Article Marketing is Over-Rated

[Eswar]

Hi Jennifer,

I have a sitesell website that was built 3 years back.

It has only 30 to 35 pages.

The whole website has 2 or 3 back links.

The page rank of the home page is 0. But it is getting plenty of traffic for the past 3 years.

It brings me $200 a month only from adsense.

Here is the traffic screenshot from my control panel.



I never promoted this website.
I never update the content.
I am not building the list to drive traffic.
I am not doing ppc for this website.
I don't even login to the control panel.

I enjoy only collecting adsense check every month and importantly doing renewal every year without fail.

But it takes time.

BTW i am ordering your WSO to learn more something from you. Thanks for this great thread.

Eswar

[cosmokid]

Eswar,

Those stats are great and they totally make sense due to your site's age.

I really wish I'd been much more aggressive about building new sites three years ago. Unfortunately, I was still messing around with other stuff and didn't understand that building sites back then would prove to be such a smooth move three years later! I only got into building out lots of sites by early 2007.

Older sites are really favored by Google and it can be worth buying an older site even if it's not in your intended niche because it can be pulling traffic like yours is doing. So sometimes when interesting sites come up for sale that have a launch date of 2005 or 2006 they can really deliver a lot of passive income due to them already being ranked well, even if they don't have actual page rank.

That's why, again, I encourage people to get building NOW even if your site isn't perfect - and give more attention to building content on your sites rather than earning money for article directories.

Jennifer

[moseleyw1111]

Article marketing has been working well for me.

[easy does it]

I must say thank you to all who posted here, especially Jennifer and Alice.

I find it interesting that the two ladies have taken the time to nurture their sites and have grown an independent and sustainable and valuable business as a result. Men like me often aren't built to proceed like that. LOL

I value particularly the Independence bit, as I have been grappling with how to build MY OWN business, not having to rely on a tool or an article directory (just makes me feel insecure).

It is so easy to get distracted by the get rich quick crowd - not talking about anyone on this thread but of the distractions that pervade the web. The truth is so often obscured, even though it is right in front of us. Like much in life (getting philosophical now) it's difficult to do something the right way, but if you are doing it right, boy is it easier...

and more rewarding.

I'll bet you ladies sleep well at night. Thanks.

I think there's enough in this thread alone for anyone to go out and build an empire.

Go for it.

Tom

[cosmokid]

Thanks for the nice comments, Tom!

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but a while back the gifted writer and affiliate marketer Travis Sago began teaching a cool technique called Bum Marketing. It was devised as a way to encourage ANYONE - even a "bum" or somebody who is very technically challenged - to start seeing nice earnings online. The method involves finding keywords with very low competition in Google (10,000 competiting results or less) and targeting those with articles - often posted to sites like ezinearticles and using free resources like a Blogger blog where people would find your affiliate link and hopefully buy from you.

The technique DOES work and it's one of many ways that article marketing can be exploited for nice profits.

The problem is that so many people have latched onto that technique, and bum marketing has spawned countless WSO's and reports and "mini gurus" (not Travis as he has generously just put the material out there without publishing a paid report of his own, all his stuff is free.) And many folks who are new see it as this short, fast way to earn income, but they don't understand that it becomes next to impossible to expect that you'll be able to churn out articles constantly for directories while ALSO building a viable business of your own - like your own website, hosted on your own server.

So people try bum marketing for a while, see good results in the beginning, then they realize that they will have to KEEP writing articles because within a few weeks their articles are buried at ezinerarticles and no longer bringing them traffic. So unless they churn out lots of articles all the time (or outsource the work) that business model is not easily sustainable for most people.

Whereas......submitting SOME articles to ezinearticles to get some initial traffic for your new website while AT THE SAME TIME making sure you post plenty of good content on your own site can be a much better buildout strategy.

Or you can be like me and not use ezinearticles for much at all....and risk the wrath of all the gung-ho "article marketing heads" when you dare to describe what you're doing.

(And you article marketing heads, you know I luv 'ya - I just do things differently than you do, that's all. )

Jennifer

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

Thanks for the nice comments, Tom!

