Writing marketing articles: Why article writing works for companies online

Marketing Articles

In the over-saturated online space, growing companies like an essay writer service are constantly searching for new ways to expand their reach to their target audience, and engage potential customers. There are plenty of options out there, from designing visual marketing materials like videos and brochures, to blogging and article writing.

In fact, article writing has emerged as one of the most popular solutions for building “a positive presence online. When done correctly, marketing articles can cement your position in the world of thought leadership, and give you the power that you need to outshine your competition. The only problem is, that most people still don’t fully understand what writing an article for marketing purposes is all about.

Here, we’re going to cover everything from how to write a marketing article, to what thought leadership articles are, and why you should be investing in them.

What are marketing articles, anyway?

Before we can start introducing some of the best practices of article writing, we need to outline what writing an article really means. Marketing articles aren’t just blog posts, they’re pieces of high-quality information that can be posted on a range of channels, including:

  • News websites.
  • eMarketing directories.
  • Company websites.
  • Social media.
  • Guest-posting sites.

Digital marketing articles can be an effective way to expand your business reach when done correctly. They’re powerful tools for building your online presence, and proving your value to your consumer. However, it’s important to remember that writing an article isn’t just about looking at keywords and trying to get as many backlinks to your website as possible.

Effective digital marketing articles, from thought leadership articles, to industry news, are about writing quality content that is useful and engaging to your target market. You might publish some on your website, and others on related sites.

Often, the goals of digital marketing articles include:

  • Attracting incoming links to the website.
  • Improving organic search results.
  • Increasing targeted traffic from relevant websites.
  • Making a website more useful and unique (educating, entertaining, and informing your readers).
  • Building awareness and reputation for a brand.

How to write a marketing article

Article marketing has emerged as one of the most effective and popular ways for people to make cash online. People actively search for information almost constantly on the internet. Article writing can help to increase your chances that potential customers will find you, instead of your competitor, when looking for solutions to their problems.

So, let’s look at how to write a marketing article.

Article writing step 1: Creating the content

Any article you write for marketing your business should have some underlying value. In other words, you don’t want to develop keyword-stuffed articles for the sake of it. Instead, your digital marketing articles should be rich with essential information and guidance. Typically, the best articles include plenty of actionable information, as well as answers to specific questions.

Article writing step 2: Get to the point

One of the differences between blogging and article writing (A point we’ll address soon), is that articles are often longer than a standard blog. However, it’s important to get the length of your piece right if you want to make the right impression on your audience. Articles that are overly short will be ignored by your customers, while pieces that are too long will struggle to retain their attention.

The main priority to keep in mind when choosing length, is that your article should get to the point as quickly as possible. Show the audience the value that you’re offering them in the first paragraph, and keep providing value throughout.

Article writing step 3: Creating links

Most effective marketing articles will include some backlinks that lead the reader to other pages on your website. Inserting these links is a delicate balancing act, between giving your customers the extra information they need, and overwhelming them with too many distractions

Make sure that you choose links carefully, in a way that gives your article authority, relevance, and extra value for your customers.

Article writing step 4: Offer actionable advice

While blogs can be a great way to share any kind of information, from thoughts and opinions, to new ideas, article writing is intended as a way for businesses to show their unique knowledge online. Typically, that means that you’ll need to focus on delivering plenty of actionable advice. Address the question that you’re going to answer for your customer in the first sentence of your article, and follow on with a simple format.

Once you’ve set the tone for your article with a powerful intro, you can use the body of the piece to offer advice, instructions, and other pertinent information. Don’t allow your writing to go off on a tangent. If you need extra help providing engaging and relevant data, then do some more research before you finish your final draft.

Article writing

Article writing step 5: Using the right keywords

Using article writing and thought leadership articles is a great way to develop your authority and presence online. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make an effort to expand your SEO copywriting opportunities too. While you’re concentrating on delivering great content, think about how you can incorporate keywords and keyword phrases properly, so that you can rank well with the major search engines.

