Writing Articles for Publication - 3 Fatal Mistakes

As one of the hottest forms of viral marketing today, article writing and submission must be part of your marketing effort whether your business is online, brick-and-mortar, or both. To get the most out of your article marketing campaign, you must avoid these three fatal mistakes.

1. Not writing articles for publication

2. Not writing enough articles for publication

3. Giving up too soon

The first fatal mistake in article marketing is choosing not to write articles. Yes, I said, "choosing not to write articles," because it is a choice. You can choose to continue to read about all the benefits of article marketing and not do anything to further your own campaign, or you can choose today, right now, to write your first article for publication and drive targeted traffic to your site. Whatever it takes to move you to action, you must do it today. If you choose not to write articles for publication, this powerful marketing strategy will be lost to you along with the hundreds or thousands of new visitors who could increase your sales daily.

It's as simple as this: You must choose to write articles for publication and submit them to the myriad free article directories on the web. There is no other way to market your business this powerfully and effectively for free.

The second fatal mistake is not writing enough articles. While it is not necessary to write an article every day or even every other day, the more articles you write the more potential you have for exposure. One man I read said that he writes 100 articles a month; another man writes 30 a month. If writing just one article sounds overwhelming to you, start with one article with a plan to write another one next week, another the following week, and so on. Once you start writing, you will be surprised at the knowledge you have and find that you enjoy writing. If you write one article each and every week, you will have 52 articles spread throughout the world in a year. Keep in mind that writing just one article probably won't increase your exposure enough that you will notice, but a number of articles written over time will bring a stream of traffic to your door.

If you absolutely cannot write an article, take advantage of article writing companies that are available. These can be found by doing a quick search in one of the major search engines. These articles won't be free, but they could still provide advertising through article marketing cheaper than advertising through other means.

The third fatal mistake in article marketing is giving up too soon. As I wrote previously, writing just one article probably won't increase your exposure enough for you to see much difference in traffic to your site immediately. However, repeated articles spread throughout the web by others who pick up your article have the potential of putting hundreds or thousands of dollars in your pocket. Your first article might not get much attention right away, but imagine that, as your writing skills and knowledge improve over time, subsequent articles receive attention and are picked up by more and more bloggers and ezine publishers. As your name becomes recognized, people who have enjoyed and learned from your articles will return to the internet and search for more articles that you have written. Even if your first article isn't widely distributed at first, it could receive exposure months later when you are seen as an expert in your field.

Think of some of today's best-selling authors. Do you suppose that every one of them made it to the New York Times Bestsellers list with their first book? By all means, "no!" Most of these authors worked and toiled for years, writing book after book before making it on the list. If John Grisham spent three years writing his first book, which was rejected repeatedly by publishers before writing a bestseller, should you expect that your first article will create such a stir in the industry that your name will be in the headlines tomorrow? Probably not. But remember that, even though his first book was rejected repeatedly before being made into a measly 5000 copies, Grisham immediately started working on his second novel, one made into a movie and ranked #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list during its 47 week tenure. After that he had two more hits, one of which debuted at the top spot on the New York Times list. And it gets better, and makes my point. After three books made John Grisham famous, do you know what happened? His first book, the one that was repeatedly rejected and had a small printing of only 5000 copies, was reprinted and this time it was a bestseller. What changed? Certainly not the plot or the characters. What changed was the reputation of the author and the desire of his audience to read books that he penned.

This is exactly what could happen to you, too. But in order to get to that point, to the point where your work is sought after by people who want to hear what you have to say, you must avoid these three fatal mistakes in article marketing: choosing not to write articles for publication, not writing enough articles for publication, and giving up too soon.

Start writing articles today and consistently submit your original work for publication. You'll be glad you did.