Article marketing can be a powerful and long-term promotion tool for your business. But you need to do it right. Follow these five rules and you’ll see a good ROI of your time.

1. Provide Valuable and Easy to Consume Content

Write about things that are of interest and value to your target audience. Make it simple for them to understand. They are most likely reading your article to learn more about your topic of expertise. This is not the place to attempt to impress them with your vocabulary … it is the time to take them by the hand and guide them to their next level of knowledge.

2. Use a Conversational Tone

Write like you talk … then edit out the ums and ahs. Your articles should be an expression of your personality. Why? Because you want to attract prospects that will “get” you. You want to attract prospects who you will enjoy working with. If they don’t like your writing voice, you probably don’t want to work with them.

3. Entertain Your Readers

Nothing will stop a reader in their tracks more than a boring article. Of course, if you’ve followed the first two rules, you’re half the way there. Now add a little pizzaz … only as much as you are comfortable with. You want the reader to leave your article with a better understanding of your topic, as well as who you are as an expert.

4. Keep Paragraphs Short

When writing for the web … and most of your articles, if not all, will be read on the web … you want to make it easier for the eye to read. One way to do this is to keep your paragraphs short and use headlines and bullets to add white space. This also helps with those who don’t actually read your article, but scan it for pertinent information.

5. Keep It Pithy

Most article directories require your article to be at least 500 words, and this is a good guideline. In fact, around 600 to 700 words seems to be ideal. For articles distributed online, you want to keep the length to 800 words or less.

If you follow these five rules, you’ll create good quality articles that get your prospects’ attention, entice them to read what you have to share, and then click your link to find out more.

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