Article Marketing in Wikipedia Seriously Needs an Update

As a Wikipedia Editor, I will be updating the page on article marketing, but I’d love some suggestions from others about what to include in the update. Currently, this is what it says;

Image via CrunchBase

Traditional Article Marketing

Article marketing has been used by professionals for nearly as long as mass print has been available. A business provides content to a newspaper, possibly on a timely topic such as an article on tax audits during tax season, and the newspaper may use the article and include the business’s name and contact information. Newspapers and other traditional media have limited budgets for gathering content and these articles may be used in the business section of the newspaper.

Internet Article Marketing

Internet article marketing is used to promote products and services online via article directories. Article directories with good web page ranks receive a lot of site visitors and are may be considered authority sites by search engines,leading to high traffic. These directories then go on PageRank to the author’s website and in addition send traffic from readers.

Internet marketers attempt to maximize the results of an article advertising campaign by submitting their articles to a number of article directories. However, most of the major search engines filter duplicate content to stop the identical content material from being returned multiple times in searches. Some marketers attempt to circumvent this filter by creating a number of variations of an article, known as article spinning. By doing this, one article can theoretically acquire site visitors from a number of article directories.

Most forms of search engine optimization and internet marketing require a domain, internet hosting plan, and promoting budget. However, article advertising makes use of article directories as a free host and receives traffic by way of organic searches due to the listing’s search engine authority.

The primary goal behind article marketing is to get search engine traffic and authors generally incorporate relevant keywords or keyphrases in their articles.

This is seriously short for an article about article marketing. There are so many methods of article distribution other than mass submitting articles to article directories. Hub Pages, Squidoo Lenses, Forums, Social Media, etc.

What I would like is suggestions from others in the article marketing business as to how to update this article. I will give credit to the source of the information. So, please take the time to add anything you think needs to be added to this page at Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_marketing

Related articles

• Article Submissions To Article Directories Is Not The Way To Go (articlecontentprovider.com)
• Article Marketing Confused with Article Spinning (arnoldit.com)

Why Google Killed The Knol Page

Image via CrunchBase

The official announcement from Google about discontinuing Google Knol Pages says this;

An important update about knol

Knol will be moving to Annotum on May 1, 2012

Knol will be discontinued as a service, but we’ve worked with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum, an open-source platform based upon WordPress that allows you to continue authoring and publishing scholarly articles. You can migrate your knols to WordPress and continue your work with Annotum.

After May 1, you will no longer be able to create, view, enter or edit knols, but you will be able to export your knols to WordPress.com and download them to file through October 1st, 2012.

Google has also chosen to make the Knol pages that are already there inaccessible, so the current content on the Knol pages will be removed. They could have chosen to leave current Knols up and just disallow the creation of new Knol Pages.  The following is from the Google Webmaster Blog about how to remove content.

Image by seo_gun via Flickr

When you remove a page from your site, think about whether that content is moving somewhere else, or whether you no longer plan to have that type of content on your site. If you’re moving that content to a new URL, you should 301 redirect the old URL to the new URL—that way when users come to the old URL looking for that content, they’ll be automatically redirected to something relevant to what they were looking for.

If you’re getting rid of that content entirely and don’t have anything on your site that would fill the same user need, then the old URL should return a 404 or 410. Currently Google treats 410s (Gone) the same as 404s (Not found), so it’s immaterial to us whether you return one or the other.

Google says up in that first paragraph, “You can migrate your knols to WordPress and continue your work with Annotum. After May 1, you will no longer be able to create, view, enter or edit knols, but you will be able to export your knols to WordPress.com and download them to file through October 1st, 2012.”

Will Google follow their own advice and 301 all of the current Knol Pages to the new location at Annotum as they advise people to do when they remove content or will Google just let those links all die out? They don’t answer that question in their announcement. They do talk about it in their FAQ though.

Can I redirect my knol’s URLs so people can find the content?

Yes. Knols exported to WordPress.com will automatically be redirected. To manually set redirects, visit knol.google.com and click on My knols. On the Knols tab, each published knol will have a link to “Set a redirect URL”. Click that link and enter your new target URL. Click Save to set the redirect.

Note that users who try to visit the knol’s original URL will see a page informing them that the page’s author would like to send them to a new page and be given the choice of whether to continue. Any co-author or co-owner of a knol has permission to set or remove a redirect URL for that knol until May 1, 2012, when they will be locked.

Why is WordPress.com the default destination for Knol content?

The team at Automattic, which runs WordPress.com, has worked hard to enable Annotum and make its review and publishing functionality available by imported knols. The peer review workflow can be enabled for any Annotum site by following a few simple steps outlined in this knowledge base article.

COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY: You may use Knol to create articles for your business or to promote your lawful products or services that are not otherwise prohibited by our Content Policy or Terms of Service

From the wordpress.com terms of service; “Be responsible in what you publish. In particular, make sure that none of the prohibited items listed below appear on your site or get linked to from your site”

Below it adds, “Unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites”

Project Objectives

1. Develop a simple, robust, easy-to-use authoring system to create and edit scholarly articles
2. Deliver an editorial review and publishing system that can be used to submit, review, and publish scholarly articles

So, neither wordpress.com nor Annotum is set up for anyone that publishes commercial content, or for anyone who wants to build links to their website for SEO purposes, whereas that was allowed in Google Knol Pages. With Knols, the links were no follow, but you still had a chance of generating interest and getting people to click through and the Knol Pages were ranking well when written with SEO in mind.

My advice is, if you have any Google Knol Pages that are commercial in nature, then move them someplace other than wordpress.com or Annotum. You could take them a post them to blogger.com in a blog or multiple blogs with optimized subdomains. The terms of service there will allow them to be published. If they are spam, then there’s nowhere you can move them nor should there be,

I think it’s irresponsible for Google to handle it in this way. Had their terms of service for Knol Pages stated that commercial content was not welcome and that they were looking for “scholarly articles”, then the export to Annotum and wordpress.com would have made sense.

So basically, Google has done it again, created something, then changed their mind about it and discontinued it. Orkut, Buzz, Google Sites, and now Knol Pages. They certainly don’t mind wasting our time and effort we give using the products they create. They reward us with “Oops! We changed our mind.”

This seals the deal with Google+ fopr me as well. For me, Google is a search engine, nothing more. Any new products they create will be ignored. I just don’t have the time to waste on Google creations that will just eventually be discontinued.

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• Google Knol Is Dead (smallbusinessmavericks.com)
• Google Knol Comes to WordPress (metaverse.wordpress.com)
• Google shuts down Knol – Can WordPress be(come) a viable scientific publishing platform? (nextlevelofnews.com)
• The Spring Cleaning Continues: Google Shuts Down Knol, Lets Its Users Migrate to WordPress (siliconfilter.com)
• Google Retires Knol, Wave, Friend Connect, Gears (ghacks.net)
• After Google Wave, KNOL to be discontinued (scienceintelligence.wordpress.com)
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Article Submissions To Article Directories Is Not The Way To Go

Seriously, are you still getting a bunch of cheap articles written and distributing them to thousands of article directories? That method used to work. It was never that effective, but now it’s simply obsolete as a link-building method. The last Google update, Panda should have convinced you of that, but that method was dead before the update.

You don’t even have a way of knowing how many people actually read those articles let alone if they actually got published at the places you submitted them to. Plus, if it is garbage content, then no one who does read it will ever visit your website. Using article marketing just for link popularity is the wrong way to go.

1. Well-written articles will help you establish yourself as an expert in your field.

2. Well-written articles that are interesting to the reader will get them to click through to your website where you can actually make a sale.

Those are reasons to do article marketing. Links back to your website are the side-benefit of article marketing, not the purpose!

You need to promote good, original content, not spinning articles or hiring people to write them for the lowest price possible. It seems that poeople get the idea that something works and they will stay with that method even if it kills them. People hate change.

If you are still going with the cheap articles, thousands of directory submissions method, then you are missing the boat. Good article marketing is not cheap anymore. get over it. Hire some good content writers. Have them get those new articles onto knol pages, hub pages, squidoo lenses, large forums that allow articles to be published and other high-traffic websites.

These high-traffic websites that allow you to place good, original content on them is the method you should be using. You will know exactly where your article is published and know exactly how many people read it. Here are some details for you to look at;

Image via CrunchBase

1. Google Knol Pages – http://knol.google.com If you go there and do a search for your keywords, you will see several knol pages about that topic. You see next to each one how many people read those articles. Nice to know how many people actually read your articles. We can add images, embed video, use bold text, headers and other formatting to dress up the article and make it more appealing, more like a web page than an article. If you build the first one that is just all about your company, then build more knol pages, you add links to those knol pages from your first google knol page about your company. So you end up with a Central Knol about your conmpany that links to all of your other knol pages. That is exactly like having another website.

Image via CrunchBase

2. Hub Pages – (This is going to sound almost identical to a knol page) http://www.hubpages.com is another place you can search for one of your keywords to see what other people have done with their articles. Again, you get to know how many people read the article and get other useful analytics as well. We can add images, embed video, use bold text, headers and other formatting to dress up the article and make it more appealing, more like a web page than an article. If you build the first one that is just all about your company, then build more hub pages, you add links to those hub pages from your first hub page about your company. So you end up with a Central Hub about your conmpany that links to all of your other hub pages. That is exactly like having another website.

Image via CrunchBase

3. Squidoo Lens – http://www.squidoo.com You can also search there for lenses about your topic to see what others have done. You’ll notice that these are much longer than knols or hubs. Knols and hubs are one article. A lens is 10 articles. As with the hubs and knols we can add images, embed video, use bold text, headers and other formatting to dress up the articles and make them more appealing. The difference here is that you have us write a series of articles that flow from article to article like chapters in a book. Again you get to see how many people read the lens and everything.

