Total Marketing Solutions

So you’ve given your website an extreme makeover, you’ve optimised it to the max and you’re still not getting the traffic you had hoped for. Why not get in touch with your inner journo and get writing? Submitting articles on topics of interest to your potential customers to some of the many online article directories and online PR sites like Article Blast or Expert Articles could be a further opportunity to exploit and ultimately increase traffic to your website. Once you have written your article, you submit it with a link to your website’s url. What’s more, your article may then be picked up by other webmasters for publication in their own directories, meaning that you can get an awful lot of mileage for very little actual cost. As marketing consultants for SME’s, we are constantly looking to improve and measure the impact of any marketing spend. If your sole cost is the time it takes you to write the article, then it can be an excellent investment. However, there are some golden rules to follow: 1. Use conversational copy. The relationship you have with an online reader is very different to printed material. Use words your target audience will know and be familiar with, but avoid jargon at all costs. Cheesy ad-speak will not work online.2. Get a shave. Once you have written your piece, use Occum’s Razor. Shave off all the wasted words. Keep sentences short and avoid long, scary chunks of information. Online readers do not dawdle or sift. Make sure your point comes across loud and clear from the beginning. Don’t wait until the end of the article to reveal your point - your online reader will have clicked and fled.3. Make sure your copy is benefit-oriented. Your customers don’t want to know how many Institutes you belong to, they just want to know how you can help them. 4. Simplify your ideas. It’s not that your online audience is educationally challenged in any way, but there is a lot of other good stuff out there to read. Make sure yours hits home quickly. It all sounds very easy but once you have got a good idea for an article, you’re halfway there to driving more traffic to your website. Happy writing!