All Entries in the "Squidoo Lenses" Category

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)

What Is Article Marketing?

New Internet marketers may not understand what is meant by article marketing. Article marketing is the practice of using articles to promote a business, product or service. There are many ways to approach article marketing and some are more effective than others.

Directory submissions is just one aspect of article marketing. You can also submit your content directly to niche websites that you’d like be featured in. Other avenues for article marketing include free blog hosts, Squidoo, HubPages, and similar websites that allow you to publish articles on a revenue sharing plan or as a way to promote yourself and your business.

When it comes to online article marketing, you must use your imagination. Don’t get stuck in a rut.

How To Use Articles For Reputation Management

Reputation management is one of the up-and-coming niche marketing areas for online marketing. The necessity of it is growing and already important. If you have not put together a reputation management plan then you should seriously consider doing so. It should consist of more than just article marketing, however, article marketing should be a part of your reputation management strategy. Here are your important action steps:

• Set up accounts at as many article directories as you can, including distribution services like iSnare
• Write as many articles as you can and distribute them to the article directories (this should be an ongoing activity)
• Establish a Squidoo account on a particular niche and include information related to that niche; be sure to link to your website and blog from your Squidoo page
• Write original HubPage articles and publish them at HubPages
• Write original articles and submit them to other websites in your niche
• Use Google Knol to establish yourself as an authority on your subject
• Publish your articles on your own blog
• At popular social networking sites where you have an account, publish your articles wherever possible; for instance, Ryze allows you to publish articles and Facebook allows you to set up Facebook Pages

The key to reputation management is to start before you need it. Don’t wait until you have negative information about you online. Constant reputation monitoring and management is key to maintaining a positive image online. Articles can very helpful.

How To Get Your Hub Pages Banned

Here’s a good article on Hub pages. If you want to get banned from Hub pages, this is real good advice.

Hub Pages – Here’s a Sure Way to Get Your Hub Page Banned
By Donna Abreu

Hub pages are similar to Squidoo lenses and blogs. There are differences though, so let me outline those for you as well as give you some tips to save you time and effort of learning the long way!

1. When you first publish your Hub (from the Edit mode, there is a Publish button), it takes a couple of days for them to approve it. It was not super obvious to me that the page was “in review” and not yet published.

So when you start wondering what happened to your Hub page, it’s probably still in review.

2. When you “test” your hub, you have to be sure you are logged out of your Hub pages account to perform a “true” test. I was logged in after I first created my Hub page.

And so when I went to my hub page, it appeared as if it was published. But it really wasn’t! Others could not see it. I could only see it because I was still logged in without realizing it.

3. You can’t have many links going out from your Hub page. One url at the beginning to your domain, and one at the end. That’s about it, or it won’t be approved!

4. Overall, building a Hub page is not as easy to build as a Squidoo lens. The interface is not as easy to use, and you can only insert pictures in between the other modules (such as a text module). So, your picture can’t be to the right or left of your text.

Also, the image module will only support one picture. So to have multiple pictures, you need to create multiple image modules. This limitation makes it harder to get the layout that you desire.

5. Squidoo lenses and Hub pages can be thought of as blogs on steroids. Try to get in the habit of updating them regularly with new content, such as adding (or replacing) a new video, adding a new post/comment. Ping the site every time you make a change (do it immediately after the change). You can use iPings to do that. The frequent pinging will bring traffic.

For those of you newbies to internet marketing, creating a Squidoo Lens or Hub Page will be much easier and faster than creating a blog. You can do a Word Press blog later on, when you’ve gotten your feet real wet.

If you’re interested in learning about these effective online marketing techniques, I invite you to sign up for my free 7-day bootcamp, where I’ll teach you strategies that you can apply to any online business including network marketing businesses.

To sign up, visit my website: http://NetworkMarketingMastered.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donna_Abreu

I’ve never built a Hub page or Squidoo lens, but the comment above about them being “blogs on steroids” is quite questionable. I highly doubt it. For one thing, if you own a domain name and have a blog on it that is infinitely better than creating content on someone else’s website. The advantage to Hub pages and Squidoo lenses is that those sites are very popular and you might initially have more traffic from those sources than you would from a new blog. The links from Hub pages or Squidoo lenses may or may not be as valuable or more valuable than links from your offsite blog pointing to your website. That depends on several other factors, which we won’t get into here.

I’m not saying that Hub pages and Squidoo lenses don’t have value. They do, but starting out with the idea that they are more valuable than a blog isn’t accurate. You can use these tools in lieu of a blog if you wish, but I would recommend them in addition to your blog. In fact, if you incorporate an offsite blog with a company blog that sits on your company website in conjunction with a Squidoo lens, a Hub page, a Google Knol, and article marketing then you’ve got yourself a pretty good marketing strategy there.

We have clients that have their own Hub pages. If this is something you’d have an interest in pursuing for your company then let us show you how you can incorporate Hub pages, Squidoo lenses, and Google Knols into your article marketing strategy with well-written articles by a ghostwriter.