by Dana Lynn Smith
An ongoing article marketing campaign is a terrific way to promote your book and yourself. Some of the benefits of article marketing for authors include:
- Generating direct links to your website or book sales page through the resource box at the end of the article.
- Establishing nonfiction authors as experts in their field and enhancing the author platform.
- Contributing to search engine optimization by providing incoming links to your website.
Here are some ideas for leveraging content that you have already written:
- Compile a list of the best articles from your blog and ezine, along with short excerpts from your book that could be used as articles.
- Contact bloggers and ezine editors that cater to your target audiences and ask if they would like to use any of your articles as a guest post. When you send the requested article, include a low-resolution photo of yourself. If you use Word 2007, save your articles in Word 2003 format so that anyone can open the files.
- Submit your articles to a leading article site such as Ezine Articles. Plan to submit one article every week or two. Incoming links from the article directory sites are given low value by the search engines, due to abuse by spammers and scraper sites. But when a website or blog finds your article and reprints it on their site, you gain a link on a relevant site which can drive direct traffic to your own website, in addition to providing search engine optimization benefits.
- Join a blog carnival. Blog carnivals are a collection of links pointing to blog posts on a particular topic, or topics of interest to a particular group of people.
- Post articles on expert sites such as HubPages, Squidoo, or eHow. HubPages and eHow are probably the easiest to get started with.
Be sure to write a good "resource box" or bio to place at the end of your articles, which succinctly showcases you and your book and provides a link to your website and/or book sales page. Keep the resource box to about 50 words, and be sure to include your book title and website address. It's good to offer a free bonus to encourage click throughs to your site.
Don't post the exact same article on your own blog or website that you are posting elsewhere. I recommend posting an article first on your site, then creating a somewhat different version to post elsewhere. This will help avoid duplicate content penalties by search engines.
You can also research the submission requirements of print newsletters, trade publications and consumer magazines that cover your topic or cater to your target audiences, and submit queries or articles where appropriate. Try Wooden Horse Publishing for magazine research.
