[ad#test4]Writing articles for redistribution through article directories is another great way to generate exposure for your blogs as well as draw traffic and get links!

If you’re writing your articles for link generation then bear in mind the people who are going to download those articles to reprint on their websites will be carefully scrutinizing those articles for the keywords they are targeting or most desire on their websites.

That said, remember that your articles are being read by people so you’ll find little sympathy and even less success with articles that read awkwardly because you have stuffed them with keywords. After a while that fine balance of inserting the “optimal” number of the right keywords versus an article that reads well, will come to you naturally…they do say that practice makes perfect!

Using articles to draw prospective and highly targeted visitors to your site is a slightly different ball game to the article that was written to generate backlinks to your site. Remember that the headline is what makes or breaks an article because the most important feature that will determine if your article is ever read or not is its headline!

So it follows that you should spend a good portion of your time thinking up some linkbait headline for your well written article. After all there is little point in writing a great article that’s never going to get read just because you were too lazy to dress it up with an irresistible or intriguing heading!

Let’s review an example of a magnetizing headline: “Is Snoring Destroying Your Sex Life?”

Such a header would naturally draw the attention of people who snore (and even those who don’t…the word sex has that effect) because not only does it catch the attention of its intended demographics, it also hits a raw nerve that is little discussed but known only too well by your average snorer, even if only at the subconscious level!

The Split Article Trick

One of the best ways to get people to click through from your republished articles on the various article directories to your blog, is by splitting your article at just the right point whereby you inform your readers that they can read the rest of the article if they click through to your blog via a link you supplied. (The so-called cliff-hanger techniquen which also has great inherent SEO value too).

A similar method is very commonly used in TV shows and suspense/thriller novels and films. Have you ever noticed how they always end the episode, chapter, series or what-have-you, on a note of high suspense leaving us the audience, literally dying for more!

The Split Article method is unquestionably a great way to get visitors to click through to your site.

Note though, that this method only works if the article in question is of good quality and holds the reader’s interest, because believe me no one is ever going to bother clicking on a link to read the second half of some crappy article…would you?

Duplicate Content

There was a time that I used to say that the duplicate content penalty was no big deal but these days my attitude is no longer so nonchalant with respect to the issue. As the internet becomes more and more crowded it is inevitable that the search engines are going to take a harsher view of duplicate content. So bear this is mind when submitting your articles (duplicate content) to the thousands of article directories on the web.

I used to subscribe to an article submission service for a monthly fee but when I figured out through website analytic software that I was getting neither traffic nor search engine accredited links from the vast majority of directories and websites where my articles were being republished, I cancelled my membership!

I would recommend that you do what I do these days which is to hand submit to only the few directories that seem to be of value. One way with which to circumvent the duplicate content is to rewrite the first paragraph of your article and the last (rumor has it that this works…I cannot swear to it though).

On a final note remember that as with most facets of business, both offline and online, one aspect that you should never lose track of with respect to your business is whether that activity you are conducting constitutes Time Well Invested Versus Return On Investment!

Article on writing written by Ba Kiwanuka

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