Friday, October 7, 2011

The zeigarnik effect.

What is it, and how on earth does it apply to article marketing?

The web (wikipedia) definition of the zeigernik effect is as follows:

In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.

So how does this apply to article marketing, and why is it so important?

Well, you need to bear this in mind when writing your articles.

It should apply strongly in at least FOUR areas: the title, the teaser paragraph, the last paragraph and the bio box.

The idea here is to make the reader want to click through and carry on reading. You need to steer away from actually completing the article, and leave some intriguing, ‘untied ends’, so that the reader desires to continue reading on, even if that means clicking through to your website (which of course is what you want).

As mentioned, there are four areas to apply this too, and the first one is the title. You need to create intrigue enough to make them wonder what the article could possibly discuss.

For example: “5 Things You Should Always Do Before Leaving The House”

Next is the teaser. It’s called a teaser paragraph for a reason, and if you can help it, you should avoid simply copy and pasting the first paragraph.

If speed is important, one thing I find effective is to stop the sentence part of the way through and put ellipses (three dots…) just when you’re about to answer a question. This will pull the reader through to read the rest of the article.

For example: The following article will discuss 5 things that you should always do before leaving your home. I’ll bet that you’ll never have thought of the number one thing you should do, and I guarantee you haven’t been doing it. And that is…

Last is the final paragraph and resource box. You could use this technique solely on the resource box if you want, as I know that Ezine Articles let you use up to 300 words.

You need to tell the reader that what you have discussed in the article is only a little bit of information, and if they want the full facts, they better click through to your website.

“These 5 things are only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to leaving your house. And if you want to be safe, I’d encourage you to read the extra 15 tips over at mywebsite.com”

You need to be compelling with your articles. I know this can be a little daunting when you’re concentrating on cranking out as many articles as you can, but it won’t add too much time onto article creation, whereas it WILL encourage waaaaay more clickthroughs.

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