Article Marketing Strategy - What Is The Best Article Marketing Format to Attract Readers?

Writing free reprint articles for the internet is a lot different from writing articles for newspapers, magazines, or any type of offline publication.

Once you realize that there are article marketing strategies that you can employ to make your articles more attractive to readers, you will have an advantage over other writers on the net who are not yet savvy to the difference between offline and online reading.

What's so different about online content?

People who are looking at your articles online are viewing them via a computer screen or other electronic device. Their eyes have to work a little harder to take in the information. Their screen may be small, and the glare from the screen makes it hard to look at anything for a lengthy amount of time.

Also, online readers are on-the-go. They are searching for specific information, so they just want to get what they're looking for and move on.

People who are reading content on the web are also very easily distracted. They have all sorts of shiny and interesting things beckoning them to leave your article and surf all over the place. It is just plain hard to keep a web reader's attention.

There are some techniques that you can use to make reading your free reprint article easier though. Here they are:

1 - Write using shorter paragraphs.

Offline articles will sometimes have 5 sentences in a paragraph, but online articles do better with shorter paragraphs.

You can even use one or two sentences to make up a paragraph. It depends on how your overall article looks, but in general, refrain from having large blocks of text on your page that are not divided into paragraphs. Shorter paragraphs are easier for people to read.

2 - Use bullet points to highlight important parts of your article.

The bullet points serve the purpose of screaming "This is extra important--direct your eyes right here!"

Online readers respond to articles with bullet points because the information can be easily gleaned at a glance.

3 - Use numbered items in your article (like I'm doing here).

A numbered list helps guide your readers through your article. It helps them see your main points more easily.

4 - Use sub-headings.

Sub-headings are another great way to make your article easier to read and understand. They divide your article into sections, and the reader is instantaneously clued in to where the article is going.

5 - Get straight to the point.

Offline readers may be cuddled up with a book and have a leisurely amount of time to "get into" the piece that they're reading, but writers of online content do not have the luxury of meandering into their topic.

From the beginning of your article, it should be apparent what your article is about. Your points should be clearly made and formatted in a way that doesn't leave the reader thinking, "Now, what is he saying? I think I need to read this again."

Something that online readers love to do is scan. They don't usually read the entire article with 100% focused attention. They want to look at the article for a minute or less and come away with information that they need.

The 5 techniques covered in this article are designed to make your article easy to scan and easy to understand. Which of these will you use in your next article?


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Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot - and it's all 100% free! Get free blog articles now.