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but a while back the gifted writer and affiliate marketer Travis Sago began teaching a cool technique called Bum Marketing. It was devised as a way to encourage ANYONE - even a "bum" or somebody who is very technically challenged - to start seeing nice earnings online. The method involves finding keywords with very low competition in Google (10,000 competiting results or less) and targeting those with articles - often posted to sites like ezinearticles and using free resources like a Blogger blog where people would find your affiliate link and hopefully buy from you.

The technique DOES work and it's one of many ways that article marketing can be exploited for nice profits.

The problem is that so many people have latched onto that technique, and bum marketing has spawned countless WSO's and reports and "mini gurus" (not Travis as he has generously just put the material out there without publishing a paid report of his own, all his stuff is free.) And many folks who are new see it as this short, fast way to earn income, but they don't understand that it becomes next to impossible to expect that you'll be able to churn out articles constantly for directories while ALSO building a viable business of your own - like your own website, hosted on your own server.

So people try bum marketing for a while, see good results in the beginning, then they realize that they will have to KEEP writing articles because within a few weeks their articles are buried at ezinerarticles and no longer bringing them traffic. So unless they churn out lots of articles all the time (or outsource the work) that business model is not easily sustainable for most people.

Whereas......submitting SOME articles to ezinearticles to get some initial traffic for your new website while AT THE SAME TIME making sure you post plenty of good content on your own site can be a much better buildout strategy.

Or you can be like me and not use ezinearticles for much at all....and risk the wrath of all the gung-ho "article marketing heads" when you dare to describe what you're doing.

(And you article marketing heads, you know I luv 'ya - I just do things differently than you do, that's all. )

Jennifer

Jennifer, no offense taken.

Actually, I'm thinking about taking a few of my EZA articles each day and
posting them on my stevewagenheim blog. Right now it's got a PR of like
minus 1 so I figure it can't get any worse and it just might get better.

With over 1,000 articles to choose from, it won't take me long to get 100
articles on the blog and then we'll see if things get any better.

Since I don't rely on the site for any of my income, it can only help. This
is a no lose deal here.

If it makes a difference...even a small one...I'll come back here and eat
crow.

[yaji]

Your site may be sandboxed by G if it's pretty new. You may not be able to see diffrences in 3-4 months but your work will pay off eventually after your "probation" period passed as a new web site.

Good luck!

[Zeus66]

Your goals have a lot to do with how you come down on this debate. I've done affiliate marketing, where lots of on-site content is mega-important for search engine rankings for lots of relevant keywords.

But if your primary goal is to build a list (not saying you can't do both, just talking about main priorities), article marketing with a simple one-page lead capture site is a terrific model. Because you prefer your traffic to come through your articles and not directly from a link at Google, the key becomes pushing all your content out to the article directories (and ezines, etc.).

Let me be clear here. All traffic to your squeeze page is a plus. What I'm saying is that nothing converts like article traffic. Those visitors have read an entire article you wrote and were impressed enough to click your link. They convert like crazy with a good squeeze page. Then, once they're on your list, they're the most responsive (at least in my admittedly limited experience).

Search engine traffic converts at as low as one-half that rate. Still a net gain, but I think you see the point here.... EZA has a PR6 and Google loves their article pages. I can much more quickly get my articles there ranked and driving traffic (the best traffic!) to my homepage than if I stuck that content on my own site and did all the things I'd have to do to get it to rank as high.

John

[cosmokid]

Hey Steven,

That's a great idea! Please report back - especially after you've had a bunch of new content up for three months or so, until the next Google update - because I'd like to hear how you're doing!

Along those lines (talking about getting your sites up to a higher page rank).....remember my page rank 5 sites I was talking about? I mentioned how insanely powerful they are even when I don't update them more than a few times a YEAR....

Well, about six months ago I threw up a short article/review about a popular Clickbank ebook in the health niche. Put it on one of my page rank five sites that I rarely update, really just to see if there was any traction selling that particular product. Sometimes if I get traction around something I'm testing I'll go on to build an entire website around that product or that niche, but if I don't see results, I don't bother.

I made a few sales that first month but nothing to write home about. I promptly forgot about that page. And I built next to zero backlinks to that page.

