Archive for 'Article Directory'

How to Use Article Marketing to Drive Traffic

Thursday, September 1st, 2011 at 6:48 am  
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Article marketing is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your website.

Here’s how it works.

  1. You write an article.
  2. You submit it to article directories.
  3. Web publishers (website owners & bloggers) grab your article from the article databases and use your article on their sites free of charge.
  4. Inside your article, at the end, you include a resource box that contains a link to your website. When the article is published, that portion must tag along and be published, too.

Your link tags along with your article and you get FREE advertising.

Want an example of a great resource box? Here’s one.

Bill Davis is the author of “How to Profit from Small Reports” – if you can write 7-15 page small reports, you can earn a living online working just a few hours each week from your home. Look for his EXCLUSIVE formula “Creating Profits with Small Reports” at http://www.profitablesmallreports.com (fictional)

That would be an example of an author bio.

Here’s another:

http://www.ladypens.com/plr-articles-how-to-choose-a-good-service/

At the end, it says:
Would you like to learn more about how to use PLR articles in your business? Nicole Dean welcomes you to sign up for her free ecourse at www.EasyPrivateLabelArticles.com If you’re ready to start shopping, just stop by www.EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles sold in very limited quantities.

So, everyone who re-publishes that article will include the author blurb and both authors will get lots of free traffic.

There are three main ways article marketing can generate traffic for you:

  • People click your link from the article directory and end up on your website.
  • Webmasters publish your article (with your link intact) on their own site.
  • Your search engine position increases because you’ll gain more backlinks.

That makes article marketing an excellent strategy.

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Is Article Marketing Dead?

Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 5:35 am  
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A couple things today before I get to the meat of the content delivery :)

I just watched a funny video. It's good because it covers something that we're all apprehensive about but it also highlights some neat technology and covers some solid ground.

Watch it–you'll enjoy it. Love the uncanny resemblance of the nemesis to Steve Jobs. I wonder if that was intentional…?

 

On to the subject of the Title! Is Article Marketing Dead?

I'd say no, but it's clearly lost its favor among the many ways to drive traffic to your site and get valuable backlinks. Whereas a few months ago, if you were to publish a series of articles on Ezinearticles.com, your site would have gotten fair traffic and quality backlinks for doing so, now you're left with a much devalued backlink portfolio.

This is what happens when you don't OWN your own content.

You place your fate in the hands of an article directory that stands in good stead with the search engines and then–BAM!–the search engine or engines take a disliking to your article directory and all of a sudden, your backlinks suck.

Ezinearticles.com used to be an authority–get a few backlinks from it and you were sitting pretty. Now, those backlinks, while they still count–don't count for nearly as much.

It's as if your "referral quotient" went from Dr Drew to Dr Kevorkian.

So, is there a reason to even do article marketing any more? Sure. But your strategy and tactics must change. More in a later post.

Here's another–more informative and less entertaining–video from none other than Google God, Matt Cutts:

 

EzineArticles.com Is Kind of Whacked

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 3:07 pm  
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I write articles. Many bloggers and internet marketers do. There really are a few reasons for doing so.

  1. It keeps our writing skills sharp
  2. We get backlinks
  3. Other website owners can pick up our articles and put them on their sites.

All in all, a pretty cool deal.

Everybody uses Ezinearticles.com, too. They're the "big boys" in the Article Directory world. Think "Google" or "800 Pound Gorilla." That kind of big, relatively speaking.

They got big in large part because they control the quality of the articles they publish. I can write an article for GoArticles.com, for example, and — BAM! — it's live. It could be full of misspellings, grammatical errors, factual errors — Nobody cares there.

However, not so at EZA. It still takes them a freaking week to review my submission (I'm too cheap to buy my way in via their "Premium" service), only to have one of their reviewers come back at me with something along the lines of, "Your article is great. There's only one teeny tiny problem."

Great. Here it comes.

And that's exactly how it went down today.

I got a note from somebody at EZA requesting that I fill out one of their forms "because there was something wrong with my submission." Note that they didn't have any issue number or reference identifier at all in their email to me.

So I filled out the form. The funniest part about it was they actually asked me why I was filling out the form! My reply:

Because you asked me to.

Silly rabbits.

So I waited.

And waited.

I waited some more.

Finally, I sent them another note. This is what happened (see the screenshot  where hilarity ensued).

Here's a copy of the exchange (follow along if you're easily amused like I am — otherwise, move along, there's nothing to see here). Note that I put in bold those parts I thought were especially funny. I fully expect to be banned from EZA before the day is over.

Except that they probably won't get to it until I don't care any more.

*********************************************************************************

EzineArticlesHi Bill,

Thank you for your emails.

Please refrain from sending multiple emails regarding the same issue. We will get to your email as soon as we are able to.

Your article "How to Set Up an Autoresponder" has been placed in
problem status due to the link:

http://www.internet-marketing-muscle.com/

This is problematic as the page contains information on SEnuke, which we are not able to accept. We recommend editing the page to remove this content or linking to another site you have a vested interest in.

Thank you,

(Name withheld to protect the uninitiated)

*********************************************************************************

My reply:

Seriously? What if I said something bad about SEnuke? Just because there is a mention of it makes it a bad page?

I'm not changing my page to accommodate EZA's ridiculous policies. Sorry. No can do.

Next thing you know, my page on President Obama gets flagged, too, because somebody at EZA gets his tighty whities in a bunch. Sheesh. You guys are ridiculous!

Bill

*********************************************************************************

Now, I could have just sucked it up; after all, I shouldn't really mess with 800 pound gorillas. But I'm an idiot.

After careful consideration, I attempted to circumvent their recommendation (sort of) and put in a link to a "special" page just for visitors who got to my page through their site.

I am not going to change my website just to accommodate their "standards." I have my own. I don't need them. They certainly don't need me.

If we can cooperate, fine. All the better. But I'm not compromising my standards to suit theirs. They can piss up a rope for all I care!

 

List Building 101 Tip #54 — Use Article Marketing

Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 7:57 pm  
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This content is fully accessible by:

Another excellent way to promote your website and get more people to your website (and therefore onto your mailing list) is to write articles and submit them to article directories.
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In case the idea of article marketing is new to you, it works like this.

1. You write an article.
2. You publish it at an article directory and give others permission to use it.
3. Website owners go to the article directory, grab your article & publish it on their websites, blogs, or in their ezines.
4. Every time they publish your article, they must include your author resource bio (similar to your advertisement) along with it.

Your article should contain valuable information, but not so much that people feel like they’ve gotten everything they can out of the topic. If you leave out some key information in end, they will be more inclined to visit your website to get that information and sign-up for your list.

Here’s the place to submit your articles, if you’re busy and only have time to submit to one directory: EzineArticles.com

If you’d also like to submit to other directories, there are a few services that will help you with this.

The one that I prefer is the credit system at Isnare.com.

Traffic Building 101 — Article Marketing

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 11:18 am  
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Article marketing is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your website.

Here's how it works.

  1. You write an article.
  2. You submit it to article directories.
  3. Web publishers (website owners & bloggers) grab your article from the article databases and use your article on their sites free of charge.

Inside your article, at the end, you include a resource box that contains a link to your website. When the article is published, that portion must tag along and be published, too.

Your link tags along with your article and you get FREE advertising.

Want an example?

I'll give you a few.

Read the rest of this entry