As SEO‘s we already know that article marketing is a common method of building those all important one way links back to our pages. It is also used as an efficient method of building relevant traffic. Article marketing and other forms of content distribution can, if done correctly, make a massive contribution to the link acquisition process and guide your pages up the serps. The hope is that people who read these articles will also be interested in your web pages and therefore pushing highly convertible customers to your site.
Article marketing is one of my favourite link building methods and I want to spend a little time in this post showing you how I go about preparing an Article before it is published.
When it comes to article writing you have two simple choices; do it yourself or hire a professional content writer. I always prefer writing the articles myself as I can add my own personality into the content. If you do want to write them yourself I would definitely follow these general tips:-
1) Make sure the first paragraph of your article is focused on what your article is actually about. You need to answer those all important open questions, who, what, where, why and how. Some people like to start their article by creating a problem and then solving it through the article text. Either way the reader needs to know exactly what the article relates to.
2) Before writing make a bullet list of all the points you want to cover within the article. Structure them so they flow well from one point to the next.
3) Try to keep things simple. Not all the readers of your article will be of the same expertise, some may even be complete novices in the area. If you have to use technical terms simply define them to your readers ie SEO (search engine optimisation) is the idea of optimising your site for the major search engines…….. etc
4) Make your format reader friendly by using short paragraphs. I try to keep my paragraphs to 3 – 4 sentences as large bulks of text will put your readers off.
5) Try to back up the points you are making by giving examples of authority or personal experiences. You could use experiences when you have personally solved a problem or your company has. It helps make the article personal and reaches out to the reader.
6) Attempt to put some emphasis on the benefit of your product or service. Try underlining or bold to help readers identify the benefits.
7) Don’t be afraid of sharing relevant resources. Yes this may mean your readers visit other sites but it will ultimately build confidence in you and your company.
8) Look to others within your niche or industry to give their honest opinion on your article. Ask for feedback or things that would appeal them, that could be added.
9) Make sure the most important aspects of your article are placed nearer the beginning of the text. This is for 2 reasons i) it catches your readers attention early and ii) some editors will only show the first 2 paragraphs of your article.
Ok… we now need to have a little info about the resource box. This is probably the most important part of the article. You need to make sure info about yourself or your company is present as well as a relevant anchored, back link to your page. Don’t overload the resource box with unnecessary links, keep it to around 1-2.
The Common Mistakes
- Grammatical errors, spelling and punctuation are probably the most common errors of all and we all fall short now and again. The problem is that they damage the credibility of the article and will have a dramatic effect on the click through rate of your articles.
- Article marketing is all about setting yourself up as an authority, any hype or bragging, especially if it is untrue will defeat the whole purpose and will yield long term POOR results.
- Try to write about things your readers need, put yourself in their shoes and think about the type of things they may need to know about your industry
- Keep things in the article specific, if it is too broad the reader will soon lose interest and leave the page. You are looking to entice people to your site based on a specific theory, service or product.
- The headline of your article is normally what motivates the potential reader to click. Make it punchy and to the point. Tell people either what you are going to do or ask them a question.
- Do not plagiarize or submit somebody else’s content. Not only is this illegal but it could also damage the site you are linking back to. You need to be particularly careful with this when purchasing content. Use a duplicate content checker to help you filter out any rubbish.
Article marketing in my opinion is still the best method to get your content in front of people and build effective links back to your site. Here are some of my favourite directories.
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://www.webpronews.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.websitefuel.com/
This list is not complete by a long way and there are thousands more. I personally like to write 2 articles a week and submit them to my top 5 favourite directories.
I hope this helps you with your marketing efforts,
Cheers,
Tim,
Line BreakAuthor: Tim (292 Articles)
Tim Grice is the owner and editor of SEO wizz and has been involved in the search engine marketing industry for over 7 years. He has worked with multiple businesses across many verticals, creating and implementing search marketing strategies for companies in the UK, US and across Europe. Tim is also the Head of Search at Branded3, an SEO agency in Leeds.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Essential guidelines for new article marketer like me. Article marketing seems easier and even more effective than guest posting if you know to do it right.
@Phaoloo,
glad you found it helpful
re your comment:
I personally like to write 2 articles a week and submit them to my top 5 favourite directories.
(I think you may have changed that to 4 in a later issue)
Could you please confirm that the 2 articlest you submit are identical, without change, in other words duplicate content. Thanks.
I hope I got that right, you are my major guide in how to operate in this blogging world which I have just entered. Thank you so much.
Hi Jim,
Article marketing is one strategy for link building. I would personally write two unique articles a week about 400 words in length and submit to ezinearticles, articlebase, goarticles and articlemonkeys.com. In fact any article directory with a PR5 or above.
There are better ways to do this though and generate more links if you are willing to spend a little cash.
Myarticlenetwork – $47 a month and you can distribute unlimited articles and spin them to create more backlinks. You can also place you anchor text back link in the content (keep it in the first 4 lines)
Backlinksolutions – $97 a month, allows you to submit short articles to blogs with anchor text included. Can get some high PR links from this system.
Linkvana – $147 a month – same sort of thing blog submissions to PR3 and PR4 blogs. Highly recommend if your budget allows.
These are all a better option to traditional article marketing but if you don’t have a budget find 5 – 10 high PR article directories and write once a week.
Tim,
Thank you for your reply to my enquiry, but if I could just pursue it
a little further.
1. Not wanting to seem dense, but just to confirm that I have it right (
because I am going to follow you with it too — ) that the 2 unique weekl
articles you write are distibuted as identical copies, at the same
approximate time to the selected 4 or 5 article directories you identified
in your post.
2. You also suggested further options for wider distribution offered by
various services at different costs.
But is that not in conflict with the recent article titled
“Here is my new advice on article marketing and I will be updating the tutorials asap”
where it suggests such wider distributions because of their duplicate content are being de-indexed quickly by Google?
Just wondering … thanks, Jim Robinson
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