The 3 “Key” Characteristics of an Effective Article Signature
December 3rd, 2009 | 42 comments
When I started marketing with articles, several years ago, I went about it blindly. I didn’t do any keyword research. I didn’t put much thought into the body of the article and worst of all I had no idea what an effective signature, aka author resource box, looked like.
No keyword research is bad, but you can still get lucky and get some traffic from it. The body of the article should contain quality, but even decent articles can still drive traffic. But a bad signature will completely ruin any chance of that article driving traffic to your site!
There are three key characteristics of an effective Article Signature:
1. Relevant to the article topic – I’ve seen it done many times before and I’ve even done it myself years ago: Using the signature of an article strictly for link building, totally disregarding the relevancy of the link in comparison to the article. Sure, that link will count, but you can kiss any free traffic from that article good by. It should be common sense, but people do it every day. The links in your signature should be as laser targeted to the article as possible! The more relevant, the more traffic!
2. Effective call to action – Just linking to your site’s pages with a couple words around them doesn’t cut it. People don’t just click on random links for the heck of it. They need to be told where to go and WHY they should go there. If the article provides tips for painting a car, your signature should reflect that. Something like “To learn more about my advanced car painting techniques, go to http://www.mysite.com/ where I provide that and…” Stay on topic, tell them what they can get and tell them where they can get it. That means using at least one full URL in the call to action, not anchor text!
3. Proper SEO balance – This goes hand-in-hand with #2. EzineArticles allows 2 links in your signature. Some others allow 3. No matter what is allowed, one of those links should always be a full URL, without anchor text. The other one or two should be using anchor text. Remember, the primary benefit to article marketing is the direct traffic. At least one of those links that uses anchor text should be pointing to an internal page, if possible and relevant to get those SE spiders deep into your site and to increase the authority of internal pages. The problem is that many people don’t get much direct traffic from their articles because they don’t do proper keyword research and/or don’t know how to compose an effective signature, so they figure it’s all about the links.
———–
One thing you do NOT want to include, in most cases, is your name. Some people will recommend that you do so, but they typically fail to explain when and why. The only time you should mention your name in your signature is if you are aggressively branding your name in that niche and/or you are directly related to the topic of the article.
So, if you’re a typical niche marketer submitting articles about dog training to promote your dog training site, you definitely don’t want to mention your name. No one cares about who you are, as bad as that may sound. Your name is below the title as the article author and that’s enough. You don’t need to waste precious signature space talking about you.
On the other hand if you’re sharing a story or experience (for example) that you personally went through or you’re using article marketing to promote your personal consulting service (for example) then mentioning yourself in the signature is a good idea.
With all of that being said, don’t over think it. Most of my signatures are very similar. I only change the topics (obviously,) links and anchor text. In MOST cases (not all) the following will prove to be an effective resource box (I’ll use “hedge pruning techniques” as an example.) This is a made up niche:
“To learn more of my advanced hedge pruning techniques, visit http://www.advanced-hedge-pruning.com/ where I provide step-by-step instruction on how to prune shapes into shrubs and much more!”
image source: Markus Rödder
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3rd December, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Nice, succinct article. Thank you.
Question: What if your link is just a sales page and doesn’t really provide step by steps on hedge pruning? How would you word it so people aren’t pissed off when they get there? My ebook provides the step-by-step info, but not my sales page.
3rd December, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Once again on the money Josh! These plus the other one you had stated a week ago or so has totally changed the way I create my BIO box and Articles.
3rd December, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I’ve recently re-wrote my signature on EzineArticles to basically say “do you want to know more about how I do this? visit website.com.
Click-throughs from article views have significantly improved!
Cheers Josh
3rd December, 2009 at 4:28 pm
@ Marilyn – “If you would like complete step-by-step instruction on [keyword] visit [url] where I offer the leading guide on the subject” Something like that.
@ Simon – That’s basically a cut-down version of what I suggest. Test to see what works best, a little more or a little. It will probably depend on the niche, topic etc.
3rd December, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Thanks for the tips Josh.
Special thanks for providing a brief example of how to put your advice into action.
Cheers
3rd December, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The last time I tried a call to action on ezine they spanked me but will try it again. Maybe they are getting smarter and not meaner.
Thanks Josh.
3rd December, 2009 at 4:32 pm
@ 3rd – I’ve been doing it for 5 years. Maybe you were too aggressive and they say it as being spammy. I’ve heard Chris Knight, the owner of EA, recommend the use of a CTA, so they definitely aren’t against it.
3rd December, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I’ve tried several different resource box types, but I always go back to the type you talk about here (and I originally learned it from your $5 formula hehe).
3rd December, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for the reminder Josh. Article marketing is an area I will be utilising as a major traffic generator for my sites, and your reports and advice are always helpful.
3rd December, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Good point about not putting your name in the sig. I have always done it, but it never occured to me that no one really cares.
3rd December, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Hey Josh, Great points as always.
I agree especially with leaving out your name! In some article directories you space is limited to how much you can say. Ezine gives you loads of space to market your product or site… However, GoArtcles I’ve notices has recently reduced the amount of characters that can be included in the bio box.
If space is limited get the most from it!
Thanks again,
Joe
3rd December, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Another interesting thing worth mentioning is that I found that testing your bio box will also increase click through.
A good question is how to test your bio box?
Well, you could use an other affiliate link for example, but what I do is just writing a couple of articles in EZA with various resource box, and check the difference.
I found that when you include the word free video (in all caps) in the bio, this helps a lot.
Franck
3rd December, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Great article! You actually kind of lit a new fire under my butt! I kind of put article marketing on the back burner so to speak, while getting distracted with building websites etc. Back to article marketing it is! I guess i’ll have to review my signature as well!
Thanks..
3rd December, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Thanks for the reminder Josh. We learned our article marketing from you and got away from putting the full url in for a bit, but now will go back and change some and get back to doing it properly.
Cheers
3rd December, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I totally agree with using the resource box as a powerful call to action and harping on about your experience and name is a waste of space.
Only for egotists and building a brand! Or is that the same thing?
Alex
3rd December, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Right there in point number 1 & 2 is where I have been helped…and for free. You rock man!
3rd December, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one, Josh. It’s baffling how many good articles I come across, while researching, that are making the mistakes you listed. Especially #1. It’s also kind of irritating looking from a marketing perspective.
And I encourage everyone to test their article signatures. Take one of your resource boxes that is consistently averaging a good CTR. Make it your control (or one to beat). Use it on other articles, while making small tweaks. Watch the results.
Whenever you see an increase in CTR, identify the tweak you made. Then try it again. If it works again, that becomes your new one to beat. Anyway you look at it, that translates to more traffic with the same or less effort.
I average around 15% click through rates on EZA, with my articles. But I recently had an article hover around 40%, and is now settling into a 32% CTR. You better believe I’m using a variation of that resource box in my new articles.
Thanks for the post Josh. I’m not an expert, but the points you brought up are things that bother me when I come across some of these highly viewed EZA articles.
Btw, not sure when they did it, but EZA now has a column in the members area that automatically calculates the CTR of each article. Just thought I’d share that for those who didn’t know yet.
3rd December, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hey Josh!
Thanx for the article and the suggestions! I’ve been using 2 anchor text links in the resource box, one to my article and one to my main page. Looks like maybe I should make my main page link a full URL with no anchor text. I’ll change my format and let you know results.
Great looking blog, BTW…have the guys at Viral Content Magic setting up my Word Press blog so hope to be blogging soon.
Thanx again Josh!
Dan
4th December, 2009 at 12:08 am
Excellent advice as usual.
However, I don’t understand what the downside of anchored links is. What is gained by a pure URL?
4th December, 2009 at 2:01 am
David, if a publisher decides to use your article, and sends it out as an email in text format, all readers will see is your anchor text. So somewhere in your resource box, you want your URL typed out so that it is clear where your site is. Same if someone prints your article — they won’t have a working link, and thus won’t know where to go.
4th December, 2009 at 2:44 am
Thanx for signature info. I was actually told to use my name in it. It definitely makes more sense to do it as you say.
Great advice!
4th December, 2009 at 5:02 am
Nice Article Josh! I really like the tip about leaving a URL in the signatures. I read this in AMD and it was a kind of revelation.
The tip on not including name also makes sense.
4th December, 2009 at 6:58 am
Thanks Josh, as always a very imformative article.
I think I am going to go back over some of my articles and change them. I have never put the full URL but now thinking about it I am more likely to click on one.
Also my call to actions really need some help so will be changing those to.
Thanks again
4th December, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I completely agree with it that we should have to make our resource box so that it would be call to action. Well I am not getting much time to write article for submit article directories.
4th December, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Thanks Josh –
I just started article marketing about a month ago and was just looking at my ezine stats and was wondering what I could do to get more url clicks.
This helps.
Greg
4th December, 2009 at 4:26 pm
@ Kit Adams,
Thanks for the explanation.
4th December, 2009 at 4:39 pm
@ David – There isn’t a downside in regards to SEO, but in regards to direct traffic there is. People need to know where to go. If you can use anchor text for both links and can still tell them exactly where to go then go for it. But most people need to see the URL. What Kit said is another benefit to doing it, although very few legitimate publishers use article directory content these days.
4th December, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I didn’t understand why a URL is necessary if the anchor text is clickable. I guess some people don’t notice this or get it in a form that they can’t click.
4th December, 2009 at 5:32 pm
@ David – It all depends on how it’s worded. If you say “I offer advice on xyz at my xyz site.” and both instances of xyz are linked to, but you don’t say “go to mysite.com” your CTR will be lower because you aren’t making it obvious. It may be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to all of the article readers. If you make “xyz site” linked it would be fine.
