Making Article Marketing Work
UPDATE: In the comments, niche marketing blogger Andy Beard recommended the Article Marketer service as a viable method for article distribution. They even have a free service available, so if you're interested in trying your hand at article marketing, it's worth a try.
--------------------
I just happened across a post by Matt Jones, who's asking if Article Marketing is a Waste of Time. Matt submitted 20 articles to a couple of popular article directories and was less than impressed with the results (2 incoming links from low trust sites). Submitting to free article sites is one of the most commonly mentioned ways of building links and traffic for your web site, and I've even heard it touted as a means of search engine optimization. I think it's a complete waste of time.
Who Republishes Articles?
Think about the type of links you're going to get by submitting to article directories. Do any of the reputable sites you read post this type of content? The reality is that sites republishing free articles are generally of very low quality. Sites that regularly publish quality, original content aren't going to water down their pages with this sort of duplicate content. Instead, your article is going to end up on Made for Adsense sites with a lot of other republished content. Those aren't the links you want, and they're unlikely to drive much traffic either.
If you must submit to article directories, make sure you're writing new content to submit, and don't publish those same articles on your own site. At least that way you won't be hurting yourself with duplicate content. But if you're going to go through the trouble to write fresh content, there are better uses for those articles that can garner links from quality sites. Like most things worth doing, though, it does require a bit of work.
An Alternative - Guest Blogging
Instead of writing up your article for the free directories, consider writing it for a particular site as a guest author.
Find a few blogs that write on similar topics and contact the authors. Let them know that you're trying to get more exposure for your blog and you'd like to write an article for their site. You'll find many authors who are open to the idea if you make it clear that you're going to provide them with a quality article, meaning:
- Provide original content that will be published only on their blog (nothing you're going to publish yourself or submit to directories).
- Your writing should meet the site's editorial standards. Think of this like an audition, and a chance to attract new readers. Make it some of your best work.
- Solicit feedback on the article's topic. Be flexible (within reason).
- Show some links to your best blog posts to demonstrate that you can write a good post. Once you've done this a few times, show links to the other site's where you've written guest posts.
- No blatant self-promotion. No affiliate links.
Publishing on other blogs in this fashion is definitely more work. You have to write an original, quality article for each site, and you have to do the legwork to set up these guest blogging opportunities. The payoff, though, is that you can obtain quality links from trusted web sites. If you enjoy writing articles and want to be read by a wider audience, all while building quality links, you might find this method well worth the effort.
Matt wrote:
Matt
Kevin Henney wrote:
I think everyone is just repeating the same tired advice. It may have been useful years ago when the quality of links was less of a factor, but these days the search engines are smarter about which links they trust.
Andy Beard wrote:
You should stop pinging your blog as it is creating duplicate content, or maybe work out how to just publish your content on Technorati.
There isn't a duplicate content penalty, and in fact you are more likely to be looked on as the originator if 100s of articles point back to you as the original source.
Kevin Henney wrote:
Technorati, of course, only publishes excerpts, but I understand your point. But then Technorati isn't outranking Matt on searches for his own content.
In time, perhaps Matt's articles may be viewed as the original source. Right now that's not the case.
He submitted 5 articles to EzineArticles. One has a title that's too generic to expect to rank for. Of the remaining 4, EzineArticles takes the number one spot on google for a search on the full title. Matt's in the number two spot for 2 of those, #8 for another, and nowhere in the top 200 results for another. So it's difficult to say that the duplicate content is not having at least a short term negative effect.
What's google have to say about duplicate content? "Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article. Even with that, note that we'll always show the version we think is most appropriate." (emphasis mine)*source
But I respect your opinion, and it may be that, in the long run, the search engines will recognize the original author. Still, I do believe that majority of sites that republish content from free article sites are of low quality, and the links obtained from them are of little benefit.
I have no doubt that you've had success with your article marketing efforts, Andy, but I do believe that you're in the minority, and that experiences like Matt's are much more common.
Andy Beard wrote:
I actually took the trouble to look at the articles he is posting.