Recently Yahoo starting liking that page for some reason. Suddenly, although I targeted a keyphrase with mega competition, my page now shows on page two of Yahoo. This just happened in the last week or so. Now I'm averaging about three or four sales a week from that page. From not doing a darned thing except following the shampoo, rinse, repeat formula of a) throwing something up on a page rank 5 site to test it b) not seeing much action and forgetting about it, and updating the site only a couple of times since then (on unrelated subjects) and c) suddenly one day the search engines like that page and I'm getting some nice little sales from it.

I know that when you submit quality articles to directories like ezinearticles that each of your articles has the chance to receive lots of views and become popular, and a mildly successful article might bring in the same three or four sales per week that I'm seeing for this particular page on my site. But I wanted to mention how a high ranking site can continue to bring in value for your time if you can be patient and get the darned thing at a page rank four or five.

Again, the article I threw up has nothing to do with my main niche. I didn't built backlinks to that page. (Although now that I think of it I might have done a yahooanswers for it or something, but it was minimal backlinks for sure.) And now Yahoo is liking it enough to send me daily traffic for it, and I'm seeing a nice trickle of baby sales.

Imagine if you can get hundreds of pages performing like that for you.....yes, it's similar to getting hundreds of articles at a directory performing for you...but you OWN that piece of virtual real estate. And barring your hosting provider going out of business or some weird hacking attempt or whatever, you have the relief of knowing that you have some control over it.

Not that you can control much in this business, since the search engines are so fickle, but still. . . I like knowing that energy is flowing directly to my sites and my pocketbook and not having to bounce around so many other third party sites. Or, if I am using a third party site like commenting on a blog or on a forum, I usually don't have to write as much to get the traffic....just short and snappy comments meant to maximize viewer interest and get them to click through, without having to write 500 words or whatever.

(I did say I'm lazy, didn't I?)

Jennifer

[cosmokid]

Hi Zeus/John,

I missed your post - you were posting as I did.

That's great that articles posted on directories are helping drive traffic and interested visitors to your lead capture pages.

But I do the same thing with organic traffic from Google coming directly to my sites. Only I don't drive them to a squeeze page - I drive them to articles or review pages where they're also exposed to my opt-in box all over the place.

I just checked my stats on a modest page four rank site I have (a site I've been really neglecting; I only updated it a few times this year.) Daily traffic on this site and sign-up rates for the page three days:

Today (it's 2:15pm right now so these are partial day stats):

Visitors (so far today) 66 Signups so far 6

Yesterday (Sept. 20)

Visitors 77 Signups 8

September 19

Visitors 105 Signups 11

These might not be the highest conversions, but personally I'm pretty happy with a 10% conversion rate for signups.

This isn't a lead capture site or lead capture page, though - these are content pages.

What I've done there is I've flushed the site full of opt-in boxes - so the opt-in box is in the upper right of my sidebar; plus I put it at the end of each article or review I write on my site with an enticing call to action so people will grab my free report.

Conversion rates have been about the same (10%) for the life of the site, even within its first six months.

The site I'm talking about was launched on 3/21/07. I just checked more stats on this. I looked at the period of 5/16/07 through 5/18/07 when the site was about 8 weeks old. Here are stats for those three days:

5/16/07:

Traffic: 45 visitors Signups: 6

5/17/07:

Traffic: 49 visitors Signups: 4

5/18/07:

Traffic: 64 visitors Signups: 6

These are also right in that 10% zone - even slightly higher a few days. I wasn't running any special promotions at the time and the site was just relying upon organic search engine traffic during that time period. At the time I had about 20 articles posted on the site.

I don't do lead capture pages in the classic sense so I can't speak to the conversions rate on those - obviously you're much more experienced with those. My pages tend to be hybrids where I'm either selling something I've created or I'm promoting products as an affiliate on every page of my site. (Or I do both on the same site.) And then my opt-in boxes are always right in front of people, too.

I don't create lists for every site I maintain, though. Some of my smaller affiliate sites don't have them.

I'm sure people can do better than 10% conversions - but I just wanted to throw it out there that those conversions can be gained on 1) a two month old site 2) through organic traffic only and 3) on pages where you have posted articles and reviews which aren't just a squeeze page but which offer content as well.

Jennifer

PS I just realized that my traffic volume on that site is pretty pitiful! I do need to update it more. Still, it's a nice money earner for me, so I haven't really been bothering to tweak it much.

[Zeus66]

Jennifer,

Thanks for sharing those stats. I think that's pretty good for a site you haven't paid much attention to for so long! I envy it.

