Hannah McNamara

You have probably heard that a lot of coaches write articles as a way of promoting their coaching practice.  You may even have written articles yourself.

However, I hear from time to time that coaches have invested time and money in getting articles published, but tell me that it hasn't resulted in any new business or even extra traffic on their website.

Like any other marketing method, you need to include a clear ‘Call to Action'.  In other words, you need to tell the person you're talking to what to do next. 

“But I did tell them what to do next!”

OK, let's be honest here.  Do you mean you said something along the lines of ‘For more information visit www.mywebsite.com' or ‘for more information call this number'?  Exactly what information are you going to provide to them when they visit the website or call your number?  If you don't know, you can't expect other people to know either.  And when people are confused, they won't call or go to your site.

Yes, some people do use article marketing to create inbound links to their site and if you're taking this approach, you might not care much about a call to action as long as there's a live link to your website.  Remember that the search engines are programmed more and more to behave like humans - to ignore obvious marketing techniques and seek out interesting and useful content – so write your articles with the end user in mind, use the same kind of language that they use (as exactly as you can) and in most cases, the search engines will find you.

There are lots of ways to maximise the impact of your articles, but by far the most effective is to work on what's called your ‘Author's Resource Box'.  That's the paragraph at the end of the article which tells the reader more about you and where to find more information.

Forget about trying to sell coaching sessions here.  There simply isn't enough space for you to sell your services effectively, even with the best article in the world.  What you want to focus on is lead generation and data capture.  Offer something relevant to the article in exchange for their contact details.  This could mean you offer a free e-book, download, CD or set of tips delivered by e-mail – use your imagination. 

You do this by setting up a ‘squeeze page'.  This is a page on your website where all it does is promote your gift or bonus and ask them for their details.  Then in your resource box you send them directly to the squeeze page – NOT to your home page.

Once you have added the visitor's details to your database you can keep in touch with them via your newsletter or ad hoc updates and promotions.  Treat your articles as the first stage in the marketing process, not the entire marketing process.