Keyword phrases continue to be an important element of marketing articles, but it’s important to make sure that you don’t let your desire to rank overwhelm your writing. If you use too many keywords, then your content will end up looking cluttered and unnatural.

Article writing step 6: Getting published

Finally, your article can offer some of the most useful information on the internet, but if it’s never found by the search engines, and your customers, then it’s useless. Marketing is all about making sure that you get your content in front of the public. Article submission sites can be a good tool for this, as can guest posting opportunities.

You can also combine your article writing solutions with blogging to help you get a more comprehensive content strategy going.

Remember, when you first break into the world of article writing, it’s important to know the basics of what you’re trying to achieve, and how you’re going to reach your goals. Like anything else in business, the process can take time to master, but figuring out how to write a marketing article is a good first step.

Article writing

The difference between writing an article, and blogging

The chances are that our description on how to write a marketing article reminded you a lot of the blogging process. Although blogging and article writing are very similar, it’s important to be aware of their differences when you’re building your content marketing and thought leadership strategies.

In the world of online brand development, generating high-quality content requires a lot of time and energy. That means it’s important to think about which direction you want to go in as early as possible. The best bet is to focus on whatever you’re trying to achieve:

  • Blogs are more about building your visibility on search engines and developing relationships with your readers. While articles focus on facts and figures, blogs are more often about opinions, ideas, and trending topics.
  • Articles are all about delivering information on the latest changes in new research, and innovations. If it’s important to give your client plenty of up-to-date information about crucial topics in your industry, and answer the questions that could stop them from buying your product, then article writing could be a good idea for you. Articles are also a great way to build your thought leadership position.

Often, the lines between blogs and articles are crossed by people who aren’t sure of the difference. This isn’t always a bad thing, as many businesses combine blog and article writing to give their audience a more comprehensive set of online resources.

However, for those who want to identify the main differences between blogs and article writing, here are some things to be aware of:

Articles

  • The length of articles can vary widely, from a few hundred words to several thousands.
  • Articles are generally meant to inform an audience of crucial facts, and are therefore more formal in their structure.
  • Articles are informative, detailed, and fact-based, making them perfect for thought-leadership.

Blogs

  • Blogs are usually shorter than articles, at around 500 words in length.
  • Blogs are generally a lot more casual, they offer companies and brands a way to connect with their audience.
  • Blogs provide a personal point of view.
  • Blogs are often updated more frequently than articles.

Adding a strategy for both blogging and article writing to your content solution can be a great idea. If you combine both efforts simultaneously, then you not only provide small snippets of information to people searching for compact content, but you’re also providing high-quality guidance for people who want to get more from your website.

A good tip if you do decide to use a combination of short-form blogs and articles, is to put links in your blogs to wider topics that you’ve covered in your articles. That way, if your customers want to learn more about a specific subject, they can do so, without turning to your competitors to help.

Article writing

The benefits of digital marketing articles

Article writing is one of the best ways to develop your content marketing strategy as a growing brand. However, you can only access great results through article and content development, if you commit to the process on a regular basis.

Content marketing, digital marketing articles, and article writing are all aspects of brand development which require long-term dedication. These activities aren’t an instant-fix for getting rich quick, they’re a lengthy way to build your presence in the online space, and structure a powerful foundation for a life-long brand.

When addressed with dedication, quality article writing can underline the experience an organisation has, and give that company the strength it needs to garner trust from their audience. Some of the biggest benefits of digital marketing articles include:

1. More reasons to stay on your website

More high-quality content on your website means that customers want to spend more time with your company. Those long-form articles that are rich in information and guidance will keep your customers coming back for more, growing more familiar with your brand, and developing trust that leads to higher conversion rates.

2. Greater domain authority

Although writing a lot of short-form blog posts can sometimes have a positive impact on your online presence, writing higher-quality content can often enhance your perceived level of authority, relevance, and expertise. That means that article writing can earn more inbound links from external sources, increasing your domain authority. A better domain authority translates to better search engine rankings too!

