Quick Article Marketing Guide

Article marketing is a worthwhile pursuit for any web promoter or online marketer.  It's an honest and effective way to build links and traffic to your site as you'll learn in this article marketing guide.  Many people believe that article marketing died with the Panda update, but this simply is not true.  The Panda update effected the rankings of most article directories and many other similar websites.  However, article marketing isn't about the links you get from directories.

The Purpose for Directory Submission

The article marketing philosophy these days is dominated by the mass submission of spun content mentality.  I don't usually spin content and while I do use submission software on occasion, I don't consider it article marketing.  It is simply a means for me to practice tiered link building and get some extra link juice.  Here's what I actually consider true article marketing:

Writing and submitting content made to be syndicated.

That's the big picture.  You write content that is likely to be syndicated on non-directory websites and submit it to article directories that receive a good deal of visibility in order to be syndicated.  This rewards you with traffic and links from decent websites.

Here are some tips for writing content that is likely to be syndicated:

1. Write Long Articles

Pretend you are the webmaster.  Would you rather publish a 450 word article on your site or a 1,000 word article?  I think the choice is obvious.

Do yourself a favor and write longer content for the directories in order to get it better syndication.  One article that is 1,000 words in length is much better than two 500 word articles since your chances for syndication more than double for the length added.

2. Don't Write Ads

Once again, if you were a webmaster would you want to publish an article that is all about another webmaster or blogger's website?  No, of course not.  Make sure you content is useful and informational in nature in order to receive the best results from syndication.

I cannot stress the importance of proper syndication enough.  Directory backlinks were never strong and they're actually weaker than ever after Panda.  This doesn't mean that article marketing is a dead practice.  This means that article marketing best practices are simply more important than ever!

Article Marketing Tip #2 - Rinse & Repeat

Have you been using article marketing to build links?  If you have then kudos to you, that's what this blog is all about :)

If you are a consistent article marketer and more importantly, if you've only tried article marketing a little bit, then I have some big news to share with you:

It works

If you only submitted a few articles and then quit - that's your problem.  Not every article is going to be a superstar.  In fact, very few will excel, but most will at least drive enough traffic and leads, or produce enough link juice to be worth the effort.  However, this really depends on how much effort it requires from you to write your articles.  My last post shared some tips on how to become a faster article writer that you may find helpful if this is the case.

The biggest takeaway from this tip is that you just have to persevere.  Once you make your first sale or see some solid ranking improvements, you may feel your motivation rekindled and want to continue and succeed more than ever.  However, even after your first sales, your passion can die down and you can fall succumb to flashy object syndrome; being distracted by every next new solution to help you grow your income.

My solution isn't all that fun or interesting, but it's simple and easy to implement: rinse and repeat.  Do you really believe in the 4 hour work week?  The only way to really make it online and promote your site successfully is to work very hard.  Besides, what would you do with all that extra time if you're not working? :P

Faster Article Writing Help

Regardless of why you are writing articles and practicing article marketing, there is one truth you cannot escape.  Each article you write and publish can only drive a finite amount of traffic on its own.  The good news is that you can write more than one article and keep as many as you want live and driving traffic and rankings to whatever web page you like.

This exposes another truth about article marketing: the more you write the more articles you can publish, and the more articles you have published the more traffic you'll drive.  This equates to higher rankings and bigger payouts.  The only thing stopping your article marketing from really taking off is the speed of your content creation.  When it comes to SEO and link building, there is no substitute for hard work.

Here are a few techniques to help you write articles faster for your marketing:

1. Turn off the left-side of your brain

I think this is the most important tip.  Many people slow themselves down because they are critiquing their articles as they write them.  This is because your editor side (left-brain) won't shut up!  If you can't think of the word you want to use just underline it.  If you can't remember the name of a place or thing just leave a ___.  Rather than slowing down your writing speed, just leave it to be edited later.  Find techniques that work for you to continue your writing and don't let your brain ruin your flow.

The most important thing to do when writing large quantities of articles is to just get the words down on the paper (or rather the document).  After a day of writing, you will probably need to edit the articles you have written.  Don't do it in the same day.  Instead, sleep on these articles and edit them the next day.

You can write and edit everyday if you are so inclined (I recommend it), just give every article you write the opportunity to escape your mind for a bit.

2. Outline your articles ahead of time

Going into an article blind is a recipe for disaster.  You're not likely to come out with a well structured, or even well-written for that matter, article without any outlining.  You don't have to come up with an extensive plan for your writing.  All you need is a title to guide the main idea for the article and then 1 bullet point for roughly every 150 words.  I've found that for a 500 word article I usually need 3-4 bullet points in order to get enough content.

3. Save SEO for later

It's easy to get wrapped up in your optimizing and start searching for your keywords and adding them while writing.  You should already know your keyword while writing and if you remember to put it in a few times then that's great.  The same thing goes for related terms.  However, there's no sense slowing down your writing and trying to work in SEO terms before you've finished your article.  This is another step that I would recommend for after you have written your article.

To reiterate an earlier point, it just comes down to how much you can write.  If you have lots of times to write then that's great, but you can still get a lot done in a small period of time as long as you follow good practices for article writing.  I hope these article marketing tips help you become a faster article writer!

Article Marketing Tip #1 - Drive Traffic & Rankings

Article marketing has a lot of different uses, but there are two primary reasons for it:

1. To Drive Targeted Traffic to Your site

2. To Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

Many marketers choose to simply drive traffic with their writing.  They write converting content and use their resource box wisely to finish the conversion and generate leads to their site.  There's nothing wrong with this approach and it works very well for many people.

The other approach is from the SEO standpoint.  This involves writing an article that is optimized for your keyword and then submitting it to one or more directories for links.  The real quality links come from the syndication your article gets, if it gets syndicated.

The good news is that you don't have to choose.  You can drive traffic and rankings simultaneously with your content.  You can still write your articles so that they will convert in the resource box, just make sure you include your keyword and related terms as well.  It's really not all that hard.

Most importantly, you need to use your resource, or profile, links wisely.  Most directories such as Ezine articles allow you to include two links.  Can you guess how we're going to divide their use?

Use the first link that will likely get more attention to drive the traffic and capture leads.  For this link, you should use a Call to Action such as "click here" or "download now" to incentivize click-throughs.  The second link that gets less attention will be used for SEO purposes.  Either use your anchor text, part of your keyword phrase, or a similar keyword to link back to your site and increase your search rankings.