But successful traffic generation with article distribution isn’t just about creating the right content and having the right title to go with it.  That can attract eyeballs and readers, but it doesn’t guarantee one iota of traffic back to your site directly from the article.  Your resource box is the bridge between those readers and your site.

The resource box, which some sites may refer to as your “author bio”, is the place where you’re allowed to leave a backlink to your site.  This is where you need to give people a reason to find out more about you, what you’re doing and your site.

People often think of article writing and traditional copywriting as two distinct entities.  That’s not really the case.  A good article writer needs strong copywriting skills–especially in terms of the resource box.  

You need to create a few compelling brief paragraphs of text that will naturally encourage readers to visit your website after persuing your articles.  Most people fail to do that.

When you hear people say that they produced great articles and didn’t see significant bumps in traffic, it’s quite likely that they had a faulty resource box.  People foun their articles, but didn’t feel the need to visit the site afterwards.  

One common reason?  The author treated the box like an “all about me” opportunity.  You know, “John Does is the Director of Operations for Widgets International and has written several articles on widget-related topics”.  

That kind of thing doesn’t get traffic.  Period.  At most, you’re going to get a trickle.  You don’t want a 1% click-through rate on your articles to your site if you’re serious about herding visitors.  You want to up that number to at least 25%, maybe higher.

Here’s some good news…  You can do that.  It’s possible to write articles that get a lot of views and that convert those views into high visitor totals.  

We’re going to discuss a few ways to do that in our next post.

Remember, you should use these techniques in conjunction with the three basic rules for titles we discussed earlier.  (1)  Write titles that inform the reader, (2) Write titles that use your keywords, (3)  Write titles that are long enough to provide a clear preview but that stop short of becoming cumbersome.

Okay, here are a few ways you can write the kind of titles that will really drive traffic to your site.

First, consider a “list”.  It’s amazing.  If you have a number in your title you’ll soon discover that the article will outperform a similar piece of content that doesn’t have the number.  ”Three Tips for Widget Selection” will out-pull “Tips on Choosing a Widget” almost every time.  If you are offering multiple pieces of information, use the title to reveal that fact.

Second, don’t be afraid to promote your content.  Some article marketers are a little shy.  That doesn’t help them at all when it comes to titles.  ”Three Tips for Widget Selection” is okay, but “The Top Three Tips for Widget Selection” is stronger.  ”Three Hot Tips for Choosing the Perfect Widget” might do even better.  You want to tell your readers that this is a “must-read” article.  Be brave and use the title to promote your content.

Third, consider asking a question.  Think about the reason why the reader may have found your article.  What kind of information do they want?  What questions are on their mind?  When you have that figured out, you can write an article that recites that question–and that provides an answer.  That’s irresistible.  ”How do You Find the Right One?  Three Hot Tips for Choosing the Perfect Widget”, for instance, could be the kind of “Q&A” title that does very well.

The right kind of title will increase the number of readers who check out your work.  That, in turn, will increase your traffic–assuming you have your resource box in order. 

Your resource box?  Oh, yes, that’s another key part of the puzzle.  And we’ll talk about it in our next post.

You may be able to get the backlink value of article syndication simply by publishing an article using the right keywords that’s been placed in a popular directory category, but if you want to REALLY maximize the number of visitors your text can produce, you need to start things off with an eye-opening title.

People really do read the articles at those directory sites.  EzineArticles.com is a great example.  An article there can drive a load of traffic directly to your site via the resource box.  Article marketing isn’t all about SERP improvement at all.

And nothing makes an article “pop” like a good title.  

There’s a reason why top copywriters will tell you that the most important part of any letter or page is the headline.  That’s your one chance to really attract attention.  In article marketing, the title is the equivalent of your headline.  If you offer an incomprehensible or completely boring opener, no one is going to read the article–especially when it’s surrounded by other articles in your niche that do feature attention-grabbing titles.

So, how do you come up with a great title?  

You need to combine your own creativity with a few core rules.  Let’s discuss the rules first.

Firt, the title needs to give the reader an idea of the actual content to follow.  If your intentions aren’t clear, it isn’t going to pay off.  Second, the title does need to contain your targeted keywords.  This is an important factor because a well-optimized article will do better with Google, creating article views via keyword searches.  Third, your title shouldn’t be too long.  There’s an art to balancing enough information to provide a good preview with keeping things short enough not to be cumbersome.

If you’re playing by the “rules”, you’re ready to write a great title.  In our next post we’ll talk about a few ways to construct winning article titles that will increase your traffic.

