Writing articles for your online business not only draws traffic to your site, it builds strong inbound links and labels you as an expert. But knowing how to write a successful article that ultimately gets read and holds a reader's attention can be a challenge for most writers.

If writing articles isn't your forte, there are plenty of ghostwriters available that will write your articles for a reasonable fee, there is also the option of using PLR (private label rights) content, however if you don't mind writing your own articles but just need a little boost with how to get them noticed and read, here are a few tips that will help: 

- Create intrigue by writing a title for your article that will peak the reader's curiosity.  For example, a title that reads "How to lose weight" won't get as much attention as a title that reads " Fast weight Loss without Starving"

- Compose an opening paragraph that describes what your article is about yet encourages the reader to keep reading.  Connecting on an emotional level can generally keep them involved.   

- Internet readers don't typically read; they scan.  Because of this, it's best to keep your ideas short and to the point. A paragraph should not contain more than 2-3 sentences. It's also a good idea to use bullet points when appropriate; it helps readers easily scan your page.

 - Don't use big words.  Keep your article at about a 5th to 6th grade reading level. This allows for faster reading and easy understanding.

- Use an active voice instead of a passive voice.  Here's the difference:
Active – The dog bit the boy
            Passive -The boy was bitten by the dog

If you have MS Word here's a feature that I use to keep my articles and web copy easy to read:

1. Open an MS word document

2. Click on 'tools' then 'spelling & grammar'

3. Click on 'options' and check the box for 'show readability statistics'

4. Check the box ‘show readability statistics’

When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar, it can display information about the reading level of the document, including the readability scores outlined below. Each readability score bases its rating on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence.

You will receive a score for each of the following:

Passive sentences – Are your sentences written in a passive or an active voice.

Reading Ease – The ease of readability 

Grade level – Text is rated on a U.S. grade-school level. For example, a score of 8.0 means the document reads at an eighth grade level.  When writing articles, try to aim for a score of 5.0 to 6.0.

Happy Writing!

If content is King, then getting one way links has to be queen. 

There’s lots of ways to get links but for me, writing articles builds one way links better than just about any other method used.

Exchanging links certainly isn’t the best option and asking for links can be a waste of time.  About the only thing that works as well is guest posting on blogs,  which is really the same as writing articles, only you’re offering bloggers a chance to publish your article as a post.

Writing articles, or guest posts for that matter, is a much more natural and preferred way to get one way links, and it’s looked on a lot more favorably by the search engines.

But don’t be misled by thinking you can write articles, submit them and you’re done.  For the most part that’s true but you also need to know how to turn words into traffic.  Writing articles for the sake of writing them will not benefit you or the reader.  Attracting traffic to your site is what it’s all about and you want to do that in the most effective way possible.

Here are a few items that you want to keep in mind to make the most of your article marketing strategy.      

Carefully compose your resource box so that it compels readers to click on your link. Don’t put the focus of your resource box on you; instead demonstrate to your reader what’s in it for them if they choose to click on your link. Tell them about your newsletter, free guide or e-course.  Get them interested, be enthusiastic.

Use ‘text links’ in your resource box.  Think about where you want your resource box to take your reader.  Let’s say you have a sales page promoting the ‘Sony cybershot digital camera’.  Write an informative article about the camera and include a resource box with a text link  that points readers to your sales page.

Be sure that the text link in your resource box is the same as the main keywords of  your sales pages.

Here’s an example of how to create a ‘text link’ for your resource box:

Find out more about the sleek <a href=”http://www.yoursitename.com/sony_cybershot_page.html”> Sony Cybershot Digital Camera </a> and the great deals available.

Once you’ve created your article and resource box, start submitting the article to the best article directories.

These are the best and most popular article sites and will be a good start for any articles that you write.

http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.webpronews.com/
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://www.searchwarp.com/
http://www.pubsacs.com/
http://www.articlebase.com/
http://www.isnare.com/
http://www.buzzle.com/
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/

Can you write  3 articles a week?  If not, outsourcing the task can helps but  if you can get articles written every week and optimize the articles for your best keywords you’ll see your site begin to soar to the top of the search engines within about a month.

Keep up the process and your site will begin to see some awesome results.