Article Marketing 101 - Everything You Need To Know About Article Marketing In One Place!

[hmigroupllc]

This is a great outline for Article Marketing, and certainly worth following.

But I know, that as a new marketer, the idea of having 100 articles posted seems daunting. No one can individually write 100 articles in a short period of time and get them posted rapidly, then suddenly get 2000 visitors per day.

Of course, as a new marketer, you may be thinking that I can't afford to outsource this either, so what can I do? I don't have time to write 100 articles, and I can't afford to pay for 100 articles.

PLR articles are great resources, but they all have to be re-written, too!

So, is this strategy out of the question?

No.

You can do this, but stop worrying about having all your articles indexed by Google. Indexing them is not what get's you traffic. What you need is to get them posted to many, many directories.

There are a number of ways to do this.

* Be a member of an article submitter - most even have ways to "spin" your article for creating unique content, though the spinning may leave your article sounding, well, stupid.

* Or, do it by using a site like iSnare. For just $2.00, you can get your article distributed to thousands of directories without having to pay monthly fees.

I suggest using the iSnare method, it is easiest, and brings me the best results.

[zigstonk]

Originally Posted by Alex Sol

Great post!

...and people, stop your wining about the given keyword phrase!
Obviously it was just an example, it doesn't mean that you all need to use this phrase for your articles!

AMEN! Why do some turn a very helpful article into a rant? Go do your own stuff, apply, rinse, repeat. then let us know how YOU did.

[Raquel]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

1. Most article directories accept articles that are already live in other article directories, with the exception of a few (such as EZA, which is why I said to submit there first).

Daniel about this one

I wonder if I am doing something wrong. On a daily basis, I wrote articles and after writing I submit it to different article directory (as of now to at least 10 top ranking directories) on the same day. Some directories do not have review time and my articles are automatically approved and live on the net. And of course at EA it will take 48 hrs to get approved (if not on a weekend). So my articles are already live on other directories while waiting to be approved by EA. But EA still approves my articles even if they are already live to others. I am doing this for quite sometime now. But now I'm worried since I am not as expert as you or others here (I consider myself still a newbie) Am I doing something wrong? Is it really necessary to submit and get approved at EA first?

Although I get quite some sales and ranking page 1 on g.oogle for some of my keywords (though I must admit all I know is the basic keyword search using quotes and I never even check about the monthly search thing. I got surprised reading this post that i still need to perfect my keyword search and understanding). Maybe that is why some of my keywords or articles are nowhere to be found in the net and some are success.

Thanks and nice post here, I learned a lot.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Raquel

Daniel about this one

I wonder if I am doing something wrong. On a daily basis, I wrote articles and after writing I submit it to different article directory (as of now to at least 10 top ranking directories) on the same day. Some directories do not have review time and my articles are automatically approved and live on the net. And of course at EA it will take 48 hrs to get approved (if not on a weekend). So my articles are already live on other directories while waiting to be approved by EA. But EA still approves my articles even if they are already live to others. I am doing this for quite sometime now. But now I'm worried since I am not as expert as you or others here (I consider myself still a newbie) Am I doing something wrong? Is it really necessary to submit and get approved at EA first?

EZA might decline your article if their editors find it somewhere else, it is not likely, but if they pick it up they will decline it.

Once it is live there is no problem though.

Although I get quite some sales and ranking page 1 on g.oogle for some of my keywords (though I must admit all I know is the basic keyword search using quotes and I never even check about the monthly search thing. I got surprised reading this post that i still need to perfect my keyword search and understanding). Maybe that is why some of my keywords or articles are nowhere to be found in the net and some are success.

Thanks and nice post here, I learned a lot.

Keyword research is essential in my opinion, you need to know what terms people are actually searching for in order to drive massive amounts of traffic.

Check this thread out to understand it fully: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ion-101-a.html

[tobilove23]

very good content alot of information that is going to help with article marketing

[Ray Erdmann]

Daniel,

As always, another awesome post and your follow ups have been informative as well.

My only spin on this topic, which hasn't been addressed is this...and I'd like to get your feedback, or that from any other long term AM here as well:

After you've done your initial keyword research, determined that 'buyers' exist in the perspective market, and have analyzed the competition, before you start jumping on the bandwagon of writing articles and submitting to EZA is to consider this..

Every article directory allows you at least one, if not two, text link opportunities withing your article for you to link back to your 'domain', whether that 'domain' be a blog or web site. Therefore, it makese sense to FIRST create a long version article, say at least 500 to 600 words and get that uploaded to your own blog or web site...then rewrite it and get that 2nd article down to about 300-400 articles...so when you do submit the article to EZA or any article directory you decide to go with, you've actually got something to 'link back to'...


