articles submitted only some of them will become “home runs” and jump to the top of the search engines while many will fall by the wayside. Then to top it all off if you don’t know what you’re doing you can find that less than 10% of the people who read your articles actually end up clicking that link at the end and visiting your website.

In short if you do it wrong, article marketing can suck. But there *are* proven ways to significantly boost the clickthrough rate of your article’s bio file. Doing so can lead to results like the ones in the screenshot below that is from my Ezine Articles account. Note how I have a number of articles where 30% or more of people who read my articles end up visiting my website and there are plenty more in my account besides the ones shown.

If we’re honest, article marketing is really all about generating targeted traffic to your website. The actual article writing can quickly get boring. Yet by utilizing a number of proven strategies for boosting your clickthrough rates you can actually write fewer articles and receive more traffic. Now that’s the 80/20 rule in action!

Even better if you have submitted articles to article directories that allow you to edit your articles after submission – such as Ezine Articles – then you can even start to boost your traffic today by simply logging into your account and making changes to the bio files of your existing articles rather than having to write a whole load of new articles.

In the next few minutes you’re going to find out the exact strategies that will allow you to work less and get more results. If that sounds of interest then please read on…

Example Of An Article Bio File That Sucks (Are You Guilty Of This?)

Many article marketers still seem to be using a boring, dull style of bio file that typically receives a really terrible CTR. Here’s an example of the type of bio file I’m talking about:

This article was written by Richard Adams who is passionate about lifestyle design. You can see more of his writing at http://www.LifestyleDesignUnleashed.com

OK so it certainly *sounds* professional but the fact is many bio files like this are getting a 5-10% CTR at best and the figure is often much, much lower. So if you’re using a bio like this then it’s time to make some serious changes.

Here are the changes you should make…

How To Boost Clicks From Your Article Bio File

Make Your Bio File Relevant

Firstly your bio file needs to be highly relevant to the topic of your article. There is no point writing an article about web hosting and then linking to your website about fish keeping. Infact, even linking to a general internet marketing or web design site might not be relevant enough. Linking either to a website about web hosting or linking to a specific article, page or category on your site about web hosting will get a far higher clickthrough rate. Think relevancy.

Make Your Bio File Flow From Your Article

Just as the way that affiliate adverts and Adsense ads get the most clicks when they blend in with the content on your website so your bio file should blend in with your article. There should be no obvious separation such as a change of tone, a difference of language or the use of symbols like hashes to separate your bio from your article.

Ideally, when done right, the bio file looks like the last paragraph of your article and readers will then naturally find themselves reading your bio file at the end without having realized that the main content of your article has finished.

Stress A Benefit

Why should someone actually click the link to your website? In the weak example we gave above we simply said that readers could see more of my articles by clicking the link but that’s really not good enough. Think of a reason – related to the topic of your article – that will encourage people to visit your site in order to receive that benefit.

Offer A “Third Party” Endorsement

This little tip is one I haven’t heard anywhere else yet works like gang-busters though some people may consider it a little gray hat. Quite simply you recommend your own site as a high quality resource.

So rather than simply saying “For information on which web host I’m using now and why please visit…” you could instead word it in such a way that you are nothing to do with your website and that you’re just recommending it as a handy resource. Compare the wording just given with “An article I found useful for making a decision about which web host to choose can be found at…”

Make Clicking Your Link The Next Logical Step

Think of your article as a presell for your website. You offer some value in your article but this is really a “preamble” to warm up your reader. When you reach the end of your article, and it flows smoothly into the bio file, you should aim to make clicking the link to your website the next logical step.

Either offer more of the same (“A great free report on what to look for when selecting web hosting can be found at…”) or continue the story over at your website as though your article was only part one of a longer article/story (“Now you know what to look for when selecting a web host, click the following link to find out which web hosts I have personally tried – and which one I use now…”).

Implement the above tips today and please leave a comment below with your own experiences. What sort of CTRs do your article bio files get? What techniques have you found useful for boosting the number of people who click through to your site? Please leave me your thoughts below…

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