Article Marketing – Resource Boxes That Drive Traffic
When you use article marketing as a marketing strategy for your business, you may tend to fret over the quality of your writing and/or generating enough article ideas. Yet the #1 element that is most important, and what separates interesting articles from interesting articles that convert, is writing resource boxes that drive traffic back to your site. End of story.
So What Is A Resource Box?
The resource box or bio box is a small section (50-300 words) that comes at the end of your articles. This section has typically been used to briefly mention some facts about the author – hence the alternate term “bio box”. Yet writing about your education, experience, and accolades is NOT what moves a reader to visit your site. So do not take the term “bio” too literally. That’s where a lot of writers make their mistake…
So What Should My Resource Box Have?
FIRST – Resource boxes that drive traffic to your website, blog, landing or squeeze pages have one thing in common and that is a STRONG call to action. What do you want your readers to do after they’ve read (and enjoyed:) your content?
1. Read More Articles?
2. Buy Your Product?
3. Visit Your Home Page?
4. Opt-in To Your List? (*The Best Choice)
SECOND – Your resource box should have a LIVE link in order for readers to complete that call to action. Even better, your call to action should have a LIVE keyword anchor text link to your site or landing page.
Example: Would you like more natural dog food recipes like this one?
In this example, natural dog food would be the keyword phrase that you would link to an appropriate site or squeeze page that has relevant natural dog food content on it.
THIRD – Your resource box should not be “obvious”. This is very easy to do on your own site or other 3rd party sites, but sometimes a little more difficult on article directories who create a “section” in their templates for resource boxes. But that’s okay – do your best.
Don’t do this: “Lisa Angelettie is the author of Natural Dog Food and winner of…”
You see where I’m going with this right? It obviously reads like a separate section from any article on natural dog food.
Do something like this: “Ready to make your own natural dog food recipes tonight? Then grab these free 3 natural dog food recipes…”
This sounds like a more natural continuation of an article on natural dog food. Who I am and what I’ve done (like in the previous example) isn’t the important thing here, what is more important is that the reader can get 3 free natural dog food recipes for free. And that is the kind of resource box that will drive readers back to your site.