It's an apples-and-oranges comparison, but on my latest squeeze page that I use nothing but articles submitted to EZA to promote, it's very early yet, but I'm seeing a conversion rate of about 41%. 27 sign-ups (verified opt-in) from 66 visitors. If it was a single opt-in capture page, that would jump to about 50%. About 1-in-10 don't verify.

For another squeeze page I use, I've pushed traffic through articles, sig links in forums, mailings to other lists, even dabbled in PPC. Overall, it's got about a 24% verified opt-in rate. Still pretty good, but I guess the lesson I take so far is that the article traffic is the highest converting (by a pretty wide margin).

If your site already can compete with the likes of EZA such that your new articles rank pretty fast for the main keywords, then certainly I would advocate placing them on your own site. But for the vast majority of us (again, I envy your succes here!), EZA is essentially a great shortcut to getting a steady flow of traffic.

I don't want to just toot EZA'a horn here. They're clearly the best, but I have good long-term success with articles showing up at Google when I submit them to SearchWarp as well. Sometime GoArticles too, but I don't like them as much because I see a lot of my articles from there on other sites without any kind of link to my site. And I don't think they have human editing there. Could be wrong about that.

John

[Teddi77]

Thanks All, this is a great thread!

Here are a few things from my experience. First, no one has mentioned submitting well written articles directly to high page rank sites, where you will get traffic and page rank long term. I've done this very effectively, one of the links is still bringing me page rank (from a PR 5 site) for over 3 years. So, if you spend the time and effort to write something really good, it can be worth submitting personally to a high ranking, high traffic site (not ezinearticles).

My experience with ezinearticles is interesting. I wanted to learn more about duplicate content, so I submitted some articles to EZA that also appeared on one of my web sites. I did get traffic but I noticed when I did a search on my article titles in the Google box at the top of the page, my articles never appeared there. Over time, my articles still got traffic, but I think I was penalized for the duplicate content. As you can guess, I have not tried that again.

My best thinking for the dup content issue is to rewrite (don't spin, you still end up with duplicate phrases) your articles and send them out to EZA etc. But, put the good stuff on your site! Here's why.

I have a site that is now PR 4 and I put up some really good content there (actually an ebook I had written and put lots of work and research into). This was 4 years ago. I have purposely added a few good quality links over time using trades with other good quality sites. I don't mean trading links, I traded them copywriting, etc. for a permanent link.

For the last 3 years, this site has been in the top 10 Google search results for my keywords with 11,000,000 competing pages and 75,000 searches per month. I have done absolutely nothing to the site, it even looks kind of funky. My point here is that really good content can end up getting you links and traffic.

Thanks again to the contributors here for their great comments.

Teddi

[Zeus66]

I have purposely added a few good quality links over time using trades with other good quality sites. I don't mean trading links, I traded them copywriting, etc. for a permanent link.

Coincidentally, I just submitted an article to EZA about this very topic. It's a technique not many use (apparently), but if you do it right it can give your site major link love. Thanks for sharing!

John

[cosmokid]

Thanks, John and Teddi for that input about getting content on high ranking sites besides ezinearticles - or trading them work for a permanent link. You're right, it works nicely! As I mentioned before in this thread I also highly recommend contacting webmasters to see if they will place a unique, high quality article of yours in their autoresponder series and/or in one issue of their newsletter - that's a killer technique, too. Sometimes they will archive older newsletters ON their site which also gives you the benefit of a permanent link coming back from their site.

Jennifer

[Zeus66]

Jennifer,

Hey, that's a cool idea I'd never thought of before! I knew WF was good for something.

John

[Gunter Eibl]

Although I' doing lots of article marketing, I somewhat agree with Jennifer. Take the time you need to write and submit 50 articles and invest it into SEO instead would probably bring more traffic long term.

However, the comparison is not really fair. Article marketing is so popular because almost anybody with little experience can do it and get decent results. SEO instead requires a lot of experience and has a steep learning curve.

Gunter

[Alminc]

Nothing can beat having your own perfectly planned, scientifically search engine optimised website, growing it's content and number of relevant incomming links.

Article marketing is good traffic generation tactic for people whose primary tallent is writing.

Building your own website for top10 position in google is different kind of job and if you want to see such results within 9-12 months then you don't care much about traffic first 2 or 3 months.

If you are a tallented writer you will naturally tend to write tons of articles and spread them all over the world.
If you are more of a site builder you will naturally tend to build strong, successful websites.

[cosmokid]

Good points, Alminc!

I'm actively trying to get a few of my talented lady writer friends to get over the mental block of thinking that getting their first website up has to be difficult.

I tell them to do the following ASAP:

1) Buy Html for Dummies

2) Invest in XSitePro or Dreamweaver, the two most user-friendly and intuitive website software programs

3) Learn how to manipulate the templates that come with those programs or download a free one from a place like Open Source Web Design Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates.; or they can purchase a cleaner looking template from a site that sells them for reasonable fees like $30 or $50 per license;

4) Learn how to format basic stuff like fonts and paragraphs; plus make extra sure that they know how to create simple links. Also learn how to create simple header tags that relate to each page's content and choose good keywords for the header tags of each page (very basic SEO, nothing complicated.)

5) Start putting all that wonderful content that they're so talented at producing up on their OWN site

6) Join some related affiliate programs and find products to promote - perhaps staying away from overly competitive Clickbank ebooks and promoting hard (physical) goods instead; or do a mixture of both; making sure that they learn how to add their affiliate link to their webpages.

7) If they feel adventurous, learn how to create a simple feed page for their (html) website and "ping" autopinger, pingoat, or pingomatic each time they update their site so their new content gets indexed fast;

8) Join a few social bookmarking services and bookmark each new page of content at about five services.

9) Watch the checks come in!

There is a learning curve involved with each step, of course. But when I show my friends some examples of those really shoddy-looking, poorly formatted websites with atrocious content on them which are making their owners big $$$$, my writer friends usually get motivated to showcase their higher quality writing on their own sites and get started with their first baby websites.

You writers out there - you need to understand that after you get over the hurdle of learning how to create simple sites, you are uniquely positioned with your talents to make boatloads of money in this industry! Those who are terrible writers or who are non-native English speakers are at a big disadvantage. You should leverage those natural talents as quickly as possible so you can be earning nice income!

Jennifer

[Justin Jordan]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

Good points, Alminc!

I'm actively trying to get a few of my talented lady writer friends to get over the mental block of thinking that getting their first website up has to be difficult.

I

!

Jennifer

I just set up my first website or rather, the first I set up myself, and using Wordpress is pretty damn easy, even if you want to make a site that appears static. I'm pretty sharp in general, but I'm caveman when it comes to tech, and I managed it over a weekend.

Probably easier than HTML.

[tommyfocus]

Originally Posted by MADMONEY

Here's My Two Cents

There's nothing wrong with article marketing, in fact, it is often recommended that you post the article on your own Web site and then either use the same article or spin it and submit that to whatever article directory you like.

This is not a new formula for strategy, just one that works.

On a new website, that has very little Google PR, it may be difficult sometimes to get highly -ranked even with a longtail keyword, depending of course on how many searches it has per month.

It only takes a small amount to rewrite the article.

But hey, if you don't like making money keep doing what you're doing, your only cutting your income in half!

Mad Money

Interesting comments!!! If it works for you keep doing it. If You feel like it overrated, then to you it is. Keep doing you though and don't let anyone persuade you differently!!! lol!

[Ross Kenny]

I use a few different Methods of Traffic Generation but my main system is Article Marketing. I don't think it's overated if done correctly. It's all about correct Keyword Selection.

I outsource a lot of my Articles and don't use Articles in the IM Niche as it's too competitive.

I stick with other Niches as people seem to be a little more interested in reading articles for information rather than jumping from one IM Method to another.

[Teddi77]

Hi All:

There is some great content in this discussion thread, someone should use it to create an ebook!

Anyway, my main comment at this point is, it's important to do what you like to do. I like SEO and writing quality articles. I get really bored churning out tons of articles a day. I know a guy on ezinearticles who puts up 20 new articles a day. He has a total of 8,000 articles just on that one site and he earns around $10,000 per month selling his own products and coaching services.

So of course, article marketing can be incredibly effective. In fact, one of the things I noticed about the above mentioned person is that in his narrow niche (which is IM related) he absolutely dominates. If you type in his keywords, you will find one of his articles. What he writes is actually OK and he has excellent authors info boxes. But I think I'd have to commit suicide if I was going to be forced to write that many articles on the same topic every day.

