When creating your resource box (or boxes) at EzineArticles.com, you’ll want to make sure you cover four basic areas to ensure that your article also acts as a great advertisement for you and what you do. If your resource box takes these four things into account, then your articles will do more than just educate your reading public, they will act as a fantastic calling card for you and your business.
Brief summary of you
This is the basic purpose of a resource box, to share with the world a brief description of you and who you are. You want to make sure that you tell people things about you as a person and why you have chosen to write about this topic. The key here is to be brief. Don’t have a disjointed resume of yourself and your skills. When it comes to a resource box, less is more. Tease a bit about why you’re unique, but make them want to learn more about you.
Relevance to the topic of the article.
You also want to make sure that the information you’re sharing in the resource box is actually relevant to the topic of the article you’ve written. I have written articles on higher education (I was a faculty member and administrator for over 10 years), Internet marketing (I currently manage an affiliate marketing forum), and abundance and prosperity (I have published two books on this topic). I’m sharing these examples because if someone is reading one of my higher education articles, they don’t want a resource box telling them how to be a better internet marketer. Make sure the resource box is relevant to the topic of the article.
This is one of the best things about many online article sites. They allow you to create as many resource boxes as you want, and then you can associate the one you want to associate with the article you wrote. So you can have diverse interests and areas of knowledge, you just want to make sure you have diverse and unique resource boxes to combine. So make several, it only helps you.
Active link (not a redirect)
Article sites can be very specific about how many links an article can have, where they can go, etc. Instead of trying to beat the system or turning the article into a flyer for you and your company, use it to share valuable information. The more articles you write that help educate (rather than blatantly sell), the more attention you’ll get. If I do a search for an article relevant to my needs and find several articles written by the same person, I will trust them and want to learn more. This is where the active link comes in. Don’t worry about the links in the body of the article, let the article build your credibility and add the link in your resource box instead. Just make sure the link actually works and isn’t a redirect. The link is VERY important.
call to action
The final essential is to have a strong call to action. That’s why you want to have a short, teasing summary of yourself and make sure the resource box is relevant to what you’re writing about. You want people to click on your link (which is why the link needs to be active). You already gave them great content in the body of the article, now it’s time to get them to take the next step. Simple things like “To learn more about the tools discussed above, click here” can be effective. Too many people just write about themselves and then leave a link there. You have to tell them to click the link.
If you follow these four easy steps, you’ll go from a boring and ineffective resource box to a resource box that connects your reader with you and makes them want more. Your article is a marketing piece and your resource box is how you get them through the proverbial front door. Follow these four essentials and prosper.