Denise posted her notes over at the BizTips Blog from the radio show interview with Christopher Knight of EzineArticles.com, and they are worthy of repeating here:

Articles should be between 400 and 1000 words

• The article title is the most important element; most people make their titles too short.  EzineArticles.com has a 100 character limit.  Titles should have a primary and a secondary hook to get scanners to read further

The big question always is…how many articles should one submit to get a good return?  There is no right answer but most people never submit more than 10 articles so anything more than that is good.  25 to 250 articles will start to drive more traffic to your site.

Chris has an excellent ebook called Article Production Strategies that we highly recommend.

If you’re just getting started with article writing, our colleague Jeff Herring has a suite of article writing templates that we frequently use to jump start our articles.

I’ve noticed in working with highly educated professionals that they often write their blog posts and ezine articles like they would a research paper. There is plenty of good information, but no reference to themselves as the writer. Here’s an example:

"One of the most often overlooked skills of being a good speaker is the ability to create effective diagrams or visual representations."

While that is most likely a true statement, I advise writers who want to leverage their marketing skills to include reference to themselves and their business, like this:

"When I’m consulting with speakers on improving their presentations, I’ve noticed that the most overlooked skill is the ability to create effective diagrams or visual representations."

This embeds a message to readers that the writer is a working professional who has solutions to help. Otherwise, the message only gives readers general information, without any implied marketing message. See the difference?

What do you think about this kind of marketing tactic? Do you use it? Does it help turn your articles and blog posts into tools to convert your readers into customers? Did you notice how I used it myself in the opening paragraph of this post?

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