Your author bio is a vital part of your article marketing campaign. It must append every article you write, and contains links to your site, sometimes directly from text. (Not all article directories allow your text to link... EzineArticles does though. From PR6 pages. Read their submission guidelines before you go text link crazy though...)

No matter what your specific article marketing goals, your author bio will play some role, so here are some guidelines to make yours work hard:

- Make your bio between 60 and 80 words. Some sites allow more, some a little less. Get in the middle and you won't have to fool around when it comes time to submit to directories. You should have a succinct message anyway.

- Make your #1 keyword link to the page you'd like to show up for that keyword. My guess is you'd like your index page to show up for your #1 keyword. Use your #1 keyword a few times in your author bio in addition to your link. I'm assuming you've already done some pretty extensive search engine optimization of course.

- If you're trying to drum up leads include your phone number and email address. Create a new email address for article marketing purposes because you're going to get lots of spam once you've put it online. And you can track leads or inquiries that come directly through your article marketing innitiative.

- Nail down your key marketing message, whatever you've determined that to be. All the better if it includes your #1 keyword.

Again, if you know your specific article marketing goals be sure to put them in your author bio. My goals are to build links and generate some reader interaction.

In the interest of taking my own medicine, and following EzineArticle's guidelines (2 non duplicated urls), I decided to revise my old author bio (currently at 55 words): Need help with article ideas? Stumped on where to find publishers? Send questions and article directories not on my list to gfrench@gmail.com. Garrett French is a search engine engineer for Websourced.com (linked to site) and conducts branding and link building research with his article marketing (linked to site) blog. You may republish this article if you include all links.First of all it's pretty flat. "Need help with article ideas?" Let's see... My main goal is for people to write me with article idea questions so I can show off my skills in understanding a business' target audience. I think I should go a little broader with my request though: "Send me your article marketing questions for free, quick answers."

I'm going to open with my "build links and brand" pitch, which captures the two main benefits of article marketing - two things I imagine most businesses want to do online.

I also added some idea of the kind of free service I'm offering: "article topic suggestions and key industry media identification." I hope this will lure some people in to writing me.

I do want people to send me article directories I haven't found, but I think that waters down my overall message, which is for people to write me with their questions. So I'm cutting that part out.

In the third sentence, which starts "Garrett French is a search engine engineer," I'm changing that to say "Garrett French is a search engine marketing (with link to KeywordRanking) copy writer" which is more accurate and will throw a little link benefit to my employer.

So my new and strategically optimized 65 word author bio reads:

Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send article marketing questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free article marketing brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key industry media identification. Garrett French is a search engine marketing copy writer for KeywordRanking.com and conducts branding and link building research on his article marketing blog. If you wish to publish this article, please retain all links.