Article Marketing

One of the most popular forms of search engine optimization is article marketing. Article Marketing is submitting original pieces of writing to article directories for syndication, where other websites can republish your article on their own site with a link to yours. It’s a win-win: the other sites publish useful content on their site, and you receive additional links and traffic to your own site.

Here is what you need to do in order to fully take advantage of article marketing:

Research the Demand

Go to WordTracker and type in a general phrase you’d like to optimize for. For example, if your site is about dogs, you would type in “dogs.” Word tracker gives you a list of the top searches associated with this term, such as “dog training,” “dog food,” and “how to stop your dog from barking.” To the right of these terms you will see the estimated daily search volume; this gives you an idea of how many people are looking for this phrase. For our purposes, you need to have at least five to 10 daily searches.

WordTracker: The Definitive Keyword Research Tool

There is no doubt that WordTracker is as indispensable as it is expensive. At the time of writing, they charged a monthly rate of nearly $70 per month, which is too high for most newcomers to the market. This is no accident; the folks at WordTracker know they’ve got the best game in town, and professionals in SEO don’t bat an eye at forking over the $295 annual fee to give them the added advantage. When you figure that proper keyword research results in free traffic, $295 is a small price to pay for a year’s worth of free advertising.

So what are your other options?

Try the Google keyword tool, or the free (albeit HIGHLY limited) version of WordTracker. Currently, WordTracker offers a free 7 day trial that includes a crash course in SEO. Research as many keywords/niches as possible during that time and get to work!

Research the Competition

Now that you know how many searches a given keyword receives every day, you need to find out how many other sites are optimized for that same keyword. To do this, use the AdWords Preview Tool and type the keyword in quotation marks. The quotation marks show websites that have that exact phrase at least once.

What you’re looking for are phrases in quotation marks the return less than 5000 results; research has shown this is not a very competitive keyword, and you can find yourself on the first page of Google in no time.

How? There are a few sites that Google is absolutely head-over-heels in love with. Ever notice how often Wikipedia shows up for searches on people and places? Or how about YouTube for “how to” searches? The key is to get your work that is optimized for a keyword on one of these trusted, high ranking sites.

Remember, search engines show results for pages that are

o Highly optimized for the key word, and

o From a highly trusted site

Therefore, while your website still mires in obscurity, you can still get your highly optimized content noticed by sharing it with highly trusted sites.

One of Google’s most loved websites is EzineArticles. You can very easily find an article you submit to them on the top 10 results on Google within a matter of days. Granted, this isn’t your site, but it’s a great way to gain exposure for keywords too competitive to rank for initially.

So is article marketing the wave of the future? Should you create a one-page website and write hundreds of articles sending traffic to it? I’m afraid this is the approach held by many online marketers, and is short-sighted. Your priority should always be to build the value of your own website, and while links from articles will help, you eventually want your own webpages to show up for those keywords. At best, only 10% of people who read your articles will click through to your site. Wouldn’t you rather reap 100% of the traffic?

Research the Advertisers

When looking at the number of search results for a given keyword, record the number of sponsored links on page. This is important to note because the higher the number of paid advertisers for that keyword, the more profitable it may be.

In summary, you want the following:

o A high number of daily searches (at least five to 10)

o A low number of optimized competition (no more than 5000)

o A high number of paid advertisers (the more the better)

As I mentioned earlier, this is the strategy that costs nothing, but takes more time. If you are serious about keyword research, WordTracker is the only way to go.

Once you’ve selected 10 keywords that fit these criteria, it’s time to start writing articles. Sign up for an account at EzineArticles. This will allow you to write and submit 10 articles initially; once they’ve been accepted you have unlimited submissions. Make sure you read the author’s guidelines before submitting them (they get approved much faster).

There are two reasons for writing articles:

1. Traffic from the articles themselves

2. Backlinks to your site, which will improve your results in the search engines

Only rookies and the near-sighted use article marketing just for the traffic. The key is to build up your website’s reputation; the initial traffic is just the cherry on top.

If you want your article to show up high in search engine results, you need to optimize the article itself for your specific keyword. Be sure to include the keyword in your article title (preferably at the beginning), your first paragraph and conclusion.

If you want your website to show up high in the search engine results, you won’t have to optimize your article as much. In a perfect world, your website would be number one on Google and your articles filling positions two through 10. However, due to the high Page Rank of article directories it’s very common to see them score higher on the results page, even if they are linking to your website!

Still, it’s better to compete against yourself, which is why I recommend optimizing your articles and using similar anchor text to your website. After all, someone else could write a similar, more optimized article and steal your traffic.

At the end of each article, there is a resource box where you include a bio and links to your site. This is the most important part of the article; a well structured resource box will drive highly targeted traffic to your site. In addition, you should use appropriate anchor text. Here are examples of how you should-and shouldn’t-structure your bio box:

The Wrong Way

John Smith is a world renowned business expert, whose core competencies include business analysis, value investing, and foreign investment market analysis. To learn more about John and his company, click here to access his website.

Huh? Even if John’s article is dynamite, very few people click through to his website for a number of reasons. First of all, there is no specific value offered to them for visiting his site. Secondly, there isn’t a call to action. Thirdly, we learned nothing about John or his business from this bio, nor is it a very catchy opening to grab the reader’s attention. No one will read this scratch that people’s eyes will glaze over when they reached this bio, and John’s business will subsequently suffer.

The Right Way

Stop wasting money! Your investments could be a ticking time bomb, waiting to blow up in light of a foreign exchange crash. Visit our website and receive your very own free, customized report from a trained foreign investment advisor. Act now!

As you can see, this bio catches the reader’s attention from the first sentence by highlighting a major pain point. It demonstrates value to the reader with the free customized report (in exchange for their contact information) and makes use of applicable anchor text for search engine optimization.

With that in mind it makes sense to create as many articles as possible and submit those articles to several article directories.

Of course, quality trumps quantity. Ignore any services that offer to submit your article to dozens of directories; I’ve only seen results from a handful.

Article Marketing Tools

Here are the article directories I submit to:

o EzineArticles

o Goarticles

o Articledashboard

o ArticleAlley

The best thing about article marketing is that you can get started now. Choose a keyword, write an article, and link to your site using keywords as your anchor text. Once your article is approved, you’ll see traffic almost instantly. Total time invested: 30-40 minutes.

Article marketing teaches you how to create content that is precise and concise. These articles can be used to increase your results in the search engines while providing a steady stream of traffic.