So, what goes

That’s still a very valid reason to distribute articles.  It’s true that most of the lower-grade directories’ links won’t affect your search engine performance dramatically, but every little bit helps.  Plus, there is some potential that a larger, high PR site might just run your article.  Search engines continue to worship (at least half of the time) at the altar of The Link, so you should consider the value article marketing has with respect to building backlinks.  The fact that you can often use SEO-friendly anchor text links in your articles’ resource boxes make that even more attractive.

For a long time, people didn’t really discuss the traffic generating potential of the distributed articles themselves.  Marketers resigned themselves to the fact that no one was actually going to read their arguments once it wet live.  The article repository sites weren’t really considered great places to showcase content, and that criticism remains true for low-level directories.  However, as the popularity and power of some of the larger directories has increased, articles can appear high in the SERPs, leading to very healthy traffic boosts.

The most well-known of the A-list directories, EzineArticles.com, is a perfect example.  While articles placed there often perform well in terms of susbequent backlink generation it’s also possible to see thousands of visitors read a posted article.  

Before you get too excited, howevever, you need to remember that a thousand readers of an articles doesn’t equate with a thousand visitors to your website. In order to article marketing to work you need to have a resource box that will convince people to follow your link.  If you do, click-through rates can be remarkably high, with many claiming 30%+ CTR.

That’s a nice little bonus traffic source when you combine it with improved SERP slotting.  Article marketing really does drive traffic.

Here’s what’s really happened.  Article marketing experienced a sudden surge in popularity because it really does work.  This increased competition within the field a little bit.  It also brought a lot of people to the practice who didn’t really “get it” or who weren’t capable of doing it the right way.

Those grumblings you hear from those who are disenchanted with article marketing?  They’re coming from those who jumped in without understanding the right way to make things happen.  

After hearing about the kind of results article marketers could secure, a lot of these folks thought that they could start generating waves of traffic while barely lifting a finger.  That just isn’t the case.  

Article marketing isn’t rocket science.  It’s not complicated and it’s really  not that hard, either.  It does, however, require some effort.  More particularly, it requires a smart, well-informed effort.  When you’re doing it with a keen understanding of the “little things” that make it work properly, you can really use it to improve your traffic levels.

We’re going to spend some time over the next few weeks discussing article marketing in greater detail.  We’re going to look at what article marketing really is and the underlying reasons it works.  We’re then going to go over several things you can do to make the process a winner for you and your site.

If you’ve been wondering about the viability of article-based marketing efforts to boost your traffic, don’t.  It’s still a fantastic way to secure visitors.  Don’t believe frustrated critics who didn’t follow the best practices.  You can get more visitors this way–It’s just a matter of doing things the right way.

Sit down and write a blog post (you do have a blog by now, right?) that announces the Top 10 blogs in your niche.  Make sure you link out to those blogs in the post.  Write a nifty little summary or review for each one, too.  Spread the kindness.

Is this a butt-kissing maneuver?  To some extent, yes.  However, it can be a post with some legitimate value.  All of those good things we said about these lists in the earlier post are true for this one.  

Stephen Pierce supports this particular approach.  If you read his free blog traffic generation checklist (which you can download here), he puts this plan toward the top of the list.  Here’s what he says about Top 10-ing your niche’s top blogs:

“This will rank highly in the search engines, which will result in increased traffic to your blog and ultimately your website.  Also, it establishes your credibility as an expert as you’re reviewing what is said in your niche and influential blogs that serve your niche, which only someone who is knowledgeable of the niche can do.”

In other words, it’s good with Google, it brings visitors and it establishes you as an expert.  Plus, it carries all of those other groovy list-writing perks we discussed earlier.

If you’re like most people, you tend to think of traffic in terms of your site.  ”How many visitors is my SITE getting?”,  etc.

In a literal sense, that’s the right way to consider the matter.  Your site visitors aren’t ringing your doorbell and staying for supper, after all.  However, when we keep thinking in terms of “the site”, we start to move away from thinking about one of the best ways to increase traffic.

If you start looking at what you can do to increase YOUR traffic, you might just find a slew of new visitors to your site.

Here’s what I mean.  People can visit a website for a variety of different reasons.  Maybe they found it while querying a search engine.  Maybe they clicked on an ad.  They might’ve found a link within some other source material.  Sometimes, though, they visit YOUR site because of YOU.

If you are someone in whom they are interested, they’ll find the site.  That means that you can start building traffic to your website by increasing your personal recognition within your niche.  Sure, you want to have an authority site.  But you also want to be an authority yourself.

