Most importantly, you can not expect people to want to read, link to and circulate an article that is poorly written, full of mistakes, lacking content and does not provide any new or useful information.

The main reason for you to write an article is to inform your audience. If it is not focused on this purpose then you will fail to achieve the benefits of branding, generating leads and promoting your web site.

Quick tips for writing an article:

1. Do not write a classified ad, try not to sell anything in your article

2. Do not include affiliate links, publishers do not like them because they do not add any useful content to the article.

3. Avoid spelling mistakes, does not show professionalism.

4. Keep your paragraphs short, readers will ignore long batches of words in long paragraphs. Use bullet points and numbered lists.

5. Three sentence formula, use a verb as a command, followed by the cost of not doing it and then end with a positive comment.

6. Make your heading compelling, people will delete it or move on to something new. The following "grabber" words will help get responses: Discover, Guarantee, Health, Love, Money, New, Proven, Results, Safety, Save, You, and Success. The word Free has been over used.

7. Get to the point quickly, in the title and the first line. Keep your introduction down to a sentence or two, the same for a conclusion.

8. Make your copy clear, tell your readers what you want them to do.

9. Target your information, not everyone will want your information, so focus your information, and write more compelling copy.

10. Place keywords in strategic places throughout your article, but do not overdo it. The keywords should be related to your site. Try to identify your keywords before you begin writing your article. It is very important that your articles contain your targeted keywords and that they read well!

11. Keep your articles short, 500 to 1000 words. You do not want to write long articles because people are limited for time. You can write an effective article with the main points in less than 1000 words.

12. Do not forget to include a link to your site in the resource box. If people like your article, they will probably click on the link so they can visit your site.

You must figure out how to get people to read your article! Then get them to click on your resource box.

A resource box is usually found at the end of an article. So what should you put in your resource box?

It should contain the name of the author, a brief description of the author, a brief description of your web site and a link. The resource box is your readers link to the source of the article and if they liked your article it will entice them to go to your site. Good content for your resource box must contain keywords that relate to your site.

Make people click your resource box by providing creative and interesting content that touches your readers curiosity.

You can submit articles to websites, ezines, and article directories. An easy way to get your article published is to go to Yahoo or Google groups and do a search for "Internet Articles Publishing". Get involved with some of the groups, this will allow you to find websites that are looking for articles.

Articles can be the most time consuming of marketing tasks when you take into consideration the time it takes to write and submit the article.

A good idea is to make sure you add the locations of the article submission sites to a folder in your "Favorites". This will save time when you go to submit new articles.

Keep these tips in mind, so that your article will bring people to you, your service, your Web site, and your programs.

Copyright 2006 by Joe Rispoli