This is a guest post by John who likes freelance writing and is an internet marketer. You can visit his website OnlineIncomeAchievement.com to know more about his work.
Traditional article marketing consists of writing an article and submitting it to article directories such as Ezine Articles, Article Base, Go Articles to name a few.
While this method of using articles for traffic worked swimmingly for a number of years, it doesn’t quite deliver the same results anymore. The growing competition in the field has made it less effective as a way of generating traffic to a website.
So, IS Article Marketing Dead? Not by a long shot.
Today, there are better ways to get the most out of your article marketing efforts. Instead of submitting your articles to the directories, you’ll be better served by submitting them directly to where your target market is hanging out. There are blogs, for example, that consistently get up to 400k (and more) unique visitors a month. Of course, the more popular the blog the tougher it will be to get your content selected, but you don’t necessarily have to shoot for the highest end of the spectrum to get decent exposure for your article.
There are websites and blogs for pretty much anything under the sun these days. This means that whatever niche you’re in, there will be online properties where people interested in your niche gather. Popular websites/blogs already have a loyal audience that comes in daily to consume content, and some of these sites actually invite content and would gladly publish your article as long as you submit original, quality content; all you ask in return is that they allow you to put a link to your website either somewhere in the article or in your author’s bio.
This means that, upon acceptance, your article is instantly exposed to thousands of targeted visitors every day without any extra work on your part. This will translate into a tremendous increase in traffic to your site, blog, squeeze page, etc. It’s a win-win situation. The website owner gets free, fresh content for his or her readers, you get exposure.
How Is It Done?
So, how do you find blogs that will accept to publish your article? An easy way is to run a Google blog search for a keyword in your niche and browse the results. You’ll find that some blogs, not all, will have a “Submit Article”, or something similar link that you can follow to find out about the guidelines for submitting an article for publication. Just make sure you do some research on the blog in question to determine if it gets enough traffic to make it worth your while.
Alternate Method
Another way to use your articles for massive traffic is to get them published in an online newsletter. Many businesses create their own newsletters as a way to build customer loyalty, some of these companies are always looking for content to populate the newsletter, and as such they will happily accept pre-written articles – it makes their life easier. All you have to do is contact the owner, via email or phone, and you’ll find that more often than not, you’ll get a favorable response.
A simple search on Google for “newsletters + your niche” will produce a slew of newsletters that you could approach by asking them if they’re looking for contributors. Obviously, they’re not all going to be looking for pre-written content, but some undoubtedly will – it is a numbers game. This is a very underused method, and while it does require a bit of extra work, the results can be more than worth it.
Some newsletters have subscribers in the 10’s or even 100’s of thousands. This provides a substantial exposure potential for your article; much more than you would get by submitting that same article to all of the article directories.
You can even sign up and become a subscriber to a few newsletters to get a feel for what they’re about and what they look like. This can help you decide on the ones that are best suited for your style of writing.
Final Words
An additional advantage of giving your articles to high-profile websites and newsletters is the fact that you do not need to worry about keyword research or assuring that you properly sprinkle keywords in your article for SEO purposes; you do not need Google in this instance because the high-profile website already gets its own traffic, or has a large list of subscribers in the case of the newsletter. How liberating is that?
Most article marketers think of search engines as the way to acquire traffic. There’s nothing wrong with this given that that’s where web surfers go to search for information; however, Google, or any other search engine, is not the only place to get traffic. There’s a load of traffic than can be acquired from various websites out there without the competition or having to keep up with Google’s ever changing algorithms.
Now, if submitting to article directories is producing results for you, by all means continue doing so. But, you’ll start to see a lot more traffic by taking it a step further and contributing content to popular sites and newsletters in your niche.
Top 10 Search Terms:
• chucks this site uses keywordluv
The author has explained wonderful ideas to increase traffic. Nowadays video tutorials have gained ground and it will be a good idea to pin up a video tutorial with your article and I am sure it will have a positive impact over your traffic
I think the key to all of this is to have something useful to say. Before you imagine that you can make money on line, think of what you know that people would pay to learn. With that in mind, you can create fantastic blog posts, articles, videos, etc. that will be useful and will make you money. That is what both the reader and Google are looking for.
Hi John! I’ve been sending articles to Ezinearticles and I found it very effective. But you’re right! Because of the growing competition, it is not as effective as before. Your alternative method of using the article to get more traffic is worth trying. I think quality articles deserve to be spread out over different sites.
Thanks John. This was a great post and I’m going to check your website out as well. I especially liked the tip to try to get published on an online newsletter. This would bring you a lot of targeted traffic so I’m definitely going to look into that. Thanks again.
This is a cool write up John. There was a point in time that article marketing seemed to have lost its glow in terms of pushing your site where you want it to be. But I’ve always believed that it’s just a minor set back as people tend to follow a trend. In the end, we all realize that nothing beats good content when it comes to promotion. The technique may change but the concept would always remain the same.
A great post, John. I agree with you 100% that traditional article marketing via article directories is no longer as effective as it was few years ago.
The two alternatives you gave are excellent but they do require extra some work in order to ensure that your publishing request in either a blog/newsletter will be accepted.
It’s a good idea to follow the owner of the blog you’re targeting on Twitter and post great comments on his/her blog. This way, when you finally make your move, the owner will be familiar with you and your request will more likely be accepted.
The bottom line is people tend to tread what they don’t know. Be a known face. Then, ask for whatever you want.
Yeah, these methods are great to get targeted traffic now a days. Guest blogging works just amazing to promote your blog, however traditional article marketing can still be used to drive visitors and get backlinks for any of your niche sites.
article marketing never been dead. It maybe hard to write a good content and attract good traffic but it the best way to generate quality backlink to your website.
Google Love content, and article always bring high quality traffic. That why it always giving a good view in SERP.
I fully agree that article directories and especially good article directories are overcrowded and you need to get a bigger exposure and for that article marketing through related blogs and newsletter is a great idea and I am sure it will also work.
Ive been using article marketing for about 3 months now. Im having some success with it but this post just helps a little more. Thanks!