Categories
Useful SEO Resources
Archive
Meta
Posts Tagged ‘article syndication’
Developing an Efficient Authoring Strategy for Your Online Marketing Efforts
The effort that goes into article creation is what convinces many online business people to seek help for much of their article marketing efforts by hiring a writing and spinning professional. I recognize that many other marketers prefer to do their own writing, so I offer these strategies to better maximize the return on the investment of time.
* Set aside time every week to write articles for distribution. This is usually a several hours during the weekend and possibly a couple of hours each working week depending upon my schedule. With other writing commitments including my website, this sometimes is quite a stretch for me.
* Make a list of the special submission guideline of each of the article directories to which you normally submit. Include specific elements such as minimum article length, number of keywords permitted, whether or not an abstract or summary is required, and so forth. Make sure that your article meets all of the criteria of all of the directories to which you plan to submit your article.
* Write from your own personal experience People look to the Internet to find answers to their questions from people who have actual experiences. Share your failures and successes while you are demonstrating your expertise. Use the personal touch to begin to build a relationship and not to “sell” your product or service. Be real and respectful to each and every reader. Feel free to incorporate a bit of humor, if the subject matter allows it. Leave them wanting more, as the old show business cliche goes. After all, you want them to click your link to end up on your website.
* When selecting the topic, determine the focus through researching the keyword popularity. I try to keep my articles between 400 and 800 words depending upon the topic or subject.
* I always write using wordpad or some text editor so that I can avoid embedding those invisible codes that are part of any document that comes from a word processing program. However, I then paste the article into MSWord in order to get a quick word count and look for simple spelling errors. I don’t save the copy in the word processing program, though. I want to paste my article into submission forms in pure text format.
I hope that these tips will proved useful to you and that your article syndication efforts become a bit easier. Never lose sight, though, of the central purposes: traffic, traffic and traffic.
The Traffic Rewards of the New Approach to Article Syndication
First a little context. Not quite seven weeks ago I became a member of an article marketing service. I don’t literally know the man who owns this service, but I honestly feel as if I do, because I have heard his voice on so many training videos about how to use the many products and services I have purchased from him. I’m sure I must be sending a kid of his to college, but he’s too young to have kids that age..
Due to my many prior experiences with this boy genius (well, he’s not really that young), I was confident that the service would accomplish for me what it promised: An entirely unique, effective approach to content marketing. I’m no different from any other online marketer, I’m always wanting more and more traffic, and is there anyone who isn’t on the look-out for a way to add external links pointed toward our virtual real estate? My primary approach for achieving both of these goals is distributing content to article directories.
In the past, most of my subtly promotional articles have gone to article directories, but this new network offers some important advantages over article directory submissions. For example, I can now put my links directly into the body of the article rather than assigning them to a resource box. That’s something that most article directories don’t allow, but I know that it is more effective for both traffic generation and for search engine optimization. Second, the articles go directly to websites for publication, sites that are in my niche or a closely related niche. Once again, great for traffic and SEO. I can also put an affiliate link directly into the article if I choose, another “no-no” with article directory syndication. Perhaps the greatest advantage is this: The system has a built in article spinner so that if I prepare my articles well, each website that receives my article can publish a unique version of it (essential for any SEO gains).
After almost fifty days, I thought that I would check to see what I had accomplished so far. I’ll present just a few of my results regarding my relationship with My Article Network.
You need to realize that the system gradually distributes articles to websites, so every article I’ve submitted so far is still yet to be published on some of its sites and other articles have just begun. I have written not quite sixty articles for the system, so far–all very well spun. Over 1900 web pages now consist of my unique versions of those articles. I have between one and three links in each article, so my conservative best guess is that my sites singled out for promotion through this system have received somewhere in excess of four thousand links. Of course many of those are so new that they haven’t been picked up by the search engines, yet. In other words, a lot of the work that I’ve put into this distribution already will reach the maximum benefit months down the road.
I started a new site in a very competitive niche about three months ago, and I have directed the links from more than half of my articles toward that site’s promotion. From the first time I noticed it in the Alexa rankings (after I had joined this network) it has climbed over two million positions! In fact, it gets more traffic than some of my sites that have been around for quite a while. Indeed on the oldest site that I ever built (that I still own), has received no attention from me in months, but I entered nine articles into this system and that site’s Alexa ranking has improved by more than 120,000 positions. I can’t attribute that traffic growth to anything other than those nine articles–and the system that distributed them.
