How to Write Your Resource Box - Article Writing for Affiliates Day 5

Day 5 - How to Write Your Resource Box

Although every element of your article is important, the most important are the title and the resource box. The title will determine if your readers read the article. The resource box will determine whether or not visitors click through to your site.

The resource box is like a mini ad for your business. You don't want to write something that is too commercial. You want to create a resource box that gets your article readers to click through to your website.

There are two types of resource boxes you need to create: a text resource box and an HTML resource box. The text resource box is plain text, something you could write in a text editor like Notepad. Text resources boxes are no more than 250 to 300 characters long. You create this resource box for sites that only accept a text resource box.

In an HTML resource box, links to your sites are made clickable. This means that when readers click on the link, it will take them to your website. You will need to write a small piece of code to create an HTML resource box. An HTML resource box is no longer than 500 characters.

What do you include in your resource box?

1. Establish your knowledge of the topic in some way. Tell others you have more information on your site. If you offer an e-book, newsletter, e-course, or some other resource, you can use this.

2. A link or links to your websites. One link to a website is good; two links is even better provided both links are relevant to the topic.

For example, if you own two websites, a hair loss resource and a gardening resource, you don't want to send readers to your gardening site if the article is about hair loss. The purpose of your resource box is to lead your readers to your site. Make the links you include relevant to your topic.

3. Don't give your life history. Unless your article is about child care, potty training, or another topic where it would be relevant, readers don't care about things like how many children you have. Your resource shows others you know what you are talking about. What you say in your resource box must be relevant to your article.

4. Don't include affiliate links in your resource box. You already know not to do this with your article. The same principle applies to your resource box unless the site you are submitting to accepts affiliate links.

If you do include affiliate links, you may be able to bypass this rule by using a redirect page. A redirect page will make the link look like the page is part of your site instead of leading to a different site. Some sites allow this, and others don't. Check the guidelines before submitting.

If all else fails, you'll need to buy a new domain and point it to the affiliate site you are marketing. Your best bet is to simply build a content site and send readers to it. Point readers to relevant pages within your site that offer more information.

Once you've completed your resource box, the only other element to consider is your keywords. If you chose keywords for your article at the beginning, you've already completed this step.

In our next lesson, it's time to submit your masterpiece to the article directories.

Get the most from your articles. Read the Best Practices Guide to Article Marketing. This guide will help you get the most from your article submission because you'll write articles the article directories want and readers will love.

Ready for the next lesson?

Go to Day 6 - "Submitting Your Article"