All Entries Tagged With: "Article Directories"
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.
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- Introducing Knol (buzz.blogger.com)
Can Automated Software Submit Your Articles?
I’m not a big fan of automated software. Sure, it has its uses. Autoresponders are nice to have. WordPress plugins are cool. But for article submissions, I’d rather do it myself.
I may use a service like iSnare, but generally not automated submission software. That’s because the submission software just doesn’t do as good a job as manual submitters. You are much better off submitting your articles yourself or paying someone to do it for you.
The reason why automated article submitters aren’t as good as manual submitters is because you end up losing a good number of your article submissions because many article directories reject those articles outright. Every directory has its own list of categories and if you submit to the wrong category then your article will be rejected. The article submitter won’t submit to the right category for you. Generally, the submitters use a one-size-fits-all submission process and many of them are geared toward submitting to Article Dashboard sites.
Since every article directory is different, submitting with automated submission software causes a lot of problems. You’ll get more mileage with an article submission service.
How Important Is Article Analytics?
Is analytics for articles a necessity? I think it can be important, but we don’t want to blow it out of proportion. It’s nice to know how many people read your article, how many clicked the link to visit your website from the article directory, and how many publishers have used your article in their e-zines and on their websites, but the real metric to keep a handle on is how much traffic an article is generating. And I don’t just mean from the article directory itself.
Some article directories provide stats on how many people read your article, clicked your links, etc. but that information is only marginally helpful. It’s much more important to know how many publishers have used your articles. If you can then identify which publishers they are, you can usually check your inbound links to find them, then you can analyze your referrer logs to see how much traffic you are getting from those sources. That’s the best kind of article analytics. Don’t be fooled by article directories that hype up their bells and whistles.
Article Marketing Ain’t What It Used To Be
Article marketing isn’t what it used to be. The search engines are treating links from article directories as non-existent and have clamped down on duplicate content so that most articles are indexed only once no matter how many times they are published. But that doesn’t mean that the benefits to article marketing have vanished. They haven’t.
Businesses successfully using article marketing to promote themselves today are getting more savvy with the way that they are using articles. Many still use article directories as that will likely remain an avenue of marketing that will prove successful. But it isn’t the only method of promotion being used by savvy marketers. Most top tier article marketers today are also forging connections with other webmasters in their niches to share content and publish each other’s articles. And we believe that’s a very fine way to conduct article marketing.
If you provide unique article content for another member of your niche with a link back to your website there is a strong mutual benefit. Your partner receives original content while you receive a valuable back link. Perfect symbiosis.
Learn more about effective article marketing from Article Content Provider.
How Many Article Directories Should You Submit To?
Everyone does article marketing differently. Some people find one article directory they really like and submit only to that one. Others submit to all the article directories they can. Then there are a few that submit to a lot of article directories but don’t necessarily try to get in every one. Which way is the best way to perform article marketing?
I think it depends on your goals, but I personally think you should stay away from extremes. Just sticking with one article directory limits your exposure to users of that directory and not to users of other directories. No directory enjoys 100% of the market share in article publishing. By the same token, you could drive yourself crazy just researching all the article directories that are available. No need to do that.
Probably, for most article marketers, the best approach is to send out your articles to several article directories but to choose a few that you use as a means of tracking article distribution. Pick two, three, or 10 that you can focus on and submit directly to those article directories then mass submit your article through services like iSnare. That’s the approach that I like to use and one that I recommend for most business owners.
