Lesson 9: Blog Posts and Articles

Welcome back .

This week we’re focusing on additional promotion techniques to help you get the word out about your holiday promotion.

Since blog posts and article marketing are similar strategies, we’ll focus on them together in this lesson. All the ideas I am sure here can be used for both articles and posts.

Whether writing is an easy thing for you, are if you struggle to put words on paper, it’s good to know the basic techniques.

There Are Five Essential Elements of Successful Article/Blog Marketing:

1. Title – Many people suggest that you should put your top keywords at the front of your article title, but I don’t subscribe to that methodology. I do include my target keywords in the title, when I can, but an article that is well-optimized for the search engines is worthless if it does not get published… The #1 goal of your  title is to get the article opened!! You must present a title that’s going to get the attention of publishers and readers; you must present a title that is going to compel a person to at least open your article to see if they will want to read it.

2. Opening Paragraph – The title got your article opened, but now you need your reader to read the article. Tell your reader why they should keep reading your article and read it to its conclusion. Any reader who does not reach your website (in this case, your holiday promotion website) from your article is a “missed opportunity”.  Show people why it will be in their best interest to finish reading your article.

3. The  Body – The article body must meet the promise of the title and the opening paragraph. The body must retain the interest of the reader to the last word. It must tell a story people want to read, and leave them wanting more.

4. Call to Action – Whether you are using an authors’ resource box or simply done with your blog post, you need a call to action to get the reader to go to your website.. In a resource box, tell who you are, but don’t go overboard. People do not care who you are – they only care about what else you can do for them. Whether a blog post or resource box, tell them where else they can get additional information and free stuff from you. (In this case it’s your holiday website.  And don’t worry about articles having a longer ‘shelf-life’ since your holiday will only last a few weeks maximum.  I always have an opt-in box on my holiday site, even when the holiday isn’t running. Basically, I write: “The holiday giveaway is over for this year.However, you can still get some great free tips and strategies from me, including my free report by signing up below.”  I get one or two opt-ins to my list every week from that strategy alone.)

5. Your Landing Page – You should never try to sell your products or services in your call to action. Instead, you should try to get the reader to your website, where you have an unlimited number of words, videos, pictures and testimonials to tell the real story of your products or services.

Now there’s no sense to completely be original in every blog post you write. Here are some of my top strategies to increase my blog postings during the Be Heard holiday season:

  1. Interview the JV partners. I often do recordings and post them, but have also done Q & A interviews via email, where I post my questions and the JV partners answers as a blog post.
  2. Get articles from JV partners. Ask your partners to submit an article that promotes them as the expert. You will include their resource box, plus a link to the holiday giveaway.
  3. Recycle. I often repurpose content I have written for emails and press releases as blog posts.

As a bonus for this week, I’ve included some of my own blog posts I’ve used to promote my Be Heard holiday.

ASSIGNMENT!

  • Write three articles that promote you as the expert, as well as your holiday.
  • Write at least three blog posts per week to last not only the duration of the holiday, as well as at least six blog posts for the two weeks prior to the event. (Once written, you can pre-post them on your blog in advance.)

Be on the lookout for an additional, unadvertised bonus which will teach you how to write 90 articles in 3 days. (Yup, I said THREE days.) It will arrive in your inbox in a few days.