Question on Using Articles and InAchor Text to Drive Traffic to Website

[teamind]

Hi all:

I've looked all over the forum, the War Room and all the FANTASTIC materials provided by this community, but have still not found my answer to one question. Can you help me?


I am using article marketing to drive traffic to my niche website (in this case, it's a "review" website).

1. I have some great, solid search numbers, low competition keywords - both general niche keywords (10 keywords) AND product specific ones (40+ keywords) to use - so about 50+ keywords total.
2. I will be building a 15 to 20 page site.
3. Each page will be focused on ONE main keyword/product.

Here's my question (well, actually two questions):

1) When I write articles, do I write focused on a keyword that is ALSO a MAIN keyword on one of my site pages, or would that put the article in competition with my site? (i.e. "TurboDog training collars" in ARTICLE, AND "TurboDog training collars" as a main keyword on one of my pages)

2) When I write an article focused on a PARTICULAR keyword, is it better to feature the SAME keyword in the 'inachor text'? Or, should I just feature whatever keyword will help me to drive more traffic to the website page with my top offer? (i.e. article optimized for "black dog training collars", but inachor text is "TurboDog training collars" which is the top offer on the website)

Oh, drats....here come two more questions

3) Is it best to have the majority of articles link to the TOP offer page, the Home page (if the Top offer is not located there), or all over the place.

4) My articles must work as 'backlinks', too. Any other tips?

I've been searching all of the internet and watching IM videos into the wee hours trying to get this/these questions answered. Any clear cut direction you can offer me on this will be SINCERELY, SINCERELY appreciated.

Cheers,
Kelly

[Bayo]

Originally Posted by teamind

Here's my question (well, actually two questions):


1) When I write articles, do I write focused on a keyword that is ALSO a MAIN keyword on one of my site pages, or would that put the article in competition with my site? (i.e. "TurboDog training collars" in ARTICLE, AND "TurboDog training collars" as a main keyword on one of my pages)

The aim of your article marketing should determine your approach. If you want traffic, then write as many articles as possible and the numbers will help you achieve the goal, ie backlinks (this is not the whole solution)

I generally write as naturally as possible and not for serch engines. There are different schools of thought on this so expect to get some otheropnions on this point!

2) When I write an article focused on a PARTICULAR keyword, is it better to feature the SAME keyword in the 'inachor text'? Or, should I just feature whatever keyword will help me to drive more traffic to the website page with my top offer? (i.e. article optimized for "black dog training collars", but inachor text is "TurboDog training collars" which is the top offer on the website)

I would say using the KW in the anchor text is not a bad approach, however, make sure your use of KWs is nothing weird. The value of an approach that isn't trying to manipulate the search engines will pay off big time over the long run (supported by high quality articles of course)

Oh, drats....here come two more questions

3) Is it best to have the majority of articles link to the TOP offer page, the Home page (if the Top offer is not located there), or all over the place.

There are different ways to architect your site. There are benefits in having the hierarchy very top-down 1:1, i.e. a link from the main page to the article page and only a link back to the home page...HOWEVER, for this strategy to work, your goal must be that you want to have the individual pages rank well themselves (by driving traffic to those pages directly)

I've used this strategy with success in getting individual pages ranked individually without having to resort to short-term and short-lived strategies.

But there are also others you can use. I mention the top down strategy so I don't confuse you!

4) My articles must work as 'backlinks', too. Any other tips?

I've been searching all of the internet and watching IM videos into the wee hours trying to get this/these questions answered. Any clear cut direction you can offer me on this will be SINCERELY, SINCERELY appreciated.

The only suggestion I can offer on this last one is choose an approach and stick with it until you get results. if the results are proven not to be the desired ones you can always change to something new.

I always advise my coaching clients to have the discipline to follow-through and avoid 'IM ADD' the quest for instant results and the short attentions span a lot of us IMers suffer from


Cheers,
Kelly

I sincerely hope this helps in some way

Bayo

[kenseavert]

As long as your article backlinks to your site from your resource box its not in competition. For your backlinks dont always use the same word, use variations of your keyword if you can. It looks suspicious to google if you use the same keyword as anchor text over and over. But use keywords.

not sure what you mean by #3?

Ken

[Vyliss]

1. Write as many articles on the keywords you're focusing on as possible. It doesn't matter if it's also on your website, they're not on the same domain so Google will likely place both of them on the SERPS.

2. If you want backlinks to your website, you would do it this way. I'd suggest doing both. But test the results.

3. For Ezinearticles you have to link to the top tier domain (unless it's squidoo, hubpages etc). But if it's not and you're allowed to link anywhere, then link to your Offer page.

