Article marketing is one of the simplest ways to make money online, yet most people seem to view it as some frightening endeavor that they somehow just don’t understand.

I guess part of the reason people fear article marketing is because they just don’t understand what it takes to choose the perfect article title, create a quality article, write an outstanding resource box, and get traffic to those articles.

In this report, you’re going to learn all of these little tricks.  Article marketing won’t be scary anymore, and soon you’ll be driving tons of traffic with simple articles!

Choosing Article Titles

The title of your article is one of the most vital components.  If you choose the wrong title, you’re not likely to rank in the search engines, and when you do, people aren’t likely to click to visit your article.

Article titles should always contain keyword phrases, but they should rarely contain only a keyword phrase.  This is a mistake a lot of people make, and it costs them a lot of traffic!

For one thing, Google likes to see more than just a keyword phrase in an article title, because it looks more natural.  How many people are naturally going to title their page “Best Golf Clubs”?  But a lot of people might title their page “How to Choose the Best Golf Clubs for You!”

Because the second title is more interesting and engaging, and it describes the content of the page more accurately, people are also much more likely to click on the second article title than the first, too.

So the first step of crafting an article title is to choose a good keyword phrase to base your article on.  I use the Google keyword tool for this.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

I simply enter a keyword related to my niche, enter the CAPTCHA text, and click the “Get keyword ideas” button.  This generates up to 150 keywords I could base my articles on.

I always look for keywords with at least 300 searches per month, but usually no more than around 10,000.  Those that have so much traffic will usually be too competitive.

I narrow down the keywords I’m given by the tool to those between 300 and 10,000 monthly searches, then I search for each of these in Google in order to find out how many people are actually using these phrases on their pages.  These are my competitors.

I always put the keywords in quotes when I search, because this gives me a more accurate idea of my true competition.  I don’t have to worry too much about people who aren’t using the keyword phrase in the exact order, because they aren’t likely as relevant as I would be.

I like to see fewer than 30,000 competing pages, although I will compete against up to 150,000 if the keyword seems very strong and the competition seems to be relatively weak.

Once I have chosen a list of keywords, I start turning them into article titles.  Let’s take a look at some ways we can turn the keyword phrase “Best Golf Clubs” into a great article title.

• How to Choose the Best Golf Clubs for You
• The Top 10 Best Golf Clubs for 2010
• 5 Secret Tips the Pros Use to Pick the Best Golf Clubs

These article titles are much more interesting and captivating than simply “Best Golf Clubs”.  These titles make more sense, give the user more information about the content of the article, and attract more attention.

You want your article titles to grab attention and make people curious.  Plus, by using these interesting titles, you can write more than one article on a single keyword phrase and capture a larger segment of the market.

For example, you could write these articles for the same keyword phrase:

• The Top 5 Best Golf Clubs for Women
• Choosing the Best Golf Clubs for Your Husband
• The Very Best Golf Clubs for Seniors
• How to Pick the Right Golf Clubs for Professional Golfers
• What are the Best Golf Clubs for Kids?

You could twist the same keyword phrase into several different article topics in order to capture different segments of the market.  For example, women might be interested in finding out which types of golf clubs are better for them specifically, and seniors might want to know which types of clubs would be best for those who are advancing in age.

The Perfect Article Length

Your articles should never be longer than about 300-350 words.  This is enough to get your article accepted, but you don’t want to go over this length.

For one thing, it takes longer to write an article that is longer than 300 words.  This is the most obvious reason to keep articles shorter.  After all, article marketing is about volume.  You need to have a lot of articles to make really good money.

But there are a couple of other reasons, too:

1. People prefer short, quick articles these days.  They just don’t have time to read longer articles.
2. The longer the article, the more information the reader will get.  If you give them all the information they need, they will have no need to visit the link in your resource box!

Write Great Articles Quickly

Writing articles quickly is critical, because the more articles you get out there, the more money you will make.  The faster you can write them, the more you can get out there in a day.

I always start by creating a quick outline based on my article title/subject.  Let’s say I’m writing an article on “5 Easy Ways to Choose the Best Golf Clubs”.

I would make a list of 5 quick tips, like this:

1. Figure out the type of material you want your clubs to be made of.
2. Decide on a price range.
3. Choose a brand you really love.
4. Check the reviews in magazines or online.
5. Ask friends for their recommendations.

Then I go through my list of 5 tips and just flesh it out paragraph by paragraph.  I add a few sentences to each tip to make each one a complete paragraph, and in just 5-10 minutes, I have a 300 word article ready to submit!

The Perfect Resource Box

The resource box is very, very important.  Most people have no clue how to write a decent resource box, so they don’t get many clicks from the people who read their articles.

In order to get people to click the links in your resource box, you have to do one of two things:

1. You have to make them curious.
2. You have to offer them a bribe.

It’s much easier to bribe readers to click than it is to think of ways to make them curious.  Curiosity is usually more effective than a bribe, but it takes so much time to think of ways to make them curious that it’s usually better to just bribe them.

Some ways to bribe your readers include:

• Offering a free report. (This can also get you opt-in email subscribers!)
• Offering the next article in a series on the same topic.
• Offering more advanced tips and information on the topic.
• Offering discounts or coupons.

Whatever you do, do NOT make your resource box about yourself unless you have outstanding qualifications in your field.  If you are a dermatologist, it’s find to mention that in your resource box if you’re writing skin care articles.  But don’t waste space and mention this if you’re writing articles about golf or dog training!

Monetizing your Articles

There are a few easy ways to monetize articles.  I don’t recommend linking straight to an affiliate link.  There are actually a few reasons for this.

1. If the product changes or is taken down, you lose all of that traffic.
2. You can’t control the traffic.  If you link to another page first, you can pre-sell it to increase conversions.
3. You lose that traffic forever, and they may not even buy.  It’s better to get them to opt in to your email list before sending them to an affiliate link, or at least get them to your website or blog so they can bookmark or subscribe to RSS!

I would advise linking to a squeeze page and getting opt-in subscribers, but you may not want to do this.  At the very least, redirect to the affiliate ink with a domain.  That way, if the affiliate program changes, you can just redirect that domain to a different program and you won’t lose all of that traffic.

Get More Traffic

It’s always beneficial to get more traffic to your articles.  There is a quick and easy way to do this.  Just use social bookmarking to bookmark each article.  This will sometimes give you a boost of traffic straight from the bookmarking sites, but it will also give your article backlinks.

This can help it rise to the top of the search engines, even if you’re competing against other article marketers for the same keywords.  Most people won’t do this, so yours will have backlinks and theirs won’t!