Many people new to article marketing make a critical mistake. They try to write articles that are overly promotional overly pitchy type articles -- when in fact those are the articles that fall flat. Quality sites that are looking to provide their readers with truly useful information reject these types of articles. If they're published on low-quality sites and blogs, they don't get read.
Take a look at these two sets of titles… Which are you more interested to read? Which seem like they have actual information and which seem like you'll likely be reading a big promotional piece?
Headline Set #1
Headline Set #2
Hopefully you saw the stark difference in the types of titles. Set #1 screams "one sided sales pitch!" While the titles in Set #2 look as if you might actually get some useful information. But if you aren't supposed to write about yourself, just what can you write about? Here are three article marketing topic ideas that can help improve your search engine results -- naturally.
Topic Type #1: The Compare And Contrast Article
Comparisons and contrasts are two topics that can be utilized in almost any industry. For the best result on the distribution sites, choose three or more items to compare and contrast. Although you can't specifically mention your company or your product by name, it's completely understandable if you position the features of your product or service to be the most beneficial.
Some examples of titles include: "Retirement Communities: The Difference Between Assisted Living, Senior Living And More" "The Three Most Popular Blogging Platforms: How Do They Stack Up?"
Topic Type #2: The Informational Article
For informational articles, you can go a number of ways. If you know that you want to inform your readers, but you're not sure where to start, use one of these topics:
These four ideas can work for nearly any industry, any product and any service. Take a critical look at your own website and see what makes you different than others in your industry. Then use one of these informative article marketing topic ideas to really educate your readers.
Topic Type #3: The Revealed Secret Article
Many industries have hidden topics that the general public knows nothing about. Do you have secret industry news that can help readers know how to watch out for a sneaky vendor? Are you an insurance agent who's tired of seeing competing agents use questionable business practices that could actually harm their clients? Expose these sneaky tactics with headlines such as "3 Things The Insurance Industry Doesn't Want You To Know" or "4 Vital Questions You Must Ask Your Car Mechanic." Exposing your industry's dirty little secrets will help your business be seen as an honest, industry leader and you never have to mention your business by name.
Why Topics Matter
A good topic (and headline) will help entice readers to read through to the end, where the backlink is located. A topic with a wide appeal also means that your piece is more likely to be republished from social media users, bloggers and more. This increases the number of backlinks even more so don't be intimidated if coming up with an excellent topic takes just as much time as writing in the first place.
Keywords Count!
No matter which article marketing topic ideas you choose, make sure it's heavily focused on keywords. Ideally, you're looking to include keyword anchor text links back to your site in the author bio and it helps if your articles include a keyword rich headline and if they're optimized throughout.
These ideas can improve your ongoing efforts to help your website rise to the top of the search engines. Like anything else that's worth doing, this type of marketing won't bring your website to the top overnight. Instead, take the time to do it right and you'll see a slow and steady climb.
Start Positioning Yourself As An Expert!
The best way to position yourself as an expert is to prove it -- not just tell it! By writing about topics that you’re knowledgeable about, you're proving that you know your stuff. You're also injecting a lot of your personality into every article and proving that you're a likable person. People want to work with likeable people that know their stuff. Take questions that you hear from customers and people you meet at networking events and start converting them into articles by angling them in one of these 7 interesting formats. Before you know it, you'll have an arsenal of thought leadership material that speaks to your target audience and positions you as a leader in your industry.
Too busy to write or don't feel confident in your writing skills? Put a team of SEO copywriters on your side! Christine O'Kelly is the founder of SEO Content Solutions, an SEO copywriting firm that specializes in thought leadership marketing.
Learn more about the author, Christine OKelly.
Love this article, Christine. I love to write and do so often. However, I still can struggle with headlines. Headlines seem to me to be copy writing, and that is different than writing. I can't always think of words that are pithy and clever. Thanks so much for your suggestions. They are very helpful.
Nancy Meadows www.nancymeadowsdesigns.com
Glad you enjoyed this Nancy! Headlines can definitely be challenging! I keep an "inspiration" file in my email folder when a newsletter headline grabs my attention. If I'm struggling, I'll look through those to find some inspiration. Bob Bly's "Copywriter's Handbook" also has a section about headline writing that is really useful. Copyblogger also has some great articles on headline writing -- here's one! http://bit.ly/H6IQXF
Thanks Christine. I'll check out Bob Bly's book. As a designer, it also occurred to me to check out headlines from shelter magazines.
LA QUINTA, CA – Online PR Media has compiled and published a new list of business profile sites and personal profile sites, designed as a...[more]
Bookmark article
Follow article
Email to a friend
Share 
Bizniks are talking about 
