Without a doubt, articles are great tools for low-key marketing and promotion. Instead of writing cheeky ads that yell at the audience saying, “Buy my product now,” it’s much better if you show that you’re someone who can help them by demonstrating your expertise.

Once they know how you can help, they will read what you have to offer in a completely different frame of mind than they were in before reading the article.

Why do advertisers prefer ads disguised as editorial content? It’s for the same reason that articles build instant credibility.

Here are some of my personal article writing secrets that bring the best results, based on my experience writing hundreds of articles for my blog, sites, and other people’s sites.

1. Start with a strong headline

The title is like the newspaper headlines. They are the advertisements of the article. People often have limited time and when they want to identify which articles to read, they quickly do so based on the title.

If your article isn’t interesting enough when they skim through it, no matter how good it is, they won’t read it.

2. Strong opening paragraph

Once you’ve managed to get their attention, you need to keep them reading. If you start with boring statements, they will click the back button in the browser as fast as they look for headlines.

Tell them what is in the article that could benefit them. When they know, they are more likely to read further down.

3. Provide a call to action

The item is not a sales tool. The first purpose of an article is to educate. You can end the article with a short, clear call to action to get them to click through to visit your site.

You can offer them a free report to sign up for your email newsletter or pre-sell with more content on your website. What you want to do with traffic is the subject of another article.