4. If you want them to work as backlinks, link to the site you want to rank with the MAIN keyword you want ranked for that site. If you want that site to come up under "Dog training", all of your articles should link to it with the anchor text as "Dog training".

Hope this helps.

[teamind]

Thanks for making the time to give input on this. It's getting a little clearer for me - need to digest. Any other thoughts out there?

[hpgoodboy]

Yes, here are some other thoughts:

Try to blanket a full page in Google.

Here is what I mean:

1. Select Keyword that you want to target.

2. Do SEO for your site.

3. Write articles (unique) for 9 different "article directories".
(Ezinearticles, goarticles, squidoo, articlesbase etc.)

Each article will be optimzed for that ONE keyword term.

If you are brilliant, you will have the whole first results page in Google. If something goes a little wrong you only have 5 spots on the first page. And if almost everything goes wrong, you will just be on the front page with one of your baits.

Important with this strategy: You need to build more backlinks then the current #1 result for that keyword.

[Joshua.E1]

You only need to write articles that are related to your niche. Yes it is better to have the keyword appear in the title and the anchor text too, this way it will attract click through.

If you are going for the keywords, I suggest that you do good on page optimization and back link articles to that particular page only.

Note that this does not ensure that you will rank first in the search engines, so you need to understand your competitor first then you will know how many back links to overtake the first.

Of course, getting a keyword research tool is also essential, you can read more about my keyword tool here, keyword research pro review.

[birdfood]

Damn, I was quite happy putting my keyword in anchor text and linking that back to main page that has the same keyword.

Now I'm wondering if I should redesign the whole strategy.

Always believed that the keyword should be a large part of your content and that anchor text should contain that keyword to be a relevant link and get more ranking juice

[kenjitay]

Originally Posted by teamind

Hi all:

1) When I write articles, do I write focused on a keyword that is ALSO a MAIN keyword on one of my site pages, or would that put the article in competition with my site? (i.e. "TurboDog training collars" in ARTICLE, AND "TurboDog training collars" as a main keyword on one of my pages)

You can do so and you don't have to worry about direct competition since what you want is to get as many exposure out there. What I meant is that you would want many traffic coming from different sources, eg some from your articles and some from your site. So.. the answer to this question is, it doesn't matter and it will actually work towards your advantage in terms of relevancy towards your main site.

2) When I write an article focused on a PARTICULAR keyword, is it better to feature the SAME keyword in the 'inachor text'? Or, should I just feature whatever keyword will help me to drive more traffic to the website page with my top offer? (i.e. article optimized for "black dog training collars", but inachor text is "TurboDog training collars" which is the top offer on the website)

Anchor text helps to build revevant backlinks to your site. However, you need to make it as natural as possible so that it does not look spammy. This means that you can have anchor text that is optimized for your top offer page and other anchor text of various combination. Eg:"black dog training collar", "dog training equipment", "collars for dog" etc.

3) Is it best to have the majority of articles link to the TOP offer page, the Home page (if the Top offer is not located there), or all over the place.

Depending on the prupose of your articles and your strategy of marketing. Is it list building, direct sales, market testing, relationship building, authority proofing etc

4) My articles must work as 'backlinks', too. Any other tips?

Naturally, your anchor text will serve as the relevant backlinks to your articles.

Some of it are already answered by others in the post... so I hope when you read through all the previous replies, it can add up to your understanding..

Regards
Kenji

[rainyclayday]

Originally Posted by Vyliss

3. For Ezinearticles you have to link to the top tier domain (unless it's squidoo, hubpages etc). But if it's not and you're allowed to link anywhere, then link to your Offer page.

You can link to other pages in your domain at EA, I do it all the time. Maybe you are thinking of redirecting, which can only be done with a top level domain.

[kenjitay]

Originally Posted by birdfood

Damn, I was quite happy putting my keyword in anchor text and linking that back to main page that has the same keyword.

Now I'm wondering if I should redesign the whole strategy.

You don't have... just mix and match the anchor text to make it look more natural.

Look if you have 100 anchor text all stating "dog training disc" to your site, obviously it is not going to be natural.

However, if you varies 20 "dog training disc", 20 "dog training equipment", 10 "toys for dogs" etc etc

All you have to do is just add other varations into the mix...


Regards

Kenji

[teamind]

Thanks for all the great answers, everyone. It sounds like this is more simple than I am making it and that I really can't go wrong if I just keep it natural.