3. Higher search engine visibility

Every article that you create, just like each blog you add to your website, is another page that Google can index for your brand. Although more pages don’t always lead to more search traffic, having a lot of high-quality indexed pages can expand your ability to rank for additional search queries. Just make sure to target keywords and phrases that your customers like to search for.

Article writing

4. More referred traffic

When you dedicate your time to creating high-authority content and thought leadership articles, you also increase your chances of earning more referral traffic. This is particularly true if you focus on the guest publishing aspect of your content strategy by contributing to external publications as a guest. Linking back to your website from high-authority sites could earn you a host of new visitors.

5. More social followers

If you take the time to syndicate the content that you create in your articles through your social media channels, then more users will begin to read your material. This also means that social followers might share your articles with their family, friends and colleagues, expanding your social reach. Over time, your brand will boost its social ranking, and begin to gather more traffic.

6. Better reputation

When people read your marketing articles, they’ll start to develop their impressions of your brand. If they believe that what you post is informative, helpful, and entertaining, then they’ll naturally think more of your brand. What’s more, if they see your content published on external sources and showing up in their newsfeed, they’ll see you as a more trustworthy thought leadership source in your industry.

7. Article writing works for everyone

One of the biggest benefits of article writing for brand reach is the fact that there’s no such thing as an industry that can’t benefit from content. Any business, in any environment can use content as part of their marketing strategy. This is because there will always be other business people and consumers out there that are interesting in learning more about certain topics and markets.

8. A great return on investment

When it comes to marketing, there are dozens of different ways that you can expand your reach. As a branding company, Fabrik know all about working with brands to develop their position in the industry. Content marketing only costs the price of a writer, and some time. That means that it’s incredibly cost-effective, and great at providing compounding returns. While the first few months might not offer many results, the next few will bring more growth. By the time you’re a few years in, you could be quadrupling your investments.

Thought leadership articles: Why you need thought leadership

Article writing can help you to share the latest industry news through email marketing, to develop your industry position on your website, or to offer extra value to consumers in the form of free downloads. However, one of the most popular forms of article writing available today is in thought leadership articles.

Article writing

Thought leadership articles are a form of content marketing which involves tapping into the passion, talent, and experience inside your business, to consistently answer some of the biggest questions of your target audience.

Thought leadership is a crucial aspect of brand development for B2B and B2C companies. This is because thought leadership articles can help customers and other businesses to understand more about how your company works, and what you’re doing to offer solutions to your target market.

The benefits of thought leadership articles

The advantages that are earned from a thought leadership strategy begin with brand affinity. By communicating your thought leadership, you become a part of a larger conversation at an earlier stage in the buying journey. This gives your audience a chance to get to know your brand.

Thought leadership can drive engagement from a wide range of potential customers and investors. This is because today’s customers are often searching for the answer to a problem, rather than a specific product or service. If you speak to people while they’re still in the “awareness” stage of the buying cycle – looking for a solution to their problem, you can create a long-lasting, and loyal relationship with your audience.

Thought leadership articles allow you to take advantage of one of the primary benefits of article writing: the ability to position yourself in your market. With the right articles, you can show your consumers that you deserve their respect and trust. What’s more, you can even make yourself look more authoritative than your competitors, which is a great way to boost sales.

5 Steps for thought leadership articles

So, how can you create thought leadership articles that provoke engagement and real results? There are five simple steps:

  1. Conduct plenty of research: Conducting the right research into your specific niche, and what your customers need, helps you to become the go-to source in your market for valuable article writing and online content.
  2. Entertain, and delight: One of the biggest aims in article writing is to provide your customers with valuable information. However, that doesn’t mean that the articles you write should be bland and boring. If you can inject personality into your messages, then prospects will be more likely to remember you.
  3. Find out more about your customers: To improve your thought leadership articles, consider getting in touch with your product team to learn which questions your customers ask most often.
  4. Get involved with customers: One of the best ways to create informative marketing articles, is to interview your customers and get their feedback on what they might like to read about on your website.
  5. Be transparent: Finally, be transparent and try to present yourself as a human being to your customers. Prospects often prefer to connect with people that they can relate to, rather than big, faceless brands.