Thanks,


Ray

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Ray Erdmann

Daniel,

As always, another awesome post and your follow ups have been informative as well.

My only spin on this topic, which hasn't been addressed is this...and I'd like to get your feedback, or that from any other long term AM here as well:

After you've done your initial keyword research, determined that 'buyers' exist in the perspective market, and have analyzed the competition, before you start jumping on the bandwagon of writing articles and submitting to EZA is to consider this..

Every article directory allows you at least one, if not two, text link opportunities withing your article for you to link back to your 'domain', whether that 'domain' be a blog or web site. Therefore, it makese sense to FIRST create a long version article, say at least 500 to 600 words and get that uploaded to your own blog or web site...then rewrite it and get that 2nd article down to about 300-400 articles...so when you do submit the article to EZA or any article directory you decide to go with, you've actually got something to 'link back to'...

Thanks,

Ray

It does make sense, I usually write or outsource a completely different article for the blog than those I use to submit to the article directories.

However, sometimes EZA will only allow top level domain links, which means you won't be able to backlink to an article or page in your blog other than the main URL (domain.com).

I don't exactly understand their policy on this, sometimes they accept them, sometimes they don't.

[laurelwachtel]

A very comprehensive guide Daniel! You've answered many questions that I've had over the past three months, so thank you! I like the way you've laid it out in laymans terms and given a nice step by step process. Many thanks!

[teenmoney]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Hey James,

The software I use is Social Bot from Incansoft and yes you need to target the article URL.

This software provides 120 instant backlinks from several Social Bookmarking websites. This has proven to "bump" the position of my articles in the search engines for specific keywords. But it is by no means a long term approach.

If you want a long term approach you should do some manual backlinking to your articles from high PR websites.

I hope that explains it,

Dan

OK so I have a question regarding the social bookmarking. You said that the key was only submitting 1-3 backlinks a day. Does this mean you only submit the link of an article to 3 sites a day?

So like you grab your newly written article masterpiece and throw it up on Digg, Mixx and Stumbleupon and then you are done until the next day?

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by teenmoney

OK so I have a question regarding the social bookmarking. You said that the key was only submitting 1-3 backlinks a day. Does this mean you only submit the link of an article to 3 sites a day?

So like you grab your newly written article masterpiece and throw it up on Digg, Mixx and Stumbleupon and then you are done until the next day?

Yes that is pretty much it.

Although if you want better rankings the more anchor texted backlinks you will have to do. That is, if it's not ranking #1 already for your keyword.

[StokesM]

Daniel,

Thanks for the detailed info on Article Marketing. I have been proscratinating too long on writing articles. However, after reading your post it time to "Take Action".

Thanks Again,
Chris

[Dennis-White]

Great post, I love article marketing and use it everyday in my business and find it to be quite useful to generating income... thanks for the post

[11Levels]

thanks for the useful information Daniel!

[gerrihabib]

I like the detail you have on the structure of a good article and how it is extremely important choosing the right niche. Some articles can suffer from "keyword overload" and be banned or canceled from the submission site, so its always a good idea to proof read and double check every single aspect of the list you mentioned before submitting thats for sure. A great post Daniel, and thank you for the tips!

[FKY]

Hi Daniel,

thanks for this great post.
What I find little difficult is a keyword research as I think that none of the keyword research tools are accurate. You can use them only as a guide to show you some "estimates".
Also you can't gain clear picture about the competition as every time you submit the same keyword to google it will bring different results and the difference is not that small.
Let's say for keyword "current fashion trends" if you submit it 10 times one after another it will show the numbers of websites between two hundred thousand to million. So you can make your guess what is your competition but you can't be sure.

I'm not trying to go against you and your strategy in here just bringing out the point I stumbled upon.

Take care

[FKY]

I have to take back what I have said in my previous post as I've just found out that I've got some unwanted "visitors" in my computer.
Some funny virus is messing with my whole thing doing all those strange things, messing with numbers etc.
Oh god ....

[Simon74]

Hello Daniel,
great post, I am new to AM, will try your suggestions and see how it goes.

Thanks,
Simon

[themindvoid]

Originally Posted by Rich Mann

You say to write 100 articles. Where could someone come-up with the amount of content to be able to write 100 articles. I struggle with being able to write a few articles at best. What content can a person use from the content research done in Google? I'm not really clear on this. If you cut and paste other peoples content, isn't that going to get you into trouble?