Again, I'd rather do my research and learn something new and then write a few articles with lots of high quality info. This whole thread is about two different mind sets...ain't it great!

Teddi

[cosmokid]

Absolutely, people should do what works for them. I just wanted to emphasize how valuable it can be building content on your own site. I wanted to remind people not to neglect their own sites at the expense of contributing content to article directories. In the rush to get that "instant" traffic that ezinearticles can provide after you launch a site, people can get seduced into constantly submitting articles externally instead of giving their sites the same amount of love...which WILL pay off over time.

One thing I've taught to some of my coaching clients is how to approach a simple sales page site from an organic traffic perspective.....finding a way to add an "articles" or "blog" section in the back of the site, perhaps underemphasized and purposefully hidden away. Then you add a simple homemade rss feed page (just a text page formatted a certain way.) These two things - an articles section and a feed - can perform as a kind of "quiet engine" operating in the back of your sales page site, bringing you nice organic traffic even with a very new site.

Many people aren't doing this with their sales page sites and get all caught up in ONLY submitting articles to directories or using PPC/Adwords to drive traffic. When really, if you start throwing up some short, sweet, teaser type articles targeting your keywords and stuff them in the back of the site, update your feed with snippets of this content, and "ping" your feed (plus maybe bookmark your new content a few places each time you update) you can get into a routine where you spend a half hour a day creating a nice article, updating your feed, and pinging, and then you can see sales come in within a few hours.

So there are lots of ways to turn even the smallest of sales page sites or "mini-sites" into powerful little engines pulling organic traffic and sales . . . even from day one of a site's launch. It's not hard to do, so folks, please don't overlook it.

Jennifer

[AdamISN]

Hi Jennifer,
Interesting post. I wanted to start on article marketing but then again it takes too much effort as I hate writing to the max. After reading your post, guess I will just find other traffic sources but i wont rule out article marketing completely. Thanks!

[James Schramko]

I don't understand why people are so reliant on third party sites when you can blast your way to the top of the serps with your own blog?

If you have a squeeze page then put the blog in a sub folder called /blog and then post articles to that first. Only after that do you post the same/similar content externally.

Get some backlinks to your blog and some bookmarking and you can be protected.

[wealthy affiliate]

It depends on what quality article directories you submit your articles. Prestigious article directories can boost your chances of being listed on the first page of search engines, and then attracting more traffic.

Article directories are better choice for internet marketers who dont have a website or just start to build a website.

[James Schramko]

Originally Posted by wealthy affiliate

Article directories are better choice for internet marketers who dont have a website or just start to build a website.

That's the scary thing - some Bum Marketers don't even have a website. Talk about surrendering your assets...

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

That's the scary thing - some Bum Marketers don't even have a website. Talk about surrendering your assets...

Or best yet some only have maybe 1 page that links to a product, and I see often
that this 1 page is a free blogger blog or something.

- John

[Emailrevealer]

I have it down to a science that I can get every article I write in google top 10. But my problem is that on most directories my competitors have a huge google banner ad right under my article.
My article is just advertising their company.

[James Schramko]

Some article marketers post articles with direct affiliate links - no re-direct through their own domain.

Spend the $9 for a domain and the $6 a month to host it where you can re-direct every link so that if an affiliate program dies you can fix it.

You can also rotate offers if you write a multi purpose bio box.

[John M Kane]

Just curious...unless I missed a comment;
anyone have success or simply can comment on "their" results from using a site blueprint software like Dr Andy Williams promotes?
The program generates a blueprinted site where the pages are "Siloed"
thanks

[Stallion]

Hey Jennifer,

I want to thank you for this post because I know it makes a lot of sense. I don't think it's necessarily a bash to article marketers, but your point is for people to look at their business different.

"Don't create a business of building content for others, build a business of building content for yourself."

I think I'm a prime example of what you're talking about. I got into this and immediately went into the article marketing/bum marketing thing. I pumped out a lot of articles and I made money. I have over 1000 on EZA now and it sort of started hitting me that there really isn't much on my site.

Like you said, if EZA was deindexed for a month what would happen to my income. It's sort of scary to think about it.

