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Article marketing has been around for quite sometime on the Internet and has been proven to be highly effective if done on a consistent basis.
It is the process of syndicating an article across hundreds of websites and receiving traffic back to ones site by a link that is provided in the resource box of that article. Most individuals that market online tend to pass up article marketing because it is very time consuming and it takes time to see actual results from it.
On the contrary, syndicating articles repeatedly across hundreds of website could amount to thousands of websites linking to your site that will send you tons of traffic.
It is important to know when doing article marketing, that you should produce quality and informative content within the body of your articles. The steps presented below will outline basics on how to go about doing article marketing.
Step-by-Step Action Plan
Step 1: Write the article
This is an obvious step that I am not going to go into great depth about. Most people know that when you write an article, you need to target the article towards the keywords or the product that you are trying to promote.
I don’t feel that it is necessary to count how many times that you use the keywords in the article, as long as you have them towards the front of the introduction paragraph and in the article title, you should be just fine.
The last thing I want to mention about writing the article is the length. The length of the article should be no less than 300 words because that is the minimum that most article directories use.
Step 2: Create a couple variations of the same article
This is the step that most people are not doing. Back in the old article marketing days, you did not have to do this step because Google was not worried about duplicate content. The days have changed!
Today Google sees having duplicate content as being bad because during the Google Adsense craze, many people created one page mini sites using unoriginal content for the sole propose of making money off of Adsense.
Google quickly picked up on this and changed their algorithms immediately. The key to this step is creating about five different versions of your one article. This is easier than it may sound taking you an extra 10 minutes, but trust me it will be well worth it.
I would suggest having five different titles, introductions, and conclusions. By doing this, you will have five different unique articles all for the price of one.
Step 3: Creating a resource or author box
This is probably one of the most important steps because this is where you describe your company or service and place a link pointing back to your website. The entire strategy up to this point, leads to this step.
The whole objective of article marketing is to provide useful content to the reader of the article and getting them to click through to visit your website. It is very important that you provide you readers with some type of informative content that they could use or learn from.
This information will go at the bottom of your article under the article copy. Keep the resource box under 200 words.
Step 4: Submit your articles to the directories
Once you have your five variations of your article, it is now time to submit them to the article directories. I would recommend doing this manually, but if you want to choose the automation route that is totally fine also.
Just make sure you choose a service that submits your articles individually to each directory. You don’t want to get banned by the article directories for using black hat tactics. Take your five articles and submit them equally to the directories. Example: If I submitted to only 20 directories, I will only submit each article a total of four times.
Step 5: Create buzz for your articles
The last step is where most people stop. If you stopped at the last step, you are missing out on a ton of traffic and money. This step is so critical to why article marketing can be so powerful today unlike the past.
Once the directories pick up your articles, it is time to create some buzz. To do this, you simply take the article’s directory link (example: ezinearticle.com/yourarticle) and submit it to the social bookmarking sites. By doing this, you are creating tons of back links to the original article’s url.
Step 6: Mention article on your website
Warning: DO NOT post your articles to your website if you submit them to article directories. Google will see this as duplicate content and you will get punished for it.
After all of the steps above are complete, it is time to mention the article in a post. When you write a post that is related to the topic of your article, link to the article in your post by again using the article’s directory url. Once again, creating more back links to your article.
Demographics
Top 3 Articles Directories (Information provided by Compete.com)
Conversion Rates
The click through rate for articles is anywhere between 4 % to 8% on average. This simply means that upon reading an article, a person will click through to visit your website 4% to 8% of the time.
This is a high conversion rate because the average for any other form of media is anywhere between 2% to 3%. These numbers are based upon the industry average and can produce higher results depending on the quality of the content that is presented in the article.
Resources
Article marketing can be very time consuming and it is good if you are able to outsource this tasks. Provided below are a couple resources that will help you automate this process and also find people to outsource this tasks for you.
Automation tools
Outsourcing
Cost
The cost depends on if you are going to buy the automated tools, which I highly recommend that you do or you hire a ghostwriter to write your articles. Both of the automated tools above will cost you less than $100 per month to purchase.
Finding a ghostwriter to write 500 word articles will run you anywhere from $6 to $12 per article.
Top 5 Article Directories
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Donny
Great Post. I did not realize that if you post an article on your blog you should not submit it as an article. I have already made that mistake – but no more thanks to this. Also thanks for all of the links you provided:)
Great info. This is something I was unaware of. Now I'll be able to do it right!
Val
Oh Boy!! This is one to bookmark. Thanks for such valuable information. I didn't know these things existed, so once again, many thanks to you and your sharing your knowledge with us.
Regards, Donna Merrill
Great information! I had let my article marketing fall to the wayside but your tips have inspired me to dust off that marketing gem and give it another go round. Thanks Donny.
Kitara
That author box is definitely a great point but I had no idea also about duplicating content at different sites… The great thing is if you really post value they will search and follow the links. Sounds like a lot of work which would be well worth the effort.
I love how you always lay it out step by step. Anybody could take any one of your blog posts and become an expert with the knowledge you drop. Looking forward to the next one my friend.
I especially appreciate your tip #2. Most people dont realize thyey will be punished for duplicate content. Keep spreading the word!
Hey Donny~
You always provide such clear, understandable and valuable content to help me grow my online presence. I really appreciate you, and as someone just looking in to article marketing, I know where to come for my information. Thanks so much!
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