Article marketing is most probably the most effective link building strategy in existence. Picture it this way. Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you will submit. Inside this resource box, you could include a link to your website. If you will submit just one article to 100 article directories, you will in time receive 100 back links to your website (in theory, sometimes not all of them are picked up by the search engines). There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web!
Now, if you will submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you’ll get close to 500 back lines over time.
The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks. We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your own pages’ search engine standing!
All seems rosy with article marketing, but as with everything else, there are doubts as to its real nature.
Let’s have a no hold barred, truly in depth discussion about the matter, by asking the questions you always had in your mind but had no opportunity to set loose. Let’s begin.
1. If I submit the same article to many article directories, won’t it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?
No, it won’t. Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines would assume that the submitted content is their original work. This is the reason why a lot of article directories are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they encounter, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services. They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR articles as well as articles imbued with affiliate links.
2. Does this mean that I could submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?
No! Since the search engines would assume that the higher ranking websites are the originators of the content, your web pages would be distinguished as duplicates, and this could possibly lead to the de-indexing of your website. You wouldn’t want this to happen. (Please see comments below for more debate on this point)
3. Could I submit as many articles as I could to as many article directories as possible?
Yes, you could! In fact, this is very much advised, to build up your link popularity and secure for your website a great page rank.
However, please bear in mind that search engines, and Google in particular, become quite wary about a website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that before you submit another article to the article directories, you have to wait for at least 3 weeks after your last submission.
4. My page views are quite low. Does article marketing really work?
Yes, article marketing does work! If your article’s page views remain in low levels, ask yourself the following:
a. Is the subject of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?
b. Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?
c. Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation?
d. Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you want to share?
e. Does your resource box/autor bio compel the reader to click on your link
These are the factors that contribute to low page views. Doing some necessary editing to correct these problems can dramatically increase the number of times your article would be viewed. Additionally, some article directories really attract a few visitors. But the popular ones like www.ezinearticles.com , www.goarticles.com and www.isnare.com should give you hundreds of readers in a month’s time.
5. How sure am I that my article would be kept intact by people who would use it in their own websites or eZines?
You can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article, and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster honored your resource box. If he did not, you could ask him to include the same, or you could file a complaint with the article directory so that they themselves could act on the matter. Vigilance is the key.
Have a great day.
Regards,
Mark Flavin
P.S Please leave your questions, comments, tips & recommendations below. Just click on the comments tab.
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Some good advice here. However, I disagree with your point about not having articles on your own site as well as in directories. You suggest this shouldn’t be done. However, if what you say happened in terms of how the search engines perceive the origination of the text, then this would actually mean that any web site that used articles from a directory site would also be penalised. That in itself would make the whole concept of article directories nonsense. We should never forget that our web sites are for human readers, not search engine spiders. That means if you write articles, but don’t include them on your own site, you will look a bit “shady” because you are not prepared to use your own material on your own site, even though you’re happy for it to be elsewhere. Hence from the human perspective you must include articles on your own site that you also have on directories. If, however, you are worried that you’ll be found out by the duplicate content rule within the search engine spiders (and I haven’t been on a web site that’s used my own articles for the past 10 years) then all you need to do is to stop your article pages from being indexed with the robots.txt file – as advised by Google itself in its webmaster guidlines. Doing that means you won’t suffer the duplicate content penalty, but will benefit from the human impact of the article on your own site.
Hi Graham,
Thats some great advice! As I’m sure you know, no one can be sure how Google filters duplicate content.
Sometimes it’s just better being a bit safer then sorry. But that’s a great tip about using the robots.txt file to keep Google from indexing those articles on your own site.
Thanks.
Mark
How much would an article have to be altered if it had already been posted on a blog for example before it could be submitted to an article directory?
Mark,
Do you use article submission services or article submission software? I have 28 articles that I have posted on Ezines Articles and I make $300 to $400 a month in affiliate commissions with these articles.
Should I submit these same articles to a bunch of other directories with a service…or just submit the same ones to the top 4-5 sites?
Thanks for the help!
Rusty
Hi Rusty,
I would sumbit them to http://www.goarticles.com and see how the results go. If the results are positive then submit to the next biggest directory & so on.
Mark
Some great advice above. I think though that sometimes people new to writing articles publish a couple of articles and expect a flood of traffic. It does take time and patients to get results, a bit like a newspaper columist building up a following.
However, when you are estabilished and have hundreds, if not thousands of links back to your site, then they can be there for years and years, long after the PPC advertising that you paid for has gone.
Although it may take some time to write an article, in the long term it is actually not only cost effective, but it is time effective too.
Regards
Charlie Wildish
Hi Mark,
I am Haswin. I would like to thank you for your information about the internet marketing. Frankly, I am a beginner and know nothing about it. I am right now writing a series of lessons in Indonesian Language in my blog. I will be please if anyone can learn from my lesson. I think it will be useful when you plan to travel to Indonesia – Bali, Borneo or Sumatera. Thanks
Mark,
I love your blog. I read it every time you do an update and I’m learning tons. Thanks for the prompt answers to our questions.
Hey…do you take requests for topics? I am new to blogging. I am deciding whether I should go with WordPress.com and write a blog hosted by WordPress or WordPress.org and download it to my own server.
I know there is a benefit to doing it with WordPress.com, since I can get indirect rankings because it is an authority site…but with WordPress.org, I can use all the plugins and have more controll.
Any blog suggestions would be great, since your blog is awesome!
Cheers!
Rusty
Hey Mark… very well written article!
Now, I’ve got a question for YOU regarding the hierachy of your blog.
Just interested to know “why” you have chosen to place your keyword-loaded category titles ‘across the page, immediately beneath your blog post.
Is it just a personal preference? Or is there some other (possibly SEO-related) reason why you’ve chosen to format it this way and NOT the usual way i.e. vertically listing your categories on the right-hand or left-hand side of the page.
I was also wondering if there was any SEO-related rationale behind posting the article-in-question to so many different categories in the first place?
I love learning about blogging techniques and your comments in this regard would be welcomed:)
Cheers,
Smeatz
Hi Smeatz,
Yes it’s all to do with SEO. The tags across the post lead back to wordpress pages with high PageRanks & of course a link to my blog is now on these pages.
Now how well this tactic will work, I don’t know yet?? This is my first serious attempt at blogging & its only been up two weeks. So maybe in a few weeks we will get a better idea of how these tags are working out.
Also I noticed you called the links categories, but they are actually tags, much like technorati’s tags. Here is a great explanation on the difference between the two: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/tags-are-not-categories-got-it/
Mark
Hey again, Mark… thanks for the explanation. Can I ask you “what tagging software are you using to generate these potentially valuable (High PR) back-links?
On my most recent two Blogs (including one still under construction) I have built the (WordPress) sites using a Semiologic Pro platform and incorporated Sean Wu’s “Auto-Social-Poster” to generate masses of valuable back-links from 19 different authority sites.
Another absolutely brilliant link creation tool I use is called “Comment Hut”. I think I paid $67 for it late last year and it has enabled me to track down “thousands” of high PR blog sites across all the major blog platforms.
However, I am VERY intrigued to know how you managed to score a bullseye on WordPress.com!!! Nice work!!! Please share your “secrets” in this regard:)
Cheers,
Smeatz
Great tips…..
Putting them into practice this moment
Keep it up
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