Im kind of at this point as well, after creating my 1st blog im realizing that while theres a market for it , the topics to write about seem limited.

Also, many of the would be articles are the main content of my site, do excerpts work well? how do I write a good article without "giving away all the goodies" before they even reach my website.

[HomeBasedBusinessPLR]

Awesome post... lots of good information there. Article marketing rocks, I'm glad there is good information out there teaching people how to do it correctly.

[Bounderby]

I would be grateful if somebody could confirm whether I have grasped the essence of this thread. My understanding is thus:

- We have our niche site, which has decent keyword search volume and reasonable competition. Getting high ranking for this keyword in itself is tricky.

- We write an article based around a related keyword to our main site, which has lower searches but also lower competition. It is thus easier to achieve a higher page ranking on this more obscure keyword. Our article contains a link back to our main site. We submit the article to directories.

- We promote the ARTICLE, not the MAIN SITE, through bookmarking or whatever to gain backlinks. By promoting the ARTICLE, this will in turn lead to more traffic to the SITE through its embedded link.

- We can repeat the process with numerous articles centred around various low competition keywords related to our main keyword, all of which will drive additional traffic to our main site.

Is this the correct gist of it? Many thanks for any confirmations/corrections.

[Charles Butler]

Originally Posted by AbdulAzim

Can you verify this?

Thanks

Azim

I can verify from personal experience. I have submitted the same article across a plethora of article directories and have had at least one appear on google's first page.

Duplicate content is only posting the same stuff on the same domain

[Samuel Lee]

Great post Daniel! Article writing follows a formula for sure, and you've certainly covered each aspect very thoroughly! It certainly clears up any of doubt I've had on the keyword research part of the process. Many thanks for your post, and I'll think I'll get back to work on some new articles!

[Gopinathan T]

Originally Posted by Bounderby

I would be grateful if somebody could confirm whether I have grasped the essence of this thread. My understanding is thus:

- We have our niche site, which has decent keyword search volume and reasonable competition. Getting high ranking for this keyword in itself is tricky.

- We write an article based around a related keyword to our main site, which has lower searches but also lower competition. It is thus easier to achieve a higher page ranking on this more obscure keyword. Our article contains a link back to our main site. We submit the article to directories.

- We promote the ARTICLE, not the MAIN SITE, through bookmarking or whatever to gain backlinks. By promoting the ARTICLE, this will in turn lead to more traffic to the SITE through its embedded link.

- We can repeat the process with numerous articles centred around various low competition keywords related to our main keyword, all of which will drive additional traffic to our main site.

Is this the correct gist of it? Many thanks for any confirmations/corrections.

You have got the essence.

One main additional point the forum posters have emphasized is that you have to identify and work with those keywords that have a commercial value, i.e. searchers using those keywords are buyers. So you test after 20 or 30 articles whether your articles are converting into sales, before going ahead and writing the "full Monty" of 100 articles.

Gopinathan

P.S. Daniel's s one post that is practicable for those who are willing to work but does not have a "budget". Many thanks.

[trump44]

Daniel...I am new to this and wanted to let you know I keep this post in my favourites and refer ti it often...Thanks

[Charles Butler]

Out of curiosity has anyone had success using an article that resource box points directly to the sales page?

[jgand]

There is not such thing as a dumb question, only dumb people.

The only way to get information is to ask questions. I'm enjoying the post any little bit of info I can pick up is great. Keep putting out those articles and good things will happen.

[viralmania]

Wonderful advice for noobies and old timers alike ;-)

All the best!

[James Trewavas]

Thanks for a highly informative post Daniel. I use Ezine as well and find them good to work with.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Charles Butler

Out of curiosity has anyone had success using an article that resource box points directly to the sales page?

Yes it actually works quite well, but in the case of EZA you need to use your own domain and redirect it using your affiliate link.

If you pre-sell properly in the article and rank well for the respective keyword, you basically have an entire 250+ word advertisement working for you, FREE.

Provided the above criteria is met, it beats PPC any day (considering PPC attempts to pre-sell with like 1 sentence, which makes it pretty much cold selling for which you are paying for).

[bndpdler]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Hello my friends and fellow warriors,

I reached 500 posts yesterday so I wanted to post something worthwhile and give back to the community.

Article Marketing is now more popular than ever, the problem is most people don't understand the whole science behind it.

This method requires an entire systematic procedure (for which there are many variations), it's not just about submitting quality articles (although that's a big part of it).

People come here to complain about AM when they never did it 'right' in the first place. So I will show you 'right'.

