We talked already few times on this blog about effectiveness of different off page SEO strategies and link building and we always concluded that article marketing is one of the most effective link building methods if not the most effective…
Now we will talk a little bit about why is article marketing so good for your ranking and why sometimes its not.
First we need to know that article marketing is done by two simple steps, first, creation of article and second, article submission to article directories. Creation is simple, you sit, write an article about given topic until you cover it. Then you insert your resource link and that’s it. Next step is submission of that article to your favorite article directory. Now most people here make first mistake, they submit same article to more and more directories and with each duplicate your article is less useful to people. Keep your articles on each article directories unique as possible… Some directories will even refuse just copied articles…
Now after your unique article is approved, see what we get…
First your article is submitted to site which has certain amount of authority. That authority will be enough for your article, to rank somewhere at Google. After ranking it will start to give you highly targeted traffic over your backlink in it. Highly targeted traffic means conversions and that is what we all finally are looking for.
Writing the relevant articles over time puts your site and you as an authority in the field. Why? Because you have knowledge about the niche, and you are showing that knowledge to the masses. Search engines are also among that masses, and once search engines will figure out that your site have knowledge and that you are giving it around, so in the end site will rank better. That means more highly targeted visitors and more conversions.
Simply, article directories are giving you opportunity to show your knowledge, something social bookmarking or directory backlinks can’t give you. It’s a different way. On social bookmarking users will say: that site is good, that site is relevant. But in the article marketing you will get chance that those users start telling that around.
All magic is in knowledge and relevant content and because of that article marketing is and will be highly effective link building strategy.
References:
Article syndication experiment
Article marketing
I started SEO project 192.168.1.254 to see can small micro niche site, strictly aimed, rank for one simple keyword. Everything went well, little bit of article marketing, little bit of social bookmarking and little bit of links from my existing pages did work like charm. Out of 227 000 results for 192.168.1.254 my site ended up second in place.
Only bad thing was is that my keyword is poor and is not getting any traffic thus no clicks on ads. Couple of cents here and there.
Those who don’t know 192.168.1.254 is an IP address from private range used as default router address from many manufacturers. However it looks that people dont have problems with the mentioned but those who have just in case can check these two hyperlinked articles for solutions.
Before starting to promote yourself through various social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, you should know that lousy done Social Media Marketing (SMM) will just eat your investment without real return of investment. However in cunning hands Social Media will bring you unthinkable amount of traffic, and we all know that traffic on internet means money.
There are two ways how can you do successful SMM campaign.
First one is to hire professional company to do it for you. If take for example Seop.Com we will see that they offer very catching Social Media campaigns. Advantage of using company is that they are already trained to get you relevant visitors from Social networks, which is the hardest part in this story (relevant visitors are must since only relevant niche visitors will convert into sales or clicks).
Other way is to do it yourself. There are few basic tips if you are personally building your social network:
- don’t call every single person you know (we need relevant visitors)
- help and contribute (don’t use social network to shamefully promote yourself, for example if you are on Digg then don’t bookmark only your pages, point is in sharing so don’t be afraid to link to other sites and blogs)
- connect with people from your niche by looking over the net for appropriate blogs or looking who responds and like your links
- be active (don’t just post links, comment other people efforts also)
- use videos (videos share is dramatically improving over the time, make how to videos, niche specific videos)
- use provocative content (this is relative but point is to get reaction)
- don’t use only one social network bring your business all over the net
Some of the most known social media networks are:
- digg
- facebook
- twitter
- myspace
- youtube
- flickr
- panoramio
- my.opera
- reddit
- del.icio.us
- technorati
- stumbleupon
- linkedin
Find niche communities and start being active there. For example if your niche is a garden oriented then googling will get you to the site as gardenweb.com, or if you are webmaster you will end up on NetBuilders or Warrior forums.
Social media marketing will not only get you traffic and valid visitors but will in many cases improve your serp and seo rankings.
Because of backlinks. Main thing is that from link directories you can get enormous amount of backlinks. However some of them are not anymore good backlinks and will be disregarded. Hence to find good directories like for example are yahoo yellow pages and business directory, you should watch on some directory basic characteristics.
Main things to watch about your directory are:
- Every site accepted
- Google page rank
- Traffic
- Directory indexed
- Are links “dofollow”
If every site is accepted that means directory is probably considered by search engines as a spam link farm. If directory has PR 0 and it is old, then it can be penalized for selling links. If you put your link on such directory, then it is possible Google will penalize you too. Is there traffic on the directory (check alexa, compete and similar sites) if no, then probably your link in directory will not gave you any traffic at all. Is directory indexed? If no then it is maybe penalized. Are links in directory dofollow? If not then you don’t have any use in term of SEO from them.
Now if your directory list is compiled based on this five points, your list has value, and backlinks from those directories will have real SEO value.
Have you thought about automating the article submission process? Well, you can do so something called article submission script. It’s basically a PHP server script that used to make the process of article submission simpler. Some can automate the selection of directories and filling the forms for you automatically. You can store your bio info there so that it can pull that data up whenever it submit your article. This can be a huge time saver, especially when you need to do a lot of submissions.
With the help of an article submission script, you can easily submit hundreds of articles to hundreds of directories in a few hours instead of days. And the end result is identical to manual submission, if you have picked a good script! Trying it first before you make the purchase make sure it is the type of script you need and has all features you looking for. Not every submission script is built the same way. Some would allow you to customize it, change the directories, save your bio info in the database and some will even fill in security code for you.
One down side of using such tool is that the directories are normally limited and there are foot prints of these. They will work ok for the time being, but as the technology get better, the search engine might be able to detect these foot prints and devalue these links from the directories. But nobody knows when that day will be, so you should be fine as long as you don’t spend days doing article submission and have other methods along with this one, then you will be ok. With all that said, article submission and marking has been around for a long time and it’s proven to work for many website owners, including the top marketers who are making over millions per year.
You should understand that good SEO services will cost more than the majority companies. Getting ranked in a general search engine like Google can take months before results can be seen. Some SEO specialists can get your site introduced to what are known as vertical search engines that are built to specialize in your niche. No matter what the ranking strategy, it all takes time and commitment. For example, an SEO and design firm might have not only ranking as part of its services but post-click analysis as well. The post-click analysis would reveal if incoming traffic is converting into sales. If the conversion is not favorable, the strategy would have to be adjusted. This could result in more time and cost but the outcome would realize more sales for you.
A website design service offering SEO will probably be a long-term relationship. And you should be skeptical of any website design services that tells you that it can get your site ranked in a matter of days. SEO is a lengthy and time consuming process because of the amount of work involved. For example, inbound link building requires time for article and link submissions to reputable sites utilized for these purposes. It takes time for these links to get picked up and aged. Also, having the articles written takes time, especially if you want them to get you traffic and link power. Some of the SEO tasks, you might be able to take on yourself. For example, if you are selling products, you can write descriptions that are search engine friendly. The SEO/design companies can give you advice on which keywords would be the best to use. You can also write articles yourself if you are an expert in your field along with the advice of the service you hire. You can then submit these articles to article directories to gain back links and traffic.
