Has anyone used article marketing to promote their VA business? If so, has it worked for you?

The reason I'm asking is that I've used article marketing successfully to promote some online products. So I was wondering if you could do the same thing to promote your VA website?

So, for example, if you wrote an article outlining how having a VA would be beneficial for business owners and then posted it to an article directory. Would you not get traffic to your website through the link if business people read your article and clicked through to your site?

Sorry, this may seem obvious to some, but I'm not sure if it works the same for a VA business as it does for other online businesses. I didn't see anything written about that in the forum so I thought I'd ask.

Your thoughts?

Sylvia

I personally don't do article marketing, because I hate writing, but I know a lot of VAs who do it and claim to have success with it. I would recommend choosing your topics based on subjects you have a lot of experience in and not generalized topics like "What a VA can do for you" or "How a VA can benefit your business". This has been done a million times over already. Your potential clients don't need to know how a VA can help them, they need to know how YOU can help them and to hear about the areas that YOU are qualified in.

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Rebecka Melson ~ Virtual Business Services

I have done some article marketing and saw a few click throughs from it. I also just recently found the article posted on a work from home blog and was glad to see that someone had found the article useful enough to post it.

I'm planning on submitting another article soon to hopefully try to build some momentum. I'm also working on completely understanding how to get the best out of article marketing. I know there are others on here that have some experience with it and hopefully they'll chime in.

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Kimberly
Facebook Marketing Magic!

I have done some article writing. As Rebecka says it shouldn't just be about what you can do for them. I've written articles on a variety of subjects and the signature is a link back to my site. I've received visits to my site and newsletter sign ups from articles; but no paying clients yet.

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Sue L Canfield
AwesomeAssistant.info
My Blog

Thanks for your replies. I might put a couple of articles together just to see what kind of response I get.

Sylvia

Originally Posted by Rebecka

Your potential clients don't need to know how a VA can help them, they need to know how YOU can help them and to hear about the areas that YOU are qualified in.

Quality periodicals won't print an article that just says how you can help a client. That is an advertisement. Quality periodicals get paid for advertisements.

I write occasional pieces for a local weekly business journal. They want timely and relevant articles that benefit their readership. I don't write them for quick turnaround, instant gratification. Marketing this way is a slow process, but it builds your reputation.

For instant, I just submitted a piece to the periodical this morning. I downloaded their editorial calendar and marked the issues that would be targeted toward things I have expertise in. The issue that comes out this Friday is focused on technology. I wrote a 500 word piece on how West Virginia could become a Mecca for virtual offices/telecommuting. I included a map of the broadband locations and a link to the non-profit that created it. The editor may not choose to run it because I'm not getting paid to provide it. I always ask that, if possible, please let me know if it can not run as I would like to submit it elsewhere at a later date. So far they always run them.

I used my signature block to list my credentials:

Robin A. Holstein CPS/CAP is the owner of Robin’s Desktop, Virtual Administrative Services. She is a Certified Professional Secretary, Certified Administrative Professional, and holds an A.A.S. in Office Administration. You may contact her at (phone) (email)

The point of writing articles is to build awareness, peak curiosity, and establish your expertise in your area. It is part of a larger marketing plan.

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Robin A. Holstein
Robin's Desktop Virtual Administrative Services
My Blog

Originally Posted by Robin_Ann

Quality periodicals won't print an article that just says how you can help a client. That is an advertisement. Quality periodicals get paid for advertisements.

My thoughts exactly Robin Ann. I've written about 75 articles for Ezine Articles in the past and they're extremely picky about what they'll accept. If an article sounds remotely promotional, they'll reject it.

They've also gotten very picky about keyword abuse so you have be careful about that as well. Sometimes it's hard to not repeat words over and over without sounding spammy.

Like for instance I recently rewrote an article I had done for Ezine Articles about a year ago. They rejected my article and accused me of keyword stuffing. The article was about "baby showers" -- well what other words for "baby showers" are there?

I actually ended up deleting the article from EA because I didn't feel like dealing with it anymore.

Sylvia

I do article marketing for a client and I submit his articles to a series of article sites. He has told me that he has definitely received traction from these submissions. I agree with the others, some of these sites are very picky and a couple take a long time to even review. I am going to start wirting as well. Not sure if I can keep up with a monthly release, but perhaps one every couple of months won't hurt. I say, if it's free then go for it!

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Doreen R. Patrick, MVA, ACS, CIVA
www.virtualbusinesspartners.net

I haven't really written articles promoting my business, but I have started a blog and it lists what I do and information about my business. I have only landed one job from that, but I haven't really advertised my blog all that much.

I guess writing an article about your VA business could help get the word out there, but it is getting those potential clients to read the article that really counts.

I have done this, but just to put my site anchor text on article, i am not a good writer but still i got some traffic from it. I think article writing practice really helpful for VA.

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