3 Tips For Writing An Effective Author Resource Box

Article marketing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get traffic to your website. It's not a magic bullet, however - you need to do it properly or you're just wasting your time.

So why is it that one person's article can drive a ton of visitors to their website while another person's article sits on the article directory and may never drive a single click?

The main difference is the author resource box - the section where you get to tell the reader a little about yourself, your website and what you can offer them. How you write your resource box can make a world of difference in how many visitors you get.

If you dig through any of the large article directories, you'll find all kinds of resource boxes that say something like this:

Joe Schmoe writes about topic X for the Topic X website. Boring!

Would that really make you want to click through and visit that site?

Now how about the following:

Are you frustrated with trying to find good Topic X information on the internet? Are you seeing the same recycled information on every website you visit?

Well, I've got good news - you'll find all the stuff you're looking for about Topic X at www.TopicX.com. Plus, you can get a copy of our special report "What They Don't Want You To Know About Topic X" absolutely free. Go to www.TopicX.com right now to find what you've been searching for.

Isn't that a little more exciting? Do you think people would be more likely to click through to your site when they read that?

Okay, I promised 3 tips for writing a good resource box, so here they are (that's part of tip #1 right there):

1. Offer them something and then DELIVER it. If you promise them a special report on whatever your site is about, give them a special report. Not just a bunch of rehashed information they could have found on any other website.

Make it unique. Something they'll learn from and remember so the next time they need information, your website will be their first stop.

2. Quit talking about yourself. Your reader doesn't care about how long you've been working in the field, what letters you've got behind your name or even what your name is, for that matter.

Tell them why they should visit your site, offer them something valuable for doing so and give them the link to click.

3. Include an anchor text link and the plain address for your website.

That means you'll have a relevant keyword that links to a page on your site (it doesn't always have to be the home page) and you'll also include somewhere in the resource box.

In spite of the "rules" of the article directories, not everyone who posts your article on their site will include the live links back to your site. If you have the plain address in the resource box, it will still show up on their site. It may not get as much traffic as a live link would, but it's better than no link at all.

So there you go - 3 tips (as promised in the title!). If you use these tips, you'll start to see more traffic to your website and more subscribers, income, or whatever else is your goal.

After an article about writing this resource box, I guess the pressure's on, right??? Okay, here's my offer - the new free article directory Zogol.com lets you submit your articles for other webmasters to use on their sites, or you can pick up articles on various topics to use on yours.