How to make article writing work for you

Millions of pieces of content are published daily, from articles to blog posts. However, research suggests that 55% of consumers only read your content for 15 seconds or less. That means if you want to make article writing work for you, you’re going to need to follow some solid rules for creating the right content.

Although opinions vary on the best rules for developing great marketing articles, we’re going to simplify the process a little for you here, by offering two guidelines on how to get people to read your online content.

Rule 1: Keep it relevant

Your content can be funny and entertaining, formal and informative, or anything else, but it has to be relevant if you want people to read it. Your article writing should be informed by the needs of your audience. Think about what your customers need to hear about – their pain points and their desires, and craft content that answers the questions on their mind.

The best way to make sure that your content is relevant is to look for three main things:

  1. Relevancy based on trending topics: Your content might be relevant according to trending concerns in the marketplace, or the current season. For instance, people are more likely to read an article about Christmas shopping in December, than they are in March. Relevance is often a chronological thing.
  2. Relevancy based on expertise: Your content should always be relevant according to the business area or expertise that your reader is interested in. If you’re a brand design company, then your readers aren’t going to be coming to your website to search for marketing articles about smoothies, or making the best roast beef.
  3. Relevancy based on insight: Although you can begin your search for relevant topics by simply being aware of your own industry, learning more about your customers through interviews and buyer personas can give you insight into what they really want to hear from you.

Rule 2: Keep it simple

The rule of simplicity doesn’t mean that all your article writing has to be limited to 400-word pieces. Instead, it means that it needs to be easy for your reader to skim through your content and find the answers to their questions.

Although, preferably, you’d like people to read all the words in an article that you write – the chances are that they’re not going to. That means that the best way that you can keep customers on your webpage for longer, while enhancing your position as an authority in your niche, is to provide plenty of relevant, scan-able information.

Scan-able article writing that breaks up sections with plenty of bullet points, numbers, sub-headings and pictures can provide a 124% improvement in visibility.

If you want to keep your customers happy with skim-worthy content, remember to:

  • Provide instant value and relevance in your headlines and subheadings. Headlines are the key to powerful web content, and your article writing should make instant connections with these simple phrases.
  • Bullet points and numbered lists are excellent for scan-able content. They’re easier for the eyes to move over, and they help to break up larger portions of text so it doesn’t look so overwhelming on the screen.
  • Text formatting provides another level of scan-able text. In other words, make sure that the fonts that you’re using work perfectly with your background, and are easy to read. This is something you will think about when building your brand image.

Article writing for brand development

In an era of constantly competing brands, article writing is a great way for companies to start differentiating themselves in the online space. Content in the form of articles, blogs, videos, and infographics can all help you to convince your customers that you’re knowledgeable and trustworthy. This is often the first step in building a brand that clients can relate to, and that can actually deliver you some real profits on your business.

After all, today, it’s not enough to simply build a website and expect your customers to come to you. Successful companies need to find a way to reach out to their customers and demonstrate their value. Though article writing isn’t intended for instant success, it is a long-lasting way to build a brand online.

If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy these too:

– How to write a brand positioning statement

– Why a great domain name is imperative

– What SEO copywriting means to content marketing

– The art of brand and corporate storytelling

Rebekah Carter
Chief content writer
Rebekah Carter
Chief content writer
After achieving her creative writing degree, Rebekah delved into the business world – taking business, marketing, and SEO courses. As the chief content writer at Brand Fabrik, Rebekah creates informational articles related to creative copywriting, media and PR, fundraising, employee communications and more.

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