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Before writing the first word of an article, it is important for you to realize why you are doing it in the first place. That is where the proper mindset comes into place. You are writing this article for several reasons. Let's take a look at a few of those reasons below. As we progress through our e-course, you will begin realizing the entire picture and the message that we are trying to convey regarding the proper mindset, honestly and integrity.
Direct Traffic
In direct contrast to how article marketing has been done over the years, you must not write your articles thinking about the awesome amount of backlinks you could be getting by submitting it to publishing websites on the internet such as ezinearticles.com or website-articles.net. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen an article marketer's articles slowly become a bunch of "crap" because they cared less about the information they were providing and more about just getting that backlink out there. HUGE MISTAKE!
As I said above, these backlinks are going to become less powerful in the near future, and those who have fallen into the "link trap" and written a bunch of "crap" articles are going to be slapped harder than anyone in the history of internet marketing.
Instead, you should concentrate on giving your reader information that haven't seen before. Something that catches their eye and makes them stay on your article page. You see, by the time they get to your article, chances are that they have already seen other web pages on the subject, so you need to blast something right in their face to keep them reading your article.
Those who are talented enough to write in this manner, or those who can learn, will be the next generation of article marketing experts and working professionals. I believe that Google wants fresh and new content that isn't found anywhere else online or offline. Content that keep people interested!
As a by-product, when the readers remain interested throughout your article, they eventually get to your resource links and click-through to your website (direct traffic) interested, trusting and ready to implement your strategy to solve their problem.
Since backlinks are becoming less and less of a factor, this must be the mindset you take from here on out. Don't be one of those folks who write hastily written, "crap" articles. The readers will not keep reading, they will never get to your resource links and they never get to your website. And since the backlinks don't matter, you are frankly wasting your time.
Building Trust and Credibility
Take a look around the internet today. Pick any search term you want and look at the results you get. Which websites would you stay on? Which ones would you consider buying from? Which ones do you trust?
The answer:
The ones with well-written, professional content that is interesting and flows from one basic idea to more detailed information as you move along.
Now you can see why it is important to write your articles in this manner. If someone finds your article and sees the same old stuff they've already seen, written in a "crap" manner, they will hit the back button and never think about you or your product/service again! Or even worse, they will remember your product/service and immediately associate it with amatuer or fly-by-night thoughts.
On the other hand, if you do write your articles in a professional and well-written manner, readers will immediately begin thinking of you as an authority in your niche. Although you have seen this touted as an article marketing benefit for years, a lot of people have overlooked it as a secondary or even meaningless one. Today, with the decreasing power of article backlinks, it is now one of the most important. I have seen it many times throughout the years, marketeres who write professionally and make it interesting at the same time, have not only built trust and credibility, many have gone on and become "gurus" in their niches.
Convincing the Readers
An important step in your writing is to be able to convice the reader to click through to your website. Since direct traffic is becoming so important, it would be useless to write an article that gives them the complete answer. Remember to always lead a reader toward your solution, but never get them all the way there.
There is a thin line between convincing a customer to click through to your website and outright telling them to do so or trying to trick them into it. It is true that you should give a "call to action" to the reader, but you should give them a reason to click through to your website before telling them to do so.
There is an excellent resource that you can get for just $10 called "The Article Marketing Handbook" which gives some great advice on this very topic. Without giving everything a way, it explains how you can subconciously draw a reader into clicking your hyperlink before they even get to it.
As I have mentioned all along, this is one of the differences between article marketing of yesterday and the article marketing of tomorrow. It's not about backlinks, it's about getting the reader to your website.
Conclusion
Having the proper mindset is vitally important to article marketers who are just starting out. If you remember the things we discussed above and forget about the backlinks to your website, then you have a head start over 99% of the article marketers out there today! If you use article marketing just to get backlinks to your website, you're going to get slapped by Google (and quite possibly the other major search engines), big time.
In today's world, you must write your articles like you want the reader to actually understand what you're talking about. Always remember to build trust with your readers by giving them well-written and professional content. Anything less and they will most likely be hitting their back button. Treat them like students, be creative and keep their interest. Grab their attention early by immediately giving them something that they haven't seen or heard before. Remember that you are working on direct traffic, not doing SEO for your website.
Having the proper mindset is the very first step to succeeding in article marketing before you even get started. Once you understand and fully "convert" to this way of thinking, then you can begin working on finding that perfect niche...which will be covered later in the Beginners section.
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