I have been working on taking all those old articles and seeing which ones did well (didn't tank) and write another article for my site focusing on the keyword.

I think starting out, if I didn't do article marketing I probably would of quit long ago. I understand completely that what you're suggesting works, but psychologically starting out, going for so long without really any gratification for your work is tough. I understand as you get more experienced with it, you can make some income a lot faster with it.

I wish I didn't get stuck in that trap of article marketing because it seems like it's the only thing I do. What I really need to do is get back to a place where I'm working to make a good piece of real estate online.

So I want to thank you for your posts because they are very enlightening.

I have question about the whole pinging with html. I'm not a fan of putting up wordpress blog after wordpress blog after wordpress blog on my hosting because it's just such a housekeeping job. You have to keep them all updated, and I'm afraid if I miss something and forget to update one, my host might get hacked, so I do a lot of stuff in just basic HTML.

I'm curious how you do this pinging stuff with just html pages.

[briankoz]

Just to add a quick note here -- I'm not going to get into too long of a debate with anyone on this -- I've been marketing online in several different niches for quite awhile. I've tried A LOT of different stuff. Some of the things that I've found to work well agrees with what others say, while some of it completely contradicts what everyone else preaches.

As for article marketing, I strongly believe that the majority of the content should be on your own site. SOME article marketing is fine and can definitely help, but I've done sites that are entirely my own or unique content that have never had an article published, and they're still able to rank very high for the majority of keywords I try to rank for.

I think that article marketing can be "the easy route" for a lot of people because it's not too hard to rank well if you do your keyword research right.

However, if you know how to do it right from a blog or website, you can rank just as well if not better for the same keywords. However, most blogs are not setup ideally to have it be easy to rank well for most keywords.

For instance, most blogs that I use, I do some of my own hacks to in order to get them ranking well.

So if you don't know how to optimize your own blogs or sites, article marketing is a very easy route to rank well. If you do, however, you'll find that it's almost silly to do a ton of article marketing.

In addition, the big advantage to having articles on your own site (besides getting more content, better rankings, etc. for yourself), you also get 100% of the people who read it to be on your site. With articles in directories, you hope that a percentage of those click through to your site. Then you hope that an even smaller percentage will end up buying. So having 100% of the readers on your site from the start can greatly help your chances.

I'm sure plenty will disagree with me, which is perfectly fine (we all have our unique experiences), but I'm speaking from personal results / testing over a ton of sites in a lot of different niches.

Take care,

Brian

[louiefrias]

Can you imagine if you had ALL your marketing eggs in one basket? (Like, I don't know, housing or mortgage stock?) THEN 2008 rolls around and you're not diversified?

A sound financial plan REQUIRES diversification as does any other for long term sustenance.

Court finds for "Do Both."

[cesarsan]

Does article marketing have a future now that Google is devaluing backlinks from directories and people prefer videos and multimedia information? How much more time before articles lose a lot of its power?

[Rod Cortez]

I'm not understanding some of the one-sided arguments here. As someone who has been writing ariticles for years and building up a network of static sites and blogs since the turn of the new millennium, I've come to the conclusion that:

1. Article marketing works and is very powerful when done correctly and effectively (e.g. keyword research, knowing when and how to use keywords, writing for human beings and not solely for SEs, picking the right niche, taking the RSS feed of your article and submitting to RSS directories, using Press Releases in conjunction with your article or article series, etc.).

2. Content marketing also works and is very powerful. Content marketing encompasses everything everyone has brought up already. Article marketing, putting your own content on your own site / blog, and a whole lot more. Because article marketing is only one way on how to use your content.

3. Paid advertising also works incredibly well when done correctly.

4. Free publicity can bring in staggering amounts of traffic (think television, radio, etc.)

I think some people forget what it was like when they are an absolute newbie and I strive to never forget how confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed I was back in 1998 when I cracked open my first IM infoproduct. Everyone seemed to have an answer and most claimed their way was the "best".

If someone is new to IM business and they are getting bombarded with different systems, product launches, and reading the myriad of opinions in forums like this, I can't blame them if they start off with article marketing, decide to put the work in, and start seeing it work for them. While I agree that guys like Steve and Dean are a rare breed, that doesn't mean article marketing isn't effective, nor does it mean it's over-rated. It's only over-rated by those that can't stand to write or prefer to obtain traffic in other ways.

