Hello fellow VAs! Today I attended a teleseminar by Kim Lednum about how to write articles to attract clients for your business. I summarized the main points for you in my own article below. I have decided to make this a 5 part series.
As a marketing tool, article writing is a great way for you, as a small business owner, to establish credibility and gain clients. Writing articles is also a great way to garner free publicity for yourself and your business. However, many of you might think you aren’t very good at writing articles or that you don't know how. Maybe you feel overwhelmed when you sit down to start writing. But once you understand that article writing is like following a recipe you’ll soon find that writing an article is a piece of cake!
Let’s say you want to write an article that tells people why your service or product is the best choice for them. First, you choose your topic of interest. For arguments sake let’s choose to write an article about virtual assistance. You can use one of five different *recipes* to put your article together. You can write
1. a “
how to” article in which you tell someone the steps to take when trying to find and choose a virtual assistant to help with their business.
2. an article that “
lists” the ways a virtual assistant can help a business save time and money.
3. an “
inventory” your readers can have to help them make an assessment or solve a problem. This would be a long checklist of things they can use to help them ensure they have everything they need. ie: 25 tools every virtual assistant needs to run a successful business
4. an article that “
argues a point” and provides points to persuade or discourage your reader about your topic ie: Myths about virtual assistance
5. an article that discusses a “
current trend” and is informative for your reader
ie: Virtual Assistance is the wave of the future for small business
The most important thing to remember about writing an article is that you must first identify who you are writing it for. Who is your audience? Who are they, how old are they, what do they like, what problems do they have, why do they need your help, where are they in their business? The second tip is that articles are most effective when they help your reader solve a problem.
Okay so now you’ve got your *recipes* all lined up. What’s next? Well, now you choose the *recipe* you want to make. Let’s say you want to write a “how to” article. The purpose of this kind of article is to guide your reader through a series of steps that will help them complete a task or reach their goal. Here you will list the things you are going to teach your reader how to do and then outline the steps your reader should take to complete the tasks and reach their goal.
Once you have finished writing your article you should post it in several places. First and foremost place your article on your blog. Search engines love fresh content and will visit you regularly if you leave fresh content for them to feed on. They will reward you for your kindness by leaving you a lovely trail of links. You should also submit your article to an article submission site like
http://goarticles.com This will also help create a link trail to your website. Next week we’ll take a little more in-depth look at the remaining four *recipes* and how you can use them to gain credibility and clients for your business.
This post is a a summary of a free article writing teleclass given by Kim Lednum, C.E.C.
"The Write Promotion Coach for Business"
Providing Simple Writing & Marketing Strategies for Solopreneurs.
Click to sign up for Kim's classes. http://www.attractbusinessnow.com/TeleSeminar_Schedule
Cooking with Articles...how to make your business sizzle! (1-3 of 3 part series)
Stuck in startup? Stop dreaming. Start DOING! 
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