Effective Article Distribution How Bad Article Titles Can Kill Your Article Publishing Efforts

Writing articles for distribution has been done for years both online and offline. It is a very effective way of increasing your client base, establishing you and your company as experts in your field, and online it can drive a lot of traffic to your website if done correctly. That however is the key to success with article distribution - doing it correctly. Unfortunately, far too many people make far too many simple mistakes that result in very poor performance from the articles.

In order for your article to perform its magic for you, you need it to be picked up and republished by as many people as possible. Sure you can simply crank out a generic article and toss it into an article directory and leave it at that. That will end up with your article being redistributed and picked up by some sites and ezine publishers. However, 'some sites' and 'some ezine publishers' should not be good enough for you. You want maximum distribution and maximum republication. To have that happen, you need to get people's attention. Getting people's attention is the job of your article title.

Because of the way article directories work people looking for content, such as your articles, are first shown article titles, and based on that they must decide if it is worth their time to click and read the article to see if they really want to use the article. This means that the more accurate and informative your headline is, the more likely they are to click through and review your article.

So, how do you make a headline that will attract people's attention and get them interested enough in your articles to actually read them and then choose to republish them? It is really simple, and only takes a moment of thought. Because article directory searches are keyword based (as is any search engine), you want to include your most important keywords near the start of your headline. This will ensure that your article will show up when people search for articles on your topic. You would be surprised how many people don't include any keywords in their titles at all. This is a MAJOR mistake.

Having done that, you then need to include a brief bit that explains what the article is about. This information is mostly for human readers and gives them instant information about your article and its possible value to them. What is essential here is that your title gives them a clear understanding of what your article is about and how it will help them reach their goals more quickly and easily.

Let's take a quick look at a poor article title and how it can be fixed up and made more effective. Since I enjoy fishing, I'll use that field for the example. Let's imagine that you own an online tackle shop and want to get more customers buying your fishing lures. So you write up an article that explains how choosing the right lure for the conditions and the type of fishing can make all the difference. For such an article a bad title would be:

Bad title: How to catch more fish

Notice how there is no mention of fishing lures in the title, and how many different things can help you catch more fish? Hundreds. But your article is about fishing lures. This can be made so much better with very little effort. For example:

Better title: Best Bass fishing Lures - Why choosing the wrong bass lure can ruin your fishing trip Better title: Fishing lures for trout - Your grandpa's secret trout hook still catches your daily limit

Both better titles start off with essential keyword phrases "Best bass fishing lures" and "fishing lures for trout". This will ensure they show up when people search for information on those topics. The second portion of both titles gives very clear information about what the reader will learn and gain from the articles.

Put this simple process to work when you write your articles and you will very quickly see improved results as your articles get picked up and republished by more people. Of course your article content must provide useful quality information as well, but that is a subject for another article.