In my last Article Marketing Fundamentals post, we discussed the article marketing skill of clairvoyance – getting into the mind of your ideal client so that you can write what she wants to read. Today's it's on to:

Article Marketing Skill #2 – Clarity

Great! Your ideal client searched online for a solution to her problem, and found a link to your article. It matched what she was looking for, so she clicks (while checking her watch – she only has a few minutes to spend on the computer).

She skims through the article, searching for key points, but only finds large blocks of text, one after the other. She dives in, but finds herself stumbling through long, run-on sentences that lose the point they started to make.

After a few minutes, she gives up, feeling disheartened to be no farther ahead with a solution. She clicks away from your article and moves on.

There are so many things competing for your ideal client's attention, including plenty of high-quality, free information. People simply do not have time to figure out what you're trying to say. If you don't say it clearly, they won't stick around long enough to read your author resource box and click through to your website.

To cultivate clarity in your writing, aim for shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs. Shorter sentences make it easier to focus on one point at a time. Shorter paragraphs create more white space on the page, which is easier on your reader's eyes.

Also, get in the habit of reading your work out loud before you publish it. That one simple step can highlight many common errors.

There are plenty of online resources to help you improve the clarity and readability of your articles, as well as reference books and style guides.

Watch for a discussion of the third article marketing skill – creativity – in a future blog post.

If you feel like you're lacking the discipline, skill or structure that you need to apply the power of article marketing to grow your business, contact me now to see how I can help!

Have you ever played a song on the piano, skated across an ice rink, rode a bicycle, put on makeup or cooked an omelet? Even if you haven't done all of those things, I'm sure you've done at least one or two of them. But can you guess what they all have in common?

These are skills that take practice. No one does them well the first time they try. Article marketing requires skills just like these, which you can learn, practice and improve.

Here are the three top skills that will help you to make article marketing magic and grow your business:

1. Clairvoyance
2. Clarity
3. Creativity

In today's blog post we will explore the first skill, and then stay tuned for future posts in the Article Marketing Fundamentals series.

Article Marketing Skill #1 – Clairvoyance

Imagine your ideal client, just rising to start her day. It was another restless night, worrying about the issue that's been bothering her for months now. She doesn't want to spend another night like that, so she searches online for an answer to her problem.

The question is – is she going to find that answer from you? Do your articles – especially the titles – use the same language that she would be typing in to the search box?

Article marketing cannot work for you if your prospective clients never read your articles. And they can't read them if they don't find them. And they won't find them if you're not writing about what they're looking for.

To cultivate the skill of clairvoyance, tune in at a deeper level in conversations with your clients, prospects, colleagues and friends. How do they describe the problems that you solve? How do they describe the solutions they're looking for?

If you feel like you're lacking the discipline, skill or structure that you need to apply the power of article marketing to grow your business, contact me now to see how I can help!