Though I like article marketing I find that using my WP blogs, paid advertising, and finding JV partners a much better use of my time. But those are my preferences, I would never say they are the "best" because we all have our preferences on what we like and what methodology brings us the traffic we need. Let's face it, we all have our own marketing biases because no single marketer can be an expert in every traffic generating technique. I happen to love PPC marketing and know there are people out there that can't stand it and/or would never use it. That's fine. But I also happen to love to write (I wish I had 4 pairs of hands so I could write more!).

I also don't understand people who assume that if someone is an article marketer that they are:

1. Putting all their eggs in one basket (some AMers do, but not all of us).

2. Are not putting content in other places other than article directories.

My opinion has always been to diversify and branch out into multiple ways of getting traffic because it's good business common sense. So while I would agree that putting content on your own network of sites (or on one or more authority sites) is probably better for one's business in the longrun -especially if you want to eventually sell your business-, I would never tell someone else that article marketing is "stupid", "over-rated", or a waste of time because there are enough case studies that disprove this.

Did I mention I love all of you man?

RoD "Coffee-Makes-Me-A-Better-Writer!" Cortez

[Rod Cortez]

Originally Posted by cesarsan

Does article marketing have a future now that Google is devaluing backlinks from directories and people prefer videos and multimedia information? How much more time before articles lose a lot of its power?

It depends on what you mean by article marketing because that word seems to mean different things to different people. If you mean writing articles and submitting them to article directories, probably not in the long term. But what's great about our community here is that people will come up with workarounds or find other ways to use articles for effective promoting. As one example, I have yet to see anyone write about submitting their articles to magazines or other offline publications. Sure it takes quite a bit of work in the beginning but it can bring some serious traffic to your website(s).

I'm curious to know which study or what resource you're getting the statistic that people, in 2008, prefer videos and multimedia information over the written word? You might be amazed at how many people still read these days.

As for your last question, I don't think anybody truly knows the answer to that. But going back to my last post it makes good business sense to diversify traffic generation.

RoD

[jayden.fellze]

Submitting articles is not over-rated, in fact it has been helping lots of people to get a good amount of money. Yes, it has worked out for you the way you wanted to. If good quality of substance and keywords are used and if the text is made interesting to read, then I don't see any reason why you cant make money submitting articles. Make the niche attractive to the reader and then you can see the result.

[tanya7zhou]

I don't know what Jennifer is trying to convey here. But let it be known that content is King. Even if people don't click to get to your site, they will still remember your name and get educated. People have a habit of coming back. Eventually they will turn up on your site.

Article submission is GOOD as long as the content is unique and helpful, Backlinks are very important for search engine rankings and will continue to be.

One day people will come to your blog or site and purchase your products or affiliate promotions.

I encourage people to keep on writing articles, submitting them to directories daily if possible, you can even outsource this service. Social bookmark your articles

Link everything together. Use squidoo, wordpress, blogger, hubpage, etc to link your articles to your main site.

You will eventually profit.

Regards

[bigwal88]

Article marketing is one of the best, if not the best way to bring traffic and increase backlinks. Over rated....unlikely

[dianarupert]

I am a newbie in this field so I hope article marketing can help me boost my site traffic.

[marktheonlinesurfer]

Thanks for this post Jennifer. This has been very enlightening; been learning quite a bit from all your comments.

[rdmorrow]

Hi,
Great information. They say content is king.

[Warren Tattersall]

Useful. Thank you

[recommended]

"WOW!" That was good....... Excellent points.

[recommended]

Thank you all, I enjoyed every point of view. "You're all Amazing" people.

[Jeffrey Louis]

If you get worn down by writing articles then you should hire someone to do it for you.

[spressnell]

Some very interesting points of view!

Shirley

[Habitat]

I never post information other places..Site gets quite a bit of traffic....Iono Maybe I'm missing something

[Michael G Perry]

Great insight.. Like you I love to write; it's in my DNA.. I am going to take you up on this start writing more reviews on my website and stop waiting on ezinearticles and "hoping" someone with clicks on my bio... Geez I'm all over the place on Google.. but don't get too many click throughs.. Your insight could not have come at a better time..
Thanks,