Article Marketing Will Die Without A Revolution!!

[Marcus Paul]

Article Marketing has treated me very well in my IM career. It has enabled me to make affiliate sales on keywords where my sites could not rank. A keyword-rich article in a buyer's niche on EZA has returned awesome results for me. The best thing it has helped me do is list-building.

The advantage is the low cost. The disadvantage is ranking for a high-competition keyword is tough and the results dribble in. The list builds slowly and sales come in slowly but with no overhead (like costs for PPC.)

But if it wasn't for my lists, I would have no relationships. And only 1 out of every 3 emails I send contains an offer, or my readers revolt. That's not a relationship in the sense that I want to create one. I want them to WANT offers from me because they value my opinion.

The current state of Article Marketing is somewhat grim. Too many publishers are pushing out low-value content because they get it cheaply. This is beginning to drive users to blogs in the niche they are researching, and steering Google in that direction as well. Blogs about a particular niche generally have shown more value. After all Google will pick a linked post on a blog before an EZA article for the same keyword. Users are starting to get that.

Article Marketers should consider a few big changes:

1) Find a knowledgeable person in your niche and hire them to write for you on a per article basis. If they aren't a writer, then hold interviews with them to get the high-value nuggets and write it yourself. Be willing to pay for high-value information, not speed or word-count.

2) Change the venue where you publish. Everyone knows to diversify your publishing locations, but seek out opportunities that go beyond good placement in the search engine. Find the blogs in your niche and ask if you can write a guest post. Make sure it is a GREAT piece. (oh, