When it comes to article marketing, there is a lot more to take into consideration than simply creating the article content. Even after you’ve finished conjuring up great content, your job isn’t done — yet!

When I’m all finished writing, there are three things that I always do to make sure that my article will be as effective as possible.

First – the title. I don’t like to title my articles before they are written because I end up trying to make the article fit the title even if I’ve come up with something better to say. I personally like to outline what I want to say, write the article, and then skim it to determine what my best points are.

Then the tricky part is making that one idea into a short catchy headline. Headlines are VERY important, because if your headline isn’t interesting, nobody will click on your article, read your resource box, or buy a product.

Second – the resource box. You might say that your resource box should be about you, the author of the article, but I’d say you were wrong! It’s doubtful that giving readers a brief bio about you will make you famous or help you sell products. But if you use that space to do a little advertising for your site, it WILL get you closer to more sales.

Find out how many times the article directory that you are submitting to will allow you to use links, and use them all! I try to use one text link in addition to writing out the entire URL.

Third – article format. Nobody is going to READ your article except for you. That’s right – well, not many people will anyway. Don’t fret however, because what a LOT of people are going to do is SKIM your article (if you’ve got a good headline of course)!

Readers are generally just looking for the most important information or assessing the article’s relevance to them. It’s your job to make the most important information easy to find.

So format your article for people who SKIM. The first sentence of a paragraph is the best place to put your most important information. Bulleted information and lists are also a great choice to make your articles easier for readers to digest.

Those three components — the title, the resource box, and the format — may all sound obvious and almost too simple to worry about. But don’t be fooled. I’ve learned that these components really require your attention if your articles are going to get plenty of traffic.