Generating leads with the writing of articles unfolds over time, however. You should not expect this strategy to work overnight. There is a ton of information already on the Internet for search engines to already be carrying and people who have already established a loyal readership in a certain business or on a certain topic.



The keys to making article writing work for your business are persistence, consistency, and great information that is conveyed clearly and as free knowledge rather than a copy writers sales pitching--so that people begin seeking you out.

GET A FOCUS, BE THE EXPERT

These days, everyone needs to be a specialist in something or just a couple of things. Even if you have a great general background and diversified working knowledge of a wide array of matters, your writings must establish you as a specialist, a great expert in something. There are so much information and data out there that people feel the need to come to experts who can focus on helping them with specifics on something. People today often feel that options lead to insanity.

Establish yourself in your writing as a top expert on your business, or even just one or two aspects of your business. Write about this area all the time.

TARGET WITH TAGS

Research hot tags (phrases or key words) that people search for again and again on the Internet and use them in your articles. Also try to come up with highly unique tags sometimes, so that when people hit it you come up at the top of search engines.

Be careful with your keyword density, however, Keyword density is the percentage of words in a given article that are one of your tags. You generally want this to be anywhere from 1% to 4%. If you go overboard your article will often be regarded by search engine spiders as a piece of spam and wont be shown to web surfers.

YOUD BETTER DO THE WRITING RIGHT

There is a plethora of bad writing on the Net, and much of it is done by people who are trying to use articles to generate leads for their business. They should not expect to have much success with it; poorly written articles, with poor spelling or grammar or clumsy flow, just make you look stupid, not like an expert.

If you are not certain that you can write with clear communication and with excellent mechanics, hire wordsmithing out to a ghost writer or freelancer. They will be more than worth the cost.

PUBLISH ONE ARTICLE IN AS MANY PLACES AS POSSIBLE

The name of the game for lead generation is making people know that you exist. The more places you can publish each one of your articles, the better. Most online publishers allow you to do this as long as you dont give them exclusive copy rights, and some of them will even pay you royalties for getting read! Some of the best include Ezine Articles, Articles Base, Associated Content, Helium, and Triond.

Also use social bookmarking to increase your exposure. Social bookmarking includes publishing a link and a brief description back to your article at sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Yahoos My Web, Netscapes Propellor, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit, and a wide and growing array of other such sites. They are the cyberworld equivalent of the type of social networking that business professionals such as insurance agents are familiar with. Successful networking is a core element in business success.