Internet Marketers buzzed about how distributing articles to free and paid article databases brought droves of traffic to their websites. Was this hype, I wondered? I decided to test this out with The Writers Buzz.
I wrote two articles in April 2005, Promote Your Books by Blogging and What Are Infoproducts & How They Can Boost Your Sales. Then I distributed them to many article directories and waited.
Almost a year later, this is the result for Promote Your Books by Blogging.
Blog Brandz
Blogging Zone
Blog Daily
Aeonity
Blogging Resources
PUSHlogs
Learn WordPress Quickly
MSJ Software
eSky
By Internet Marketing standards, this is poor. If you’ll compare the article to the sites that posted it, you’ll see that I missed my target audience by five hundred miles. I’m way, way out in the boondocks and hopelessly lost.
The mistake I made with this article is overgeneralization. I failed because I didn’t have enough practice with blogging to really get my message across to writers. Reading this article today, I would rewrite it to include specifics on how to buzz your books with blogs, changing the title to “Buzzing Your Books by Blogging.” Or, “How to Draw Readers to Your Fiction Blog.”
The “What are Infoproducts” article did laughably worse. A mere three sites posted this article. Again, I missed my mark. First of all, the title is horrendous. Looking at it today, I see two titles fighting for the same line like warring step-siblings. It’s embarrassing.
If I were to rewrite this article, the title would be the first to go. In it’s place, I’d write something like “How to Create Great Spin-Off Products for Your Book” or “Infoproducts: How They Can Boost Your Book Sales.”
As for the body of the article, I failed to include examples of people who are successful in using infoproducts as a means to boost sales of their books. I failed to give readers the proof as well as links to that proof.
I bombed with article marketing for the simple reason that I didn’t take the time to polish them as I would have my novel or a short story. This mistake cost me traffic and prospective members. Not only that, but it made me look stupid.
I’m not alone in making these newbie mistakes, which is why I’m writing this. Like I said in my last post, the Internet is the best thing that could happen to writers. It is also the worst because you don’t have pesky editors to reject your work before it sees the light of day.
Instead, you have millions of readers who will reject you faster and harsher than any editor would think of doing. Learn from my mistake and practice writing articles before you publish them online. Don’t be in such a hurry to promote your blogs that you sacrifice quality and credibility.
