Article marketing, which is basically the practice of submitting content to article directories, used to be very popular around the web. It is losing appeal lately, but it still can be used to promote your website and generate some traffic to it.
The concept: Article directories allow people to freely submit articles to their database. Usually you just need to register an account and you are ready to go. They also allow the insertion of an author byline, and a link to an external website, so depending on how popular your article will be, you could end up receiving traffic from the link you placed there.
Most article directories also allow third parties to republish the articles, as long as they are not modified and the credit links are kept intact. This feature could send you some further traffic if other people decide to republish your content.
Does it work?: Until some years ago article directories used to have a lot of love from search engines. As a result, a carefully optimized article could easily rank among the first positions in Google for related terms. The author would then receive highly targeted traffic from his byline link.
Lately, however, article directories are losing their power, and it is harder to rank well with submitted articles. That does not mean that this strategy is obsolete though. If done correctly (SEO wise), and in mass scale, article marketing can still produce good results. One requirement, therefore, is that you have a good amount of time to work both on the articles and on the submissions.
How to get started: First of all do some keyword research to know what keywords you should be targeting with your articles. Then write as many articles as possible around those topics, and craft their titles carefully (i.e. make them appealing to search bots). You could also generate many variations from a single article to maximize the number of submissions.
Once you have the articles written and ready to go, register an account with some popular directories and submit then there. You could start with those two:
- EzineArticles
- GoArticles
Don’t forget to add a byline in the end of the articles, and drop a link or two pointing to your own website.
Keep in mind that the articles you will be submitting should have been written specifically for this purpose. Do not re-use articles previously published on your blog or website, as this could harm your search rankings with duplicate content penalties.
Over to the readers: Have you ever tried to promote your website by submitting articles to directories? How did it work? Do you think this strategy is losing efficiency lately?
Website Traffic Series
- Part 1: Using Web Design and CSS Galleries
- Part 2: Submitting Your Content to Blog Carnivals
- Part 3: Leaving Comments on Other Blogs
- Part 4: Faking A Website Sale
- Part 5: Pulling an April Fools Prank
- Part 6: Using Forum Signatures
- Part 7: Putting A Blog on Your Static Website
- Part 8: Adding a Forum to Your Site or Blog
- Part 9: Buying Targeted Traffic
- Part 10: Using Email Signatures
- Part 11: Putting Your URL On Online Profiles
- Part 12: Emailing Bloggers to Showcase Your Best Content
- Part 13: Faking a Hacker Attack
- Part 14: Promoting Your Content on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 15: Promoting Posts That Link to You on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 16: Promoting Your Content on Social Networking Sites
- Part 17: Using Article Directories
- Part 18: Exchanging Links with Partner Sites
About Mark Felix
Mark is an digital entrepreneur from New York City who recently acquired DBT. He started his ventures buying growing then selling several businesses and content blogs on Flippa. A perfect night for him constitutes pizza, wine, slow jazz and WordPress! He's an SEO expert and a growth strategist. When he's not working on his businesses he enjoys sharing his learned lessons with the DBT community.
What youre saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. Im sure youll reach so many people with what youve got to say.
I thinks it a good idea, but this trick so difficult. We need some good skill writings and good topic to can succes.
This is because Google doesnt like multiple articles with exactly the same content so you get ranked crap. They see it as content spamBut I have found writing articles for the pure purpose of submitting them to these article databases has brought me a lot of traffic
I think Alan P Hunter hit the nail on the head for me. I use article directories to build backlinks to sites, especially deep links to specific pages. I find it works really well for ranking sub pages for long tail keywords.
nice article about generating traffic, but i most of time fail in getting traffic because of my english. i am not a good writer, so most of the articles directories won’t accept, so i try forum for my traffic. but this article is helpful, if i am a good writer.
I recently got a Twitter update form an article directory to not bother with keywords because they wanted natural sounding prose. ???
@Mike, check the ones listed here: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/resources/article-directories/
Daniel, you listed 4 points which I highlighted below.
wow, I was not aware about this aspect of SMM. thanks a bunch.
article marketing is really helpful. and its really worthing spending time on it.recently,i submited articles to these sites. things become better
I know this post is aimed mostly at the traffic benefit of articles but there is another benefit that I believe is still useful. If you write and submit a series of articles (over time) then you present yourself as a subject matter expert (SME). Becoming a SME will (over the long term) help a lot more the than the links and traffic from the articles. I’ve written a number of articles (for article directories and smaller print magazines) and that has led to a number of opportunities with larger magazines.
I only submit articles as a means of getting high ranking, keyword anchored links back to my site. Submitting an article to EzineArticles gives you a PR6 link. Getting traffic from the article itself, well that’s a bonus but it’s not the reason I do it. I do it to help my main site up the SERPs.
Traffic and/or backlinks?
@Josh, what do you mean as an alternative. Alternative to generate traffic?
@Kok Chon, here is what I would do:
I recently submitted one of my articles to Ezine, it was accepted, but not much traffic. But, I have noticed that since I have been submitting to article directories, I rank better in the SERPS for some of my keywords/phrases. Also, Google visits my blog more often as well.
This is because Google doesn’t like multiple articles with exactly the same content so you get ranked crap. They see it as content spam…
I think article marketing is not as effective as few years back, but if we do it correctly, should still get decent traffic.
Daniel — What would you suggest as an alternative to article directories?
@Rajaie, yeah I also only use article marketing when I have available time. If you don’t, it is better to invest on other promotional activities.
I remember when article marketing was huge. It’s such a simple concept. I’ve even taken posts I’ve written on my blog, and elaborated a bit to where the article has the same information as my post, but is written in a completely different way. When done properly, this form of marketing can do wonders for your website. Thanks for reminding all of us about the benefits of article marketing.
My experience is that you will get a small burst of traffic when the article is published and then it will slow down to a trickle. Between my account and a couple of people working for me, we have over 100 articles on EZA spread across a few different topics and have yet to land a page 1 Google result with any of them.
Great timing, Daniel! I’ve just started using EzineArticles this week and have written four articles so far. I’m actually enjoying the writing process, and (once they’re approved and online) I’ll be linking to them for my own sites.
I use article marketing more for building links then I do for direct traffic from the article itself… a well-written article can be widely syndicated and give you large quantities of solid anchor-text links that can drive your niche site up in the SERPS, especially for niches that are not very competitive.
Good article Daniel however found it a little brief.
We were doing article submission a lot last year, and it worked.. however as of late its not as effective, the return is now not worth the time and effort.
I guess that this idea would work, but I, personally, wouldn’t use it. It just feels as though it needs too much work and time.