Okay, if you like those numbers, take a look at this. I didn’t even think of tracking the results of this program until six days ago–yeah, I know, I’m a slouch). In that one week (little less) the eight sites that I have directly promoted through the service have increased a cumulative total of over 5 million positions in Alexa. Not bad for six days.
I became so enthused, I actually started four new blogs just to take advantage of all the free content that is available in this system. By the way, adding websites is free; maybe that explains why there are over 10,000 sites in the system ready to publish articles!
I strongly suggest that you become a member of My Article Network. Yes, you affiliate marketers out there, you can become an affiliate–after you join the article distribution service.
Don’t Omit Article Syndication Directly to Sites
A frequently employed method for article marketing is to submit articles directly to article directories. A top tier directory will make these posted articles available to webmasters for publication, if those webmasters a) happen to use that directory, b) search for one of your keywords and c) don’t find your article to pose a competitive threat. Nearly all of the best ranked directories will allow you to include one or more links back to your website, but those links are typically restricted to the author’s resource box, most often at the end of the article. That is a time honored and reasonably effective way to promote your site. You should also be aware, though, of another way to get your articles out to non-directory websites.
If, in addition to using article directories, you offer your valuable content directly to other websites who happen to be in your niche or a closely related marketing area, you will discover that its possible to obtain even greater results than if you publish only in article directories. For example, you will be able to control which websites are publishing that content. You can select websites that recieve targeted traffic from which you might profit. You will find that your search engine optimization (SEO) benefits that accrue from your article marketing efforts will be improved and, especially, longer lasting if you provide each website with a unique piece of content. You can make sure that it is unique by writing a fresh article for each or by carefully spinning content in order to obtain far better results from just a little more time and effort. Still another advantage is that you can place the links to your website within the context of the article. Contextual links are reputed to have even greater SEO benefits than those within an author’s resource box.
In the usual method of direct distribution to websites, you would attempt to contact the individual webmasters by email, or, if you can locate a number, by phone in order to convince whomever reaches the publishing decisions at that website can be convinced of the mutual benefit of uploading your article. If your content is well written, informative and not too self-serving, you will be lucky sometimes. However, far too often, you will get no response at all from the webmasters that you attempt to contact. Many other times, the response will be a simple, “No thanks!”
Another option for article syndication directly with websites is through an automated distribution system that distributes spun versions of your articles directly to niche specific sites who have expressed a positive interest in receiving free content. That is the way that a new system operates; that system is named My Article Network, which I have reviewed elsewhere.
Webmaster can register their sites for free in this consortium. That means that you should always have a niche-related publisher awaiting your next submission. (Note: There are no adult content sites or sites that promote illegal activity.)
Whatever method of direct-to-site distribution you select, I recommend that all content marketers make use of the benefits of expanding your syndication plan beyond only the top tier article directories.
Is An Article Directory Your Best Article Marketing Option?
Considering how much time and money an online marketer dedicates to article marketing, we all hope for a good return on our expenditures. No matter if we write our articles in-house or contract with an expert professional writer, we need to recoup our expenses by increasing our traffic and, ultimately, our sales.
Article directories are the most frequently used distribution point for our content. There are three advantages to using a good article directory. First, a top tier article directory attract a lot of traffic. That results in a lot of potential readers being able to access our articles on the directory, itself. Some of those people will read our article, and, if we have written persuasively, some of those readers will click through to our site.
Secondly, many webmasters who monetize their sites with advertising will add our articles (including our links) to add to their own sites in our niche or a related niche. While these niche specific sites will have less traffic than the directory, that traffic will be more targeted, so our article will be relevant to those visitors’ interests. Thus, a higher proportion of those viewers will be drawn to our article.
Visibility of our links to the search engines, thereby improving our position in the search engine listings, is the third advantage of submitting our content to article directories. However part of that improvement will be limited and temporary, because most of the repeated instances of publication of that same article will be considered duplicate content.
If we handle of syndication to article directories properly, we will provide unique articles to each directory to which we submit. We can accomplish that efficiently using article spinning. However, even when we go to the trouble of spinning so that each article directory gets a unique version, the individual sites that take their content from that directory will still be duplicate content. So this approach to spinning is a huge improvement over distributing the same article to multiple directories, it leaves room for improvement in maximizing our benefit from our article marketing efforts.
An alternative to using only article directories is to also distributed unique articles to individual sites within our marketing niche. This can be an extremely tedious process as it involves considerable research time in finding those sites, establishing contact with the webmasters and persuading them that it is in their interests to publish our articles with our links on their sites.
