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This post was submitted by guest blogger Sharon Hurley Hall.
There’s been a lot of talk in the last year or so about the death of article marketing. Article marketing is using free articles to promote yourself and, in my opinion, it’s anything but dead. In fact, it’s a great way to promote yourself and your services. And if you have a blog or website already, it doesn’t even have to be hard work. Here’s how to use it.
First of all, you need an article. You can write one from scratch, rewrite a blog post or just use one of your posts as is. If you’re worried about duplicate content, then wait six months or so before using old posts and update them if necessary. You will get the Google juice from being the primary source.
Article Marketing And Blogging
Articles for article marketing are very much like good blog posts. They address the reader directly and provide something of use or value. You will also need to think about keywords (think tags and you’ll have the right idea) and to write a brief summary (two to five sentences) which will sell your article to potential audiences. Like a blog post, a killer title is a great idea. Finally, you need a bio box, with your elevator pitch and a link to your site or resource. Once you’ve got all that together, you’re ready for the next step - finding an article directory.
The truth is, they’re not hard to find. There are hundreds, if not thousands, and it’s more difficult to decide on one than to find one. To save you wasting your time, I’ll tell you about my favorite one, EzineArticles. It’s easy to sign up, articles are approved by editors and you’ll find your articles in search engine listings within a couple of days. Most people who use article marketing have their particular favorites. Other great directories are GoArticles, which works like EzineArticles and Article Marketer, which is an article distributor.
Using Article Directories
Whichever one you choose, it’s a simple matter to upload the article and have it picked up by thousands of websites, all with links pointing back to your site. It’s true, they are not always quality links, but there are a lot of them. What’s more important than the links, I think, is the traffic. Lots of people see these free articles and come to visit your site. It’s your job to keep them there when they land. [Collins opinion: I don't even bother with the traffic as it doesn't compare to the search engine traffic you get from all the links, however any extra free traffic shouldn't be argued with]
To get the most out of article marketing, publish a steady stream of articles, so that there are always fresh links to your site or blog. The people who get the most from it have hundreds of articles out there. I’ve got about 40 and I still get traffic from them, even though some of the articles are three years old. Article marketing rocks because it is a free way to promote your site, it is easy to implement and it is effective. What’s not to like?
Back to creating quality content, and then how to get it out there so one can garner exposure, links and hopefully some traffic. Glad to see there is life left in article marketing, as I thought blogging had pretty much starved those avenues of content.
I’m still finding it useful, but I now use my blog content as a basis for my article marketing efforts.
Yah, some of the few articles I have submitted have gotten some good PR from Ezine,which gets passed to my site… i really should use article marketing more.
I don’t see reasons for marketing an article that promotes blog but I do article marketing for the sake of promoting services and products….
i think articles helps to get traffic and in the same time it works as back links …so they rocks still
-Sri-
Article marketing is an excellent free, easy way to bring traffic to your site. It also helps to build backlinks to your site. It only takes a few minutes to type a 400-500 word article and post it to one of the directories.
I haven’t had much success from this. I don’t know why but it didnt work for me.
Would you recommend submitting the articles to multiple directories?
Definitely takes quite a few articles to start getting sizable traffic with article marketing. Just a few a month, hasn’t worked for me in the past.
But if you are consistent and keep submitting articles with a good resource box that has a free offer. People will find and click on it.
Steady frequent articles add up. Once you get 30 articles out for a few different keywords, you see traffic.
As Debby says, it doesn’t take long to create an article. Though the backlinks aren’t high quality, the traffic is useful. I’ve had jobs as a result of people finding my site by following an article link.
I do my own form of “article marketing” by creating content at Yelp.com….brides read my commentary on wedding venues and then they call (or e-mail) me for my DJ Services. Another good avenue is the Yelp Forums, called “Talk”, even though the links are No Follow, they still get counted by Google in the number of links reported at GWT. By posting in the Yelp Forums, I’ve become somewhat of an “expert” in my field (weddings, DJs, music) and use this as a way of getting additional traffic. Yelp “Talk” is becoming the local (and more popular) form of Yahoo Answers.
I’m actually running a 30-day article marketing challenge I started about 5 days ago. Everybody says it either works or doesn’t but nobody is offering proof yet.
I think the articles are the main key for one’s site traffic
I agree with Julie. I have written dozens of articles on various topics and I always notice a big boost in viewers to my sites.
I use Ezine Articles, but I also like American Chronicles … I seem to reach a broader market and get significantly more views.
Nice post Sharon, and thanks for reaffirming a technique I’ve come back to.
I’ve run two 30-day article marketing experiments — one in October/November 2006, and the other one in May/June of this year. And I’ve also written an ebook on the subject, as well as a few dozen articles on it and I can say emphatically that article marketing works — if you do it consistently.
For more on how/why, read my recent post on BloggingTips.com, How to Increase Ebook Sales with an Article Marketing Blitz.
FYI, the comments section of this article provides some useful information b/c of the questions asked (and answered) here.
Yuwanda
There is just no substitute for good quality content, as this post points out yet again. Getting your content out there is definitely key to online success!
Totally agree with the sentiments expressed here. We find that it doesn’t seem to matter how old an article is, if the content is relevant and well written, it does bring traffic into the site.
There is definitely an art to article marketing and I agree, it’s anything but dead.
Most people may already know this but as I’m pretty new to article marketing I’ve found that if I upload at least 1 article per day to a few directories then I get picked up by sites who use articles as their primary source of content.
Free links baby!
That is such a great article. You can still gain so many links from a quality article and you can target some new keywords as well. A good article writer is wort his or her weight in gold.