Why use Articles in MLM & Network Marketing?

Lead generation is possibly the most important element of any mlm network marketing business, and lack of leads is probably the single biggest reason that businesses fail. Let's face it, whether you're marketing face-to-face or using internet marketing methods, without people to speak to, your business is dead in the water.

So why use articles? What value do they have in network marketing?

Simply put, they're only one method of lead generation but, done properly, they will bring you success. Whether you're new to internet marketing or not, you'll quickly realise that in order to be noticed online, you need to be recognised by the search engines and, if possible, get yourself on page one. We all put our keywords into the seach engines, and only look at the first couple of pages don't we? So anything on the other pages often gets missed.

Ok, so accepting that articles work, how should we approach them?

Well, in truth you don't have to be a professional writer, and they don't have to be more than, say 350 - 500 words long, but they do have to be interesting, and they do have to have content that is useful and valuable to the reader. Try typing one out in Word or notepad etc because that's a format that will be familiar to you. It can be copied and pasted into the article box when you're ready.

Make sure that the article is written in your own words. Not only will it come across much more naturally to the reader, but plagerism is frowned upon within article sites.

Start with the headline. Make sure you use one of your main keywords in the headline and make it one that the reader will want to click into. Make sure also that you use your keywords in most, if not all, of your paragraphs. Network marketing is all about lead generation, and the more the keywords are used, the more they are likely to be noticed by the search engines.

Write your content. Make it interesting and useful. The aim in your article is not to self-promote. In fact most article submission directories won't let you. If you want to attract people to your network marketing business, you need to build a relationship, and you won't do that if you're constantly trying to put yourself in front of people. Give them some good material that will really help them in their business, and they are more likely to trust you and maybe even join you in your business one day.

Next, use the resource box to tell people who you are. Put a link to your website, blog, sales page or other contact and this is where people will go to find out more about you if you've given useful content.

Once your article is complete, preview and submit it, then submit it again to another article directly. Try to choose, say, five good sites and post your article to each one. A good way of testing which article directory is working best for you would be to use a different contact address in your resource box for each directory - you'll soon see where your network marketing leads are being generated best.

If you're not sure which article sites to use for your product or service, type your keyword into google or other search engine, and see where the highest ranking articles are coming from.

Finally, put a link to your article onto your blog, newsletter, web page, emails, social networking sites etc etc to get maximum exposure and free leads into your network marketing business.