He is only using one link, without anchor text in his resource box, and he is not using it to link back to the original article.
Whilst I am not perfect on this myself, I found his resource box "uninspiring"
If I submit an article to EzineArticles.com and post t my blog the same day, I will outrank them within 1-2 weeks, depending on who was discovered first, and the 5 days it takes Google to include linking in their calculations. I should note that I have articles reviewed sometimes as fast as 4 hours.
As to what you bolded, if you don't value your content in your site structure, yes it is possible that a large site is going to outrank you. It is one of the reasons I submit to 500+ sites and not just one, because it is hard to argue with 500+ links back to the original.
It is good to question the benefits of article marketing.
It is equally important to test and track results
Comment link goes to a piece I wrote on how link attribution seems to work from my testing, and my interpretation of other people's tests.
Kevin Henney wrote:
I'm sure you've put a lot of effort into testing and tracking your methods, and I'll defer to your expertise and concede that article marketing can provide benefits if done correctly. Anyone who wants to give article marketing a go would do well to read your site (and I'd already read a lot of your writing long before you commented here).
However, I have to question the value of 500+ links, all from pages with substantially the same content, on sites that typically have very little original content. I'd much rather have one link on a site that publishes only original content related to my niche.
There's also the issue of limited resources, especially for new bloggers who don't have much of a budget for thier marketing efforts. Submitting to 500 directories pratically requires a submission service ($200/year for the one you recommend), plus the time spent learning to apply the methods you describe on your site. When your first experiences with article marketing are like Matt's, it's hard to justify pouring more money and time into the process.
No doubt you've given Matt some excellent advice on how he could improve, and if he decides to continue and apply those tips, I hope we'll see another update from him on his article marketing efforts.
Andy Beard wrote:
I ping my blog content, feedburner has a copy, lots of people scrape my content and some even have permission. It is all duplicate content and it all links back to me, to the specific original.
The price increases at at Article Marketer are actually quite new - what I always recommended is to go for an option cheaper than the ones you intend, even try the free option, because they have some great upsells.
Anything you spend money on has to be something from your profits.
Anyone not making money should set up some small niche sites, and just use the free option at Article Marketer to help promote them.
The biggest problem for new bloggers is they all try to start a blog about making money.
My blog when it was on blogger 2 years ago started the same way, but I just used it to discuss niche sites I was building.
I should also point out my methods of article marketing are different to what other people recommend, because I look on it from the perspective of how blog syndication works so well.
I won't argue the benefits of having a unique article posted on a site like Problogger.net, something like that is a no brainer.
Kevin Henney wrote:
I missed the free version of Article Marketer when I initially scanned the site. Using a tool like that can at least simplify the process of submitting to lots of directories.
matt608 wrote:
WOW, what a debate I started.. It seems I made some mistakes along the way with article marketing. I do still think for most people (including me) it is a waste of time, but for those who have the refined knoweldge and experience about it can find positive ways to exploit it. It is not a 'must use' technique for creating a successful site.
Gregg wrote:
Great advice. I never really thought about guest bloggers :D Also, I'd like to thank you about the subscribe to comments plugin...very much appreciated
Carol wrote:
I think this is the best way we can figure out things. It has definitey convinced me that article markrting is not a waste of time thank you so much i am totally convinced.Thanks once again its also great that u are inviting people to comment.
sky wrote:
Don't you think this can be a hit or miss? But, when it works, you can come away with real results.
Kevin Henney wrote:
You may not secure a guest blogging spot on every web site you reach out to. If it were too easy to be successful with this, it probably wouldn't be as valuable anyway :)
Adriana wrote:
I too, think that article marketing done right is still valuable. I don't post the same article to my sites and the directories.
There are other benefits to article marketing: your article could be picked up by a major publication.
One of my articles was picked up and ended up in an offline publication with over 50K subscribers, and it was also posted on their site. It was great exposure!
Another one of my articles was posted to a very busy forum, and resulted in huge traffic spike over that week.
Again, done right, article marketing is still very effective.
Post new comment