Do you have your bio up on third party sites?  Are you contributing content, comments and insights around your niche?  Are you involved with the bigger conversations?  People can get to know you by finding your site, but they can also find your site after they get to know you.  Get out there and do some glad-handing.  Meet the neighbors.  Get involved in your subject matter.  Become a recognized figure.

Before you know it, you won’t just be relying on the traffic your website attracts.  YOU will be attracting visitors to your site, too.

And that’s why assessing traffic requires going beyond the raw visitor totals.  Here are a few things to check after you look at that raw “unique visitors” stat.

Is anyone sticking around?  Even your fastest visitor isn’t going to do much in 2 seconds.  Traffic only has potential value if its on-site long enough to do something productive.  Look at the length of time people are staying.  If they’re in place only long enough to sort of notice your header graphic before backing out, you might need to, ahem, make a few changes.

Bouncing traffic.  There’s an interesting little thing called your “bounce rate”.  It basically measures the percentage of people who leave your site after looking at only one page.  This can tell you a lot about what’s going on with your visitors.  However, you may not need to freak out if you have a high bounce rate.  That could be a byproduct of the function of the pages in question or a sign that people are getting what they need and have no additional motivation to dig around.  Generally speaking, however, those who have “thicker” sites might want to worry if everyone’s running away after a single page view.

Page views.  Track the average number of page views.  If you want people on-site for awhile, poking around and looking at different things, you’ll be happy when you see higher numbers in this department.

Referrals.  Where are these people coming from and, just as importantly, what are they hoping to find.  Look at their search engine queries.  Are you getting potential buyers, misdirected surfers who aren’t getting what they’re looking for, or tire kickers who have an interest in your topic but no intention of buying a product or service?  This will give you an idea of your traffic quality, instead of just thinking in terms of quantity.

There are other considerations, of course, but expanding your view past raw visitor totals is the important takeaway from all of this.  It isn’t just about how much traffic you’re getting.  It’s also important to secure the right traffic.

One of the biggest clues is what we put toward the top of the page.  Search engine make the assumption, if you will, that the BIG IDEA of any page will tend to make its appearance early in the game.  

So, if you’re looking for more traffic, you need to play along with their assumption.  

You’re undoubtedly targeting specific keywords (if you’re not, you probably should be).  That means it will behoove you to get those suckers to the front of the line.

Let’s say you’re putting together a page about “refurbished widgets”.   You might be tempted to tell a long introductory story about the time your grandfather bought you a refurbished widget for Christmas.  A few paragraphs setting the scene, one introducing your dear ol’ grandpa and then…  The widget appears.

Not a good idea.  You can’t pull your punches like that.  You need to get “refurbished widgets” and semantically related text right up toward the top of your content for the best possible results.

Now, if you’re holiday story is too good to pass up, you can always get it on the page.  Just make sure you provide a summary or an overview or something that explains that your page is about refurbished widgets before you start playing storyteller.

After all, you want people who are interested in the widgets to find your page, not people who are querying search engines looking for “snowy Christmas 1979″, right?

No you don’t.

Really, you don’t.  

If all you want is more traffic, you could go out and buy a few million visitors for next to nothing.  Companies who sell bulk traffic are still out there, operating on the shadowy edges of the Internet marketing world.  They’ll gladly take your money an they’ll bombard your site with traffic.

But you don’t want it.

Why not?  It’s going to consist of hacked off people who’ve been tricked via redirects and phony “visitors” who are really just bots in a poor disguise.  It’s traffic, but it’s so incredibly lousy that you wouldn’t want to bother with it.

And that’s why we can safely assume that you don’t really want more traffic.  If that’s what you wanted, you’d be buying right now.  And you’re not.  Which means that there’s what linguists might call a missing modifier in the “I want more traffic” statement.

That modifier?  ”Targeted”.

You want more targeted traffic.  You want traffic that’s going to convert.  You don’t want an assortment of random gawkers stumbling by your site, you want to talk to the people who have an interest in what you’re doing.  You want to deal with the target demographic for your topic, service or product.

In most cases, the issue of traffic quality is a little muddier than the example of horrible paid traffic.  And when things aren’t crystal clear, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that targeting matters just about as much as anything.

Half-decent traffic might not seem like the worst thing in the world to pursue, but it’s not going to convert much better than the bogus stuff the traffic brokers will send your way.  You don’t need half-decent.  You need good.  

You need targeted traffic.  Don’t forget it.  Whenever you’re considering a traffic generation strategy, consider who’s really going to show up at your site’s first door and if they’re “in line” with what you’re doing enough to justify the expenditure in time, effort and/or money necessary to implement the strategy.

You don’t want more traffic.  You want more targeted traffic!