4th December, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Nice post, Josh.
One thing I’ve had good luck with, and which I try to do with every article now, is make the signature part of the article. That is, make the signature the last paragraph of the article, literally. Make the article flow seamlessly into the signature so people will actually think it IS part of the article.
If your signature says, “Joe Smith is an expert in blah blah blah,” or even it says, “For more information on hedge trimming, click …”, that’s a signal to the reader that the article is over. And guess what? Boom, they’re on to the next thing without ever even reading your signature.
But if you do something like this (and this is just made up right off the top of my head) …
Last graf of article: “But studies show that 88 percent of those who suffer from panic attacks find “significant” relief when they use the following technique:
Signature: “The drop ‘n’ roll method, which is explained in detail at http://www.etc.,etc.”
As I say, this has worked well for me.
Dave
5th December, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Awesome! I was taught about article marketing and keyword research and relevancy but not much about the signature.
I had no idea that one should be a url and another an anchor text – tip #3 really hit home with me. Also a great tip to link internally to get the spiders in there!
Thank you so much.
5th December, 2009 at 8:51 pm
So true isn’t it? So many irrelevant resource boxes out there. Keeping the resource box relevant and on topic is a great tip all on its own. Thanks Josh.
5th December, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Thanks for the reminder on the importance of the resource box Josh and how to make the most of it.
6th December, 2009 at 2:45 am
Hi Josh!
Again, another very informative post for information-hungry newbies like me. And I didn’t even know EzineArticles allow 2 links in their author resource box.
And you are correct about keyword research on every article you plan to submit. I get a high every time I see articles I submitted landing on top 10. I sometimes even see 4 article directories carrying the same article landing on top 10. Now if I can only convert those top 10 articles into more traffic.
7th December, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for posting this Josh. The most effective resource box may depend on the type of niche you are in and as quite a few have already said, testing is the key.
If folk are desperate for a ‘quick fix’ to their problem, they’ll be more happy to buy straight from a sales page and you could use wording like Josh suggested or even try an adwords style resource box, such as:
Cure Acne Overnight
Want That Zit gone by morning?
Everything You Need Is In the Kitchen!
http://yourdomain.com
Link your keyword (Cure Acne) and the URL. Get ideas for your own niche by searching your keyword in Google and study the adwords on the page.
If you didn’t want to try this style you could still just use adwords to get ideas for your own wording, such as:
Believe it or not, everything you need to Cure Acne by this time tomorrow can be found in your own kitchen. Visit http://yourdomain.com for more details.
PPC advertisers spend big money on getting their ads clicked on – just as we want readers to do in our resource boxes, so it makes sense to use their hard work for guidance.
If the article deals with something less urgent, readers will probably need more pre-selling on a related blog article, review, free short report, mini-series, video etc: For example, your article could discuss a few ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ about your keyword, and then use a resource box like:
Want To Find Out More?
If you want free tips and and advice on how to cure hay-fever you’ll find a wide variety of natural cures that we’ve tested and proved work. Why not visit http://yourdomain.com and grab our free report. You could be 24 hours from being hay-fever free.
Again, link your keyword (in this case, cure hay-fever) and yourdomain.com.
Sorry this comment is a bit long but I thought it would give some useful ideas.
9th December, 2009 at 2:10 am
Excellent post. I agree with 100%. I started doing it that way and had better results branding the website versus my name. It is especially good to do that if you are in several niches.
10th December, 2009 at 10:19 am
The best part of your post is there should be an effective call to action. Gone are the days when “Click Me” works. Now, there should be a reason why they should click on it and what’s in it for them. However, some article submission sites doesn’t allow it.
I’m personally not too sure about not putting your name though. I believe that people usually follow experts that has the solution for them.
11th December, 2009 at 6:13 am
Thanks for the article and the suggestions. I’ve been using two anchor text links in the resource box, one to my article and one to my main page. Looks like maybe I should make my main page link a full URL with no anchor text. I’ll change my format and let you know results.
13th December, 2009 at 3:36 am
Josh, thank you for the tip about including the URL itself. I would never have thought of that.
P.S. I am reading this article while baking Christmas cookies!
17th December, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Hi Josh,
I too had not thought of the importance of using the the full URL. I didn’t know it made any difference. But I will take you word for it and do that from now on.
23rd December, 2009 at 12:06 am
Yes this is a common mistake of newbies to link to their home page twice in the resource box. I agree with you Josh and your great tips, that using the resource box to link to internal pages is the best option, sometimes it’s best to just link to 2 internal pages instead of the home page because it’s better for SEO to balance link amounts among the site.
1st January, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Hi Josh,
I just stumbled upon your blog. It’s great. I also noticed you are a veteran. Thanks for serving. Happy New Year. I wish you and your family a prosperous and healthy year.
Sue