Ezine Articles Resource Boxes

What makes for a killer resource box when article marketing? I've always either been too PBS-news-report-y or too traveling-sales-woman-y. Striking a balance is incredibly difficult for me. Because of this, I've been using the Aunt A.I.D.A. technique.

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

First, I try to really grab their attention. This is really hard because my readers are usually in a complete trance after reading my articles. What can I say? I'm just that good...hehehe.

Next, I pique their interest. I normally use a question for this, but I want to test some other ways to go about it.

If they're still reading, I've got to hit this one outta the ball park. Really knock their socks off and make them almost salivate over and desire what you're offering. Rough example: a beginner golfer may not be interested in advanced techniques that will rev up their game in less than 24 hours, but a frequent golfer who's sick of losing to his/her buddies might be.

Hopefully, you were able to see where I was trying to go with that example. Throughout the preceding sentences, you'd really target that person, your target market.

Note: The above example may sound a bit too much like a sales letter, but the objective and general means are the same. You want the prospect to click your link for more information, so you use descriptive language. Easy-breezy formula, right?

Which leads me to the final ingredient (can ya smell what I'm cookin'?), action. If the prospect has kept reading through the previous sentences of your resource box, tell 'em what to do next. Er, I mean suggest what they should do next.

For example, in our golfer scenario, we might write something like, "If this sounds good to you, and you know it does, head over to My Golf Stroke Sucks to check out even more free information to get you swingin'." Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It may seem crude, but my CTR is about 50% using this simple strategy. Be sure to use anchor text (a.k.a. your target keyword) and not just the name of your website like I did.

There are A LOT of people doing much better than me in that respect, but if you're struggling with your CTR, give it a try and build on it.