Here's the deal, follow the methods I'm about to show you and if you DON'T get THOUSANDS of targeted visitors to your websites in a 1 month period after you have done this I will PAY YOU $100 USD. (To claim this you just have to show me all your work so I can verify you did it correctly.)

After this thread, there is NO excuse to start asking the daily 100 questions about Article Marketing, because everything will be here.

Article Marketing 101

This is a step by step procedure, follow it and I guarantee results (or claim the prize stated above).

Step 1 - Keyword Research And Implementation

A lot of people, especially IM beginners or newbies don't get the entire concept behind the 'keyword(s)'. There are many types of keywords, for this method we will be using one known as long tail keywords or keyword phrases.

To illustrate the process, I'm going to grab a random niche, a highly competitive one to show you that competition can only be good (because there is higher demand). The dating niche.

Now, head to your favourite keyword research tool (I use Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool myself).

Here is where you will be doing all the research.

Your goal is to look for any long tail keyword related to the niche that has at least 10 daily search results (the more the better obviously) and LESS than 10,000 google competition (the less the better). Allow me to elaborate.

I typed the search term pick up in the keyword tool and a long list of all types of keywords displays, since we are looking for long tails it should be a phrase containing 2 or more words.

Here is one sweet talk pick up lines (yes that is ONE keyword) it has over 650 overall daily search results (an average between the top 3 search engines) and a whopping Google competition of 131 websites (note scarcasm).

Hint: There are many more profitable keywords in that list alone.

Some people are going to kill me for revealing that keyword, it has the potential of driving 650+ visitors to your website per DAY with ONE article.

How did I measure competition you may wonder? I went to Google and did a search for the keyword under quotation marks: "sweet talk pick up lines"

Step 2 - Source Research For Your Article

Naturally, to write an article around that keyword you need to know some sweet talk pick up lines, so you will want to do some research on it unless you are some sort of Casanova or VegasVince.

This is the most simple process, go to Google and type sweet talk pick up lines (without quotations this time), check about 5 sources, grab your favourite pick up lines and you are good to go.

Hint: A source can be anything from an encyclopaedia to an article.

Note that in this case, that was very easy research, sometimes you will need to do a more in depth investigation in order to pull out a great article.

For this you can talk to Bev Clement, I believe she has a very solid research process.

Step 3 - Writing The Article

You don't have to be a professional writer to pull off an amazing article, simply write the article as if you were speaking to a client verbally.

Don't forget to make the article short (350-650 Words is my criteria), you don't want the reader bored to death and leaving half way through (that accomplishes nothing) by making them read your college thesis.

The basic structure of an article is composed of 6 parts. In order:

1. Title or Headline

The keyword MUST go here, for example: Top 10 Sweet Talk Pick Up Lines To Capture Her Attention. Headlines are used to caputure the reader's attention, in this case it is also used to optimize the article for the search engines.

2. Summary

The keyword doesn't necessarily have to go in this one, it's all about writing an appealing summary of your article. The summary is what will most likely show in the search engines under the title/headline of the article.

3. First Paragraph

Again, the keyword MUST go here once (don't flood it). Make it interesting and appealing or the visitor/reader will leave.

4. Body

Add the keyword in this part once again and insert the sweet talk pick up lines you chose during your research.

5. Last Paragraph or Conclusion

This is where you close the reader. Add the keyword one last time and present a subtle lead to the resource box (where you promote your website).

6. Resource Box

The best article directories will only allow you to promote or advertise something in this space, it has to be appealing and it MUST have a clear call to action. This is where you add the link to your website (ideally in anchor text for a keyword you have your website optimized around for SEO purposes (mainly backlinking)).

Just as an example: "If you truly want to get the girl, go to this website now: [Insert Link in Anchor Text] It is the top resource on dating advice and tips courtesy of the leading dating guru."

Step 4 - Submitting The Article

Great! Now you have created a very powerful article, it's time to submit it. You can submit to as many article directories as you wish without any penalties (duplicate content does not apply unless you submit the same article under the same domain).

The leading article directory is Ezine Articles. Their customer support may not be the best, but no matter what people say it gives the best ROTI (Return Over Time Invested - It's Free) and each day they become more strict on what articles to accept, so you won't get away with crap articles (which is good, crap articles are useless).

After submitting to EZA and getting it approved, feel free to submit to as many article directories as you want.

Step 5 - Securing The Article's Position In The Search Engines

Securing an article in #1 position for a specific keyword using the criteria stated above is VERY easy due to the low level of competition, you just need a few backlinks.

There is software out there (and services) that submit backlinks to over 100 social bookmarking websites, providing you with enough backlinks to secure the article in #1 position. The key to using these programs is: DON'T SPAM, just submit 1-3 backlinks per day at most.