Using Google Analytics in your website means you will also know how many of those readers actually visited your website. It’s crucial to know what kind of return you get from the different methods you use to drive more traffic to your website. The same things do not work for everyone. Having the knowledge of what is and is not working allows you to make adjustments and improve the return on your investment in SEO and Marketing.

Now that is article marketing. You may need to review your own article marketing plan if you are not including these methods. We can help.

Pricing

Google Knol Pages run $80 including the content writing and everything.

Hub Pages run $60 including the article writing.

A Squidoo Lens runs $400, including the 10 articles.

I’ve been doing article marketing longer than almost anyone on the web. I own 2 article directories myself, one of them with more than 150,000 articles in it and I’m still advising my clients not to go that route. The options above are so much better and the sites are much higher quality and they have more traffic than the article directories. For instance; My article directory gets 35,000 unique visitors per month. Hubpages.com gets 1 million+. Combine that higher traffic with the tracking that analytics gives you and you have a real article marketing plan.

Contact us here or call 512.322.9566 for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Related articles

• Introducing Knol (buzz.blogger.com)

Article Distribution – What do you use?

The days of writing an article and submitting it to thousands of article directories is gone. Now we have Squidoo Lenses, Google Knol Pages, HubPages and more. What are some of the ways you distribute the articles you write?

Think Outside of the Article Marketing Box

Are you still writing articles or having articles written and just submitting them to article directories? Are you going to ignore the real potential of article marketing? The method of writing articles and submitting them to article directories is outdated and isn’t enough to get you the most potential from your content.

Here is what Article Content Provider will do for you.

Article Submissions, Distribution and Promotion

1. Article distribution: We will submit your articles to GoArticles.com, ArticleBase.com, ArticleCity.com and thousands of other quality article directory sites. We can’t guarantee every publisher will reprint your article, but if even 200 or 300 publishers reprint your articles, then it’s worth more than the $10 per article we charge. If our article writers write the article for you, the charge for article submissions is just $5. Average Completion Time: 7-10 days.

2. Article Distributed as a Google Knol Page: Creating a Google Knol Page from your article at http://knol.google.com is one of the best methods of using your content to increase traffic to your website. With article directory submissions, you are not allowed to put links in the body of the article. In a Google Knol Page, we can use the proper anchor text to link key phrases to pages within your website. These are sometimes not included in your link popularity, but the Google Knol Pages rank well in the search engines attracting more visitors to the Knol page and to your website.  We also add the images you supply or use stock images if you prefer.

We will create Google Knol Pages for you using articles you already have or articles that we write for you. If we are using an article you already own, we charge $60 to create a Google Knol Page for you. If you want us to write an original article for you and create a Google Knol Page, the cost is only $90 total. Average Completion Time: 7 Days. (This includes the normal 500-700 word Knol Page with some images and calls to action links to wherever you want, including affiliate links. There is an additional charge for longer articles and/or longer Knol Pages, embedding video or audio, etc.)

3. Article submitted as a Squidoo Lens.

We create a Squidoo Lens for your article at http://www.squidoo.com. You can supply the images or we can use stock photos and images. As with a Google Knol Page, anchor text links within the Lens page are allowed. The cost for a basic Squidoo Lens is $60 if you supply the article and $90 if we write it for you and create the Squidoo Lens with it. Call us at 786-317-8774 to get started. Average Completion Time: 7 days. (This includes the normal 500-700 word article as a Squidoo Lens Page with some images and calls to action links to wherever you want, including affiliate links. There is an additional charge for longer articles and/or longer Squidoo Lens Pages, embedding video or audio, etc.)

4. Article Submissions to Forums.

Forums get crawled often by the search engine spiders. New content is indexed quickly. Many forums allow you to post articles that you own.

Example: Click here

We can help submit your articles to forums like that one and others that relate to your topic. The price depends on the number of articles, the number of forums to post them to and whether we are going to locate the forums and create the accounts for you or you will be doing that yourself. Completion Time: Varies by job.

5. Social Bookmarking Combined with Article Submissions.

Whether you have us submit your article to article directories, create Google Knol Pages or submit your articles to forums, following the article submissions up with social bookmarking means more people will read and redistribute your articles. They will share them with their friends who share them with their friends . . . you get the idea. Your article becomes viral if it is well-written, interesting and distributed the right way.

We bookmark your Knol page URL, web page URL, article directory page URL or forum URL where your article appears at 100 social bookmarking sites like Digg, Twitter, Delicious, Propeller and more for just $40 per article. If you want more than 100 social bookmarks for your article page we can give you a free quote for anything up to 600 social bookmarks. Average Completion Time: 3-7 Days. You get a links list to verify your bookmarks.

Click here for more information about our unique article submission services.