All Entries Tagged With: "hubpages"
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?
Why You Should Use HubPages For Article Marketing
HubPages is a great way to market your business through articles. Unlike traditional article directories, when you publish an article at HubPages you are given a ranking based on several criteria that are important to the HubPages team. They look at traffic of your article, the traffic sources for your articles, the length of your article and uniqueness of the content, the number of thumbs up received from other Hubbers, and the overall HubScore of the author. Take a look at my HubPages profile page and you’ll see that I’ve earned the reputation of “Prodigy” with just three articles.
These are important criteria because they determine your reputation and trust factor at HubPages.
There are plenty of reasons to use HubPages for your article marketing. Besides building a reputation for yourself, HubPages articles are viewed by a lot of traffic. Because a lot of other people are using HubPages, you can build a solid reputation by networking with other Hubbers. But you’ll also build link popularity and inbound links to your website from your articles. Unlike traditional article directories, HubPages does provide link juice and every article is a potential inbound link for your website. And another reason to add to these is the ability to earn income through AdSense from your articles as HubPages has a revenue sharing program with its authors. You can also earn affiliate income through Kontera, Amazon.com, and eBay using HubPages articles.
So how many reasons is that to publish your articles at HubPages? Let’s count them:
- Build author reputation
- Increase your link popularity through inbound links
- Drive additional traffic to your website
- Earn AdSense income
- Earn eBay affiliate income
- Make affiliate income with Amazon.com
- Use Kontera for additional income opportunities
- Networking opportunities
If you decide to use HubPages for article marketing, be sure to upload original articles. That will increase your author reputation tremendously. In fact, if you upload the same articles that you send out to article directories, HubPages will penalize you so make sure you are publishing original content.
I would recommend uploading your articles to HubPages first then sending them out to article directories if that is your plan. Though I haven’t tested this, I suspect that you may get a penalty after HubPages discovers your articles later. It may not be as big a penalty, but I think it’s possible that it will happen so you are much better off publishing original content always. But HubPages is a great article marketing opportunity.
Is Google Knol Article Marketing?
Since its inception, Google Knol has been billed as article marketing. But is it?
While there are similarities to article marketing, Google Knol is a bit different. First, it’s not a directory so publishers don’t typically go there for articles to publish in their e-zines and on their websites. But you can build links through Google Knol.
Some marketers have compared it to Squidoo and HubPages. That may be more accurate, in which case, it isn’t article marketing so much as it is reputation marketing. The purpose is to establish yourself as an expert on a certain topic by providing links and resources about that topic. Those resources could be your own or someone else’s properties, but they’ve got to be helpful resources for your target market. But Google Knol is different from Squidoo in one aspect – you don’t really want to include resources from other people too much.
With Google Knol, you’re better off making your links point to your website so that you can get the inbound link juice from them (not to mention the traffic). That’s the real benefit to Google Knol and I think it’s a great benefit.
To read a great Google Knol on article marketing, click here.
