Author Bio vs Resource Box
For someone new to writing and/or syndicating their articles, it may seem like the “Author Bio” and “Resource Box” below the article body are one in the same, but they serve two very different functions. Let’s take a quick look into each of these promotional tools to better understand what to do with them:
Author Bio (Biography):
- Purpose is to give a big picture view of why you, the author, are an expert in your field and who you serve by stating your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
- You can have a call-to-action in the author bio, but normally there isn’t one. It’s more of a summary of your expertise.
- Placement is usually on the author profile page that lists all of your articles (or in EzineArticles case, in the expert author bio and extended author bio page).
- May include your primary business website address, your blog address, and sometimes your personal website address.
- Can be lengthier than your resource box, but should not spill over into every expertise you have under the sun.
- Should include a professional author photo.
- Often used when you get interviewed by others.
Resource Box:
- Purpose is to give readers of a specific article, resources, where they can learn more about how to get more of what they were just reading.
- Includes a specific call to action that is highly relevant to the same content as the article.
- Placement is directly below the article body.
- Should include at least (1) http://Your-Company-Name.com/ website address so your readers can find you.
- In EzineArticles.com, if your author bio has a photo uploaded, it will automatically be used in your resource box in a thumbnail size.
- Important that you don’t include conflicting information in the resource box, such as other expertises you have that are not relevant to the topic of your article or other websites that you own that are also not related to the topic of your article.
Here are some selected quick additional articles to help you with this:
- Article Marketing 101: The Perfect Author Resource Box
- Writing Your Own Compelling Author’s Biography
- Article Marketing: The Five Indisputable Rules of Author Bio Creation (Dina’s talking about the RESOURCE BOX when she says Bio in this one)
- How To Write A Resource Box That Delivers Massive Traffic To Your Website
- Making Your Author Bio Exciting
- Why a Good-Quality Photo Should Accompany Your Articles
- Don Crowther on Marketing Photo Choices
Do you have a favorite RESOURCE BOX or AUTHOR BIO tip to share? Add your comment below:
UPDATED MARCH 6th 2007: Bonnie Jo Davis blogged about it.
Hey, Chris… maybe it’s time for me to edit that one article on “Author Bio’s” to reflect the proper terminology? :)
(I’ll wait for a bit before I do that though).
Thanks for the free advertising. I mean, in addition to web articles, which are already free advertising.
Dina
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