I don't want to mention the backlink automation software I use because that would be promoting a product.

When you do a backlink make sure it is linking to your article IN anchor text with the keyword used in the article.

That close to guarantees your search engine rankings because the competition for the search term(s) is low. Add a killer quality article to the mix and you will be getting backlinks from people you don't even know for free.

Final Step - The Numbers Game

After all the steps above are met, it becomes a numbers game. Submit 100 articles using this method. Don't panic just yet, let me show you why.

Let's say all your articles average 100 views per day and you have a decent average CTR of 20% (these numbers are very common). 100 Views X 20% = 20 Unique Visitors Per Article X 100 Articles = 2,000 DAILY Laser Targeted Visitors (AKA Potential Buyers) to your website.

That is just an example using a below average scenario, the numbers may vary and if you stop submitting articles the traffic may go down (unless the keywords used continue to get the same number of daily hits).

Well that's about it my friends. This works for every single niche out there. And not only are you getting highly targeted traffic to your websites but you are also branding yourself as an expert in the niche(s) you chose. Enjoy!

Best of luck,

Daniel Molano

PS: For more information about keyword research and implementation visit this thread now: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ion-101-a.html

PPS: To find if your keyword(s) have commercial potential (In other words, if people are looking to purchase something when using a keyword to do a search) use this free tool in cross reference: Audience Intelligence

PPPS: That was my two cents, there are many variations to this method. I would love to hear the input of other expert article marketing warriors like Wagenheim, Kelsall, Shanin, Sago, Graves etc... to make this the definitive Article Marketing thread.

Just wanted to take the opp to thank you for all the info..I am feeling a bit overwhelm as a newbie

[LilBlackDress]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the great post. I am a writer and website owner and I have many of my articles ranked on page 1 or 2 of Google over millions of results by using carefully selected keywords.
So I understand how to use the keywords for articles...

but I am not exactly sure for the websites... I had been optimizing for a certain set of keywords for each site. One set per site. Should I be optimizing for several sets of keywords per site?

Lets say I am have a website on nails and the main theme of it is "nail art design". I pick a bunch of different keywords to write about for ezines to link back to my site for ..."pretty nails", "do it yourself nail art" etc.

My goal is to write alot of articles for each of my keyword selections so that article gets to the top of the google pile and gets more views for potential sales correct?

How many articles is it best to write for each set of keywords?

And most importantly do I change my anchor text to the keywords for each article.
So for example if my article was How to Get Pretty Nails instead of using "Nail Art Design"(the main theme of the website) for my anchor text would I use "Get Pretty Nails"?

Thanks so very much!

[submit_articles]

Daniel is spot on about keyword research. In the course of my work, there are many marketers who don't bother about keyword research. So they end up optimizing for terms that probably nobody ever searches about. But still, they enjoy the link juice that comes with the links. Over time, the sites started showing all over the search results for various different terms. That's still traffic, but there could be more when keyword research is done right.

[jhiggins]

Daniel,

I have a question about how you social bookmark your articles. I'm very worried about Google de-indexing an article that I've worked hard on because of bookmarking it.

You say 2 to 3 bookmarks a day should do it. Here's my question:

Do you bookmark all your articles with the same BM account? Or, do you create a new account (username, email, etc.) for each article you BM?

I think if you could share a little about your BM strategy it could save some of us from getting carried away and banning ourselves from sites or having the BIG G de-index (sandbox) our articles.

Thanks much!!

Jonathan

[Allenz]

Hi,
Thank you Daniel for such an awesome post. I will follow your instructions on article marketing and hope to get positive results.

Thanks again..

[jhiggins]

Daniel,

In addition, you say 2 to 3 BM links a day. How many do you find it takes considering the keywords are not competitive? 10 to 20 or 20 to 40?

Jonathan

[Traffic101]

Thank you so much for your great tips and advice. I have been writing articles for awhile, but with your great breakdown it'll help my articles get noticed better by search engines!

[geeza10]

Thanks for the post. I'll give it a try, still like learning a foreign language tho

[Dexx]

I think article marketing combined with proper social bookmarking can dramatically improve your results

[Gunter Eibl]

I think people should focus more on these 3 things :

1) submitting articles in the right quantity (most are simply not submitting enough articles to get noticed)

2) learn how to write enticing titles and resource boxes (most titles and resource boxes are so boring that nobody wants to read that article or click through)

3) use the right keyword as backlink (most people focus on too competitive keywords and get never ranked anywhere)

Gunter