Happily for those of us who rely heavily on content marketing, there is a new, largely automated system to facilitate such distribution. I think of it as an article distribution cooperative. I provide a complete description of this automated content marketing system in another article.
Use SEO on Your Search Engine Optimization Efforts–Huh?
Our article creation and distribution efforts have only two objectives 1) Cleverly enticing the readers of our brilliant prose to visit our business’s website; 2) obtaining some “link juice” for the page of our site linked in our anchor text (i.e. SEO). After all, we want to get “the most bang for our buck” when it comes to content syndication. Especially when we use a web writing service, we want to make sure that we do more than merely recover our investment. That hope is understandable, but is it wise in the long term?
However, there is one thing that we sometimes forget in our enthusiasm of driving traffic and external links directly to our site’s pages. For our articles to be truly effective, they need to be found by readers and considered worthy by the search engine algorithms.
Face facts, our new article isn’t the only one being posted on EzineArticles or GoArticles on any given day. Indeed, it probably isn’t even the only article being posted that day that deals with our topic, although nobody has written as cleverly as we have of course. So how do we make our article stand out from the massive amount of new content published on the web each day?
We, you and I, are fully aware of the standard tips for article marketing submissions:
* Use a descriptive title and, if possible, make it “catchy.”
* Use a good set of accurate and popular keywords to associate with it when we submit.
* On EzineArticles or other directories which offer us an opportunity to provide an abstract, make sure that is intriguing, so that the reader will want to click to the entire article.
All of those tips are important; none should be ignored. We have to take another step, add another recommendation to our standard list in order for the major search engines to provide our article with the respect that we know it deserves. After all, most of our potential readers will find our article by means of a search engine. Only then can they be emotionally moved by our prose. Only then will they follow the link to our site. Only then will they repeated buy our product and service. Only then will we become as wealthy as King Midas as we sit around in our pajamas, working from home only fifteen minutes a day. Okay, I got carried away a bit by the marketing hype. I offer you my sincere regrets for getting carried away.
What makes the search engines respect content? Links. Multiple links. Links with similar and accurate anchor text. And…how do we get those links?
We have to actively assign a part of our article marketing plan to building links for our articles, themselves. Granted that will reduce the number of links we have the time to provide for our business’s site, but the trade is that linking to our articles that do lead to our site become more powerful.
Most of us should probably assign about 20% to 35% of our article marketing content to providing external links directly to our previously published articles. Here’s and example of what I mean: Every once in a while, submit content to A1Articles that contains links to some of your content on EzineArticles and EverydayArticles. Use an EzineArticles submission to pass a little link love to a brilliant piece you have published on ArticleVista.
I know this seems as if it is a cycle that never ends. It is. That’s why so many of us make our overall strategy clear to the professionals and let them do the actual work and tracking. That outsourcing approach leave us plenty of time to sit around home in our pajamas counting our money.
Get Rid of the Writer’s Block When It Comes to Article MarketingIdeas
If you run an online business, you have so many things to think about. You must seize contol of the always growing list of tasks.
One of the many things that you must do is to manage your article marketing efforts to increase efficiency. Surprisingly, a very time consuming part of article marketing is simply coming up with unique ideas to use as topics for the articles. Whatever improvements you can make in speeding your article subject choices can have a positive impact upon the overall success of your business.
With that in mind, here are a few tips about how to find useful article topics.
- Every business should keep a list of every question asked by customers or prospective customers who email or call. Many of those questions can be turned into short, informative articles.
- Scour the trade publications to which you subscribe. View each article from the perspective of your potential customers. Find a way to present those ideas that is consumer oriented rather than simply being for the insiders who happen to be in that industry.
- Spend some time a Yahoo! Answers. Conduct searches on keywords that are within your niche. Learn what questions have been asked there, categorize those, and soon you will have a lengthy list of topics for future articles.
- Search at top article directories (maybe EzineArticles and GoArticles, for example) for articles dealing with your business category. You will probably find some ideas that could benefit from being approached from a different angle.
- Read again the articles that you published on your own website. Can these be written in a way that they appeal to a broader audience and have a bit less of a marketing focus?
Coming up with topic ideas tends to have a cascading effect. When you come up with one, that seems to bring up other, related subjects. Write all of them down. In other words, generate a big enough list that your brainstorming efforts result in enough topics to last you a while.