Writing Promotional Articles-free Advertising?

Out of the various ways to promote your website, there is one that simply does not fail, does not cost a fortune and brings remarkable results: website promotion through articles.

While writing and submitting information is not such a big deal, writing articles that will really promote your website implies certain skills. You shouldn't despair if you are not an experienced journalist or writer. If you follow some simple criteria you cannot fail. You'd probably expect that the list would start with the most important aspect. There is no "most important aspect" about writing an article. Whatever lacks could damage your message. On the other hand, you should acknowledge that writing articles for the traditional media is not the same with writing articles for the Internet.

Printed articles have strict rules: no repetition and a unique content written in an academic style - to give value to the publication. Online articles need repetition - keyword repetition; they need unique content, but a logical approach and simple language, a clear style with short sentences that can be easily read by most of the people.

When you write articles to promote your business online you should set an objective - for example to increase the number of visitors and clients for a certain product or service - and then focus on a topic of interest related to that objective. Write something useful. Browse the web for related articles and see what others have to say. Try to contribute to the online community by providing new information, not by repeating the same idea over and over again. Avoid long articles, as they tend to bore. Keep your article between 500 and 1500 words and if you need to write more, write your articles as a series.

Optimize your articles for two or three keyword phrases. As for writing SEO web content, understand that, as long as your articles will be online they are web content and they need keyword optimization.

Write a title that grab's your readers' attention. There are a few online trends now: "how to", "tips to" "five ways to" and so on, are "selling titles". People do read such articles when they want to get fast information on a topic. However, if you want to reach the "intellectual" readers too, write a teasing title, one that makes the readers wonder and convinces them at the same time that your article is worth reading. Example: "Are Octopuses Intelligent?"

The first paragraph of your article should also make the people want to read on. It's an introduction and a summary at the same time. It should not, however, summarize the conclusion, but to interrogate and taunt. Then you write your story: clear and concise. And don't forget the conclusion. Make it short. You could raise a question there too, one that makes people wonder about the topic and makes them want to read more of your articles or visit your website to learn more.

Last, but not least, write a few words about you and your expertise. These will come in the resource box at the end of each online article. It's this very resource box that will send people to your website, bringing you the desired traffic and a bunch of valuable one way links. So don't forget to place a link to your website there.

If you write a good article many online media outlets will pick this up. It happens often that even the printed media is looking for hot topics online. A good article will boost your online presence and eventually bring you benefits offline as well. If you see that your article was successful, you may even want to include it in your newsletter, to let all of your clients benefit from it.

Writing articles is a great promotion option for business entrepreneurs that have a small budget. As a mater of fact, you might want to call writing articles "free advertising". There are article submission portals requiring a fee to display your articles. But free portals such as Ezine Articles, GoArticles, iSnare, Article Depot, IdeaMarketers and Buzzle are very reliable. All you need to do is write some catchy articles and people will recognize you as an expert in your field.