Associating Your Article to Your Resource Box
A Lesson on Wasted Resources
I recently came across a rash of articles while doing an "Executive Spot Check" as I call it, that contained a very strange phenomenon. While the articles themselves were well written, when I reached the critical Resource Box the links and "sales pitch" were completely unrelated to the content of the article!
The articles were written by a female author discussing exercise, body building, body supplements and so on, but the resource box had a male author mentioned by name and telling the reader what a [well known racing organization] enthusiast he was and directing them to some racing car related gizmo. Talk about a wasted resource box and turning a reader of a well written article completely off.
I have no idea if these folks were related, but I would think so, and that the female wrote a good article the male probably was not qualified or proficient enough to write but they decided to allow him to put the racing pitch in to hopefully drive traffic to his site. I can guarantee you not many readers, if any at all, of the articles, being drawn to them in the first place because of THEIR subject matter, are going to click on a link for racing. Let's see...I am reading an article about how to take healthy supplements to help tone my body and get in shape and I bet this racing car person has a lot more valuable information on this at his racing gizmo website...
What Can We Learn Here?
While we do not deny articles because the article content does not match or have anything to do with the information in the resource box, especially if it is an otherwise well written article, there are some valuable things to be learned here that all authors should take note of:
1. Write quality articles about a subject or niche you are very familiar with, passionate about, or an "expert" in and that like minded folks would be eager to read.
2. If you are going to take the time to write an article like this then by all means write it to promote something that is completely related that you are trying to sell and at least make money from your hard work.
3. It is certainly fine to write an article about a passionate subject if you are not trying to sell something simply as an author sharing his or her experiences, but then the whole idea of article marketing is defeated.
4. If you are going to do this "charity" writing however, then by all means do not put anything in the resource box unrelated as this is an obvious and blatant sales pitch and a complete turn-off to the reader. In this case it would be better to leave it blank or just put your name and something along the lines of : "This article was written as an informative source of information on "X"."
Summary
Quality article writing is hard work and the authors of quality articles are talented writers in their own rights along the lines of any book, magazine or short story writer is. The difference is that in article writing authors are trying to make a living, in general, by sharing their unique experiences and expertise in something they are usually very passionate about. They are using article writing to drive traffic to a website or blog that sells a product that is related to their passions. The very fact that the reader is even taking the time to read the article is because they too have an interest or passion about the same subject. Don't throw your hard work out the door by ending the article in a resource box that will end in zero traffic. Make your article work for you as hard as you worked to write it and capitalize on the fixed attention you have of your reader at the moment to encourage them to further investigate what it is you have to offer related to the article.
I recently came across a rash of articles while doing an "Executive Spot Check" as I call it, that contained a very strange phenomenon. While the articles themselves were well written, when I reached the critical Resource Box the links and "sales pitch" were completely unrelated to the content of the article!
The articles were written by a female author discussing exercise, body building, body supplements and so on, but the resource box had a male author mentioned by name and telling the reader what a [well known racing organization] enthusiast he was and directing them to some racing car related gizmo. Talk about a wasted resource box and turning a reader of a well written article completely off.
I have no idea if these folks were related, but I would think so, and that the female wrote a good article the male probably was not qualified or proficient enough to write but they decided to allow him to put the racing pitch in to hopefully drive traffic to his site. I can guarantee you not many readers, if any at all, of the articles, being drawn to them in the first place because of THEIR subject matter, are going to click on a link for racing. Let's see...I am reading an article about how to take healthy supplements to help tone my body and get in shape and I bet this racing car person has a lot more valuable information on this at his racing gizmo website...
What Can We Learn Here?
While we do not deny articles because the article content does not match or have anything to do with the information in the resource box, especially if it is an otherwise well written article, there are some valuable things to be learned here that all authors should take note of:
1. Write quality articles about a subject or niche you are very familiar with, passionate about, or an "expert" in and that like minded folks would be eager to read.
2. If you are going to take the time to write an article like this then by all means write it to promote something that is completely related that you are trying to sell and at least make money from your hard work.
3. It is certainly fine to write an article about a passionate subject if you are not trying to sell something simply as an author sharing his or her experiences, but then the whole idea of article marketing is defeated.
4. If you are going to do this "charity" writing however, then by all means do not put anything in the resource box unrelated as this is an obvious and blatant sales pitch and a complete turn-off to the reader. In this case it would be better to leave it blank or just put your name and something along the lines of : "This article was written as an informative source of information on "X"."
Summary
Quality article writing is hard work and the authors of quality articles are talented writers in their own rights along the lines of any book, magazine or short story writer is. The difference is that in article writing authors are trying to make a living, in general, by sharing their unique experiences and expertise in something they are usually very passionate about. They are using article writing to drive traffic to a website or blog that sells a product that is related to their passions. The very fact that the reader is even taking the time to read the article is because they too have an interest or passion about the same subject. Don't throw your hard work out the door by ending the article in a resource box that will end in zero traffic. Make your article work for you as hard as you worked to write it and capitalize on the fixed attention you have of your reader at the moment to encourage them to further investigate what it is you have to offer related to the article.
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