With the double insight of article marketer and directory
owner it can be frustrating to see articles being submitted that you know will
not be effective for the authors. On the other hand you learn to recognise
articles that are going to do well for the authors and your directory.
With this in mind I was curious to read ‘The Article Marketing Handbook’ written by Allen Graves – an experienced article directory owner and article marketer. I’ve come across Allen in forums and have to admit that we don’t always agree, but it is plain to see that Allen cares about article marketing. Because Allen has been involved with article marketing longer than I have I hoped that I would learn something from his handbook. I also felt that as he had the same opportunity of double insight as I have albeit for longer that ‘The Article Marketing Handbook’ should be as good as if not better than anything that I have previously read. My expectations were high so lets see if the handbook lived up to them.
The Content
At first I was impatient to get to the ‘meat’ of the ebook
and wasn’t happy with the long introduction and theorising in the first couple
of chapters, but then I saw that Allen was expressing why it is important to
get your article marketing campaign right. It isn’t just information - it’s
plain common sense that every article marketer should consider before embarking
on a marketing campaign and worth reading.
Allen then guides you through selecting your niche, ways of
discovering what information your readers are searching for and spending money
on and how to find the best keywords. All useful information and if used
correctly should help you to write more effective articles.
You learn why you should use pen names and how to select them. How to write titles that grab a reader’s attention while appealing to search engines. How to best summarise your articles and how to format the article body to capture the reader’s attention and keep them reading. Some tips are also included on how to write your author resource box to gain higher click throughs to your website.
Did I learn Anything?
Yes I did. I was particularly interested in a chapter
explaining how to find the best places to submit your articles to and why. Also
how to get more click throughs by promoting your articles after your
submissions have been accepted. Both ideas are so obvious that I wondered why I
hadn’t thought of them.
There are several more article marketing tricks that I have noticed used by authors who submit to my directories and hadn’t really thought about. To find out if they work I checked my site stats and sure enough those articles were getting more than the average hits. That could be a coincidence or those tricks could be working for the authors and my directories.
What I Think
There is a whole lot more information but now I’m going to tell you what I think about ‘The Article Marketing Handbook’. The ebook is well written and in a no BS style that I personally like. For anybody familiar with article or Internet marketing it’s easy to understand, but those new to the field may struggle without more basic information about for instance the importance of keywords and phrases. But, that and other basic information can be readily found with an Internet search.
Is It Worth The $47 Asking Price?
For most ebooks I would say absolutely not. That is because
there are thousands of ebooks available on the Internet free or at incredibly
low prices and that muddies the water on perceived value. The Article Marketing
Handbook is different in that it provides a lot of information and advice that
I haven’t seen before in any article, forum or ebook. Information and advice
that I know from experience is correct even if I hadn’t thought about some of
it before reading the handbook.