Article Marketing:Two Simple Tips To Retain Higher Readership

One key to successful a Article Marketing campaign is have an article that holds your reader attention. Weak copy gives the readers mind the opportunity to wander and quickly lose interest in your article.

I want to show you two simple tips for spicing up your article and holding your readers attention.

To begin this lesson I'm going to use an perfectly acceptable article one of my students submitted for critique. Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this article -- the writer could have submitted this article as is and done just fine. But I'm going to do a before and after demonstration.

The unedited article is as follows.

Dogs are cute, cuddly and lovable when you bring them home, until their first accident. That is when you realize you have to do more than feed them, walk them, pet them and love them. You have to train them.

Follow these three dog training tricks to quickly and successfully potty train your new four legged best friend. Older dogs are easily trained in 2 days if you are diligent and consistent.

Trick 1 to Potty Train Your Dog - Be consistent with all activities, especially eating. Dogs will typically need to be let out or taken for a walk 20-30 minutes after they eat. Decide if you are going to feed your dog once or twice a day. Twice a day is preferred. Whatever times you pick, be consistent. If you decide to feed your dog before you go to work and when you come home, be sure you keep the same schedule on the weekends or days you are not working. Leave the food out a fixed period of time. Your dog will learn very quickly that they must eat when the food is there or they will not get any. Until they are trained, do not give your dog water 3-4 hours before bed. Make sure you take them out one last time before going to bed.

Trick 2 to Potty Train your Dog - When you take your dog out, always take them to the same place until they understand that they are to do their business outside. If you are using your backyard, take them to the same spot and give them a specific encouraging command. I use "Go - Go - Go - Go." Whatever word or words you choose, be consistent. They will learn to associate the sound of that word with the action you want. This also applies if you are walking them instead of taking them in your yard. Always stop at the same place when you first take them out and use your command word.

Trick 3 to Potty Train your Dog - At night and when you are leaving, keep your dog in a crate or enclosed area. Most people think that putting their dog in a crate is cruel but this is not true. In fact, most dogs feel safe in their crate or their "area" and will often go there just to nap. Dogs very rarely go potty where they sleep. As soon as you get up in the morning or come back after leaving, lead your dog from the crate directly to the designated potty area and give them your command word. Do not let them wander or get sidetracked on the way.

Most important with anything you teach your dog, always praise and use positive reinforcement. Dogs want their owner's approval. Praising, petting and rewarding them makes it easy for them to figure out what they have to do to get your approval. Dog training is easy but it takes effort and commitment on your part to be successful.

Now the "After" version of the article:

Dogs are cute, cuddly and lovable when you bring them home, until the first time they do their “business” on the carpet. Now as you’re retching uncontrollably while cleaning up the “accident” you wonder why the call them “mans best friend”.

It suddenly dawns on you there is more to owning a pet than feeding, walking, petting and loving them...

You have to train them too.

Listen, no need to be overcome with anxiety. And you can dismiss that image of being forced by your spouse and friends into dropping off your new “stinky” little buddy at the dog pound.

Simply follow these three dog training tricks to quickly and successfully house break your new little four legged best friend. Older dogs are easily trained in 2 days if you are diligent and consistent – younger dogs may take up to 7 to 10 days, but it’s a small price to pay for waking up to cuddly cuteness every day.

Trick 1 to Potty Train Your Dog - Be consistent with all activities, especially eating. Dogs will typically need to be let out or taken for a walk 20-30 minutes after they eat. Decide if you are going to feed your dog once or twice a day. Twice a day is preferred. Whatever times you pick, be consistent. If you decide to feed your dog before you go to work and when you come home, be sure you keep the same schedule on the weekends or days you are not working. Leave the food out a fixed period of time. Your dog will learn very quickly that they must eat when the food is there or they will not get any. Until they are trained, do not give your dog water 3-4 hours before bed. Make sure you take them out one last time before going to bed.

Trick 2 to Potty Train your Dog - When you take your dog out, always take them to the same place until they understand that they are to do their business outside. If you are using your backyard, take them to the same spot and give them a specific encouraging command. I use "Go - Go - Go - Go." Whatever word or words you choose, be consistent. They will learn to associate the sound of that word with the action you want. This also applies if you are walking them instead of taking them in your yard. Always stop at the same place when you first take them out and use your command word.

Trick 3 to Potty Train your Dog - At night and when you are leaving, keep your dog in a crate or enclosed area. Most people think that putting their dog in a crate is cruel but this is not true. In fact, most dogs feel safe in their crate or their "area" and will often go there just to nap. Dogs very rarely go potty where they sleep. As soon as you get up in the morning or come back after leaving, lead your dog from the crate directly to the designated potty area and give them your command word. Do not let them wander or get sidetracked on the way.

Most important with anything you teach your dog, always praise and use positive reinforcement. As you know, dogs crave their owner's approval. Praising, petting and rewarding them makes it easy for them to figure out what they have to do to get your approval. Dog training is easy however, as a pet owner you’ll need to add a few simple routines to your life to ensure an enjoyable relationship with your pet.

Steve’s Handy Writing Tips:

1- Thesaurus Dictionary.com

It’s easy to make your copy more interesting by spicing up just a few words. You can simply keep and eye out for opportunities do so and add more interesting word that pop into your head or use a thesaurus.

Here’s an example from the copy above. The word “want” has been changed to “crave” to spice up the copy. Small changes like in this example make the copy resonate a bit more and thus hold the readers attention.

Dogs want their owner's approval.

Dogs crave their owner's approval.

I recommend that you use what I call $3 dollar words and avoid using $10 dollar words.

For an example of a $10 word I’ve used retching in the copy above. Retching is not what I call a “common” word in the normal persons vocabulary, so I would avoid it. With the use of a thesaurus I’ve come up with replacement words that a broader audience would relate to.

Retching -

Synonyms: be sick, discharge, lose one's lunch, regurgitate, retch, spew, throw up, upchuck

2 – Idioms

The dictionary defines idioms as:

an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one's head, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

Using common phrases in your copy gives your reader a "comfortable" feeling. Readers will quickly identify with the author as regular person just like they are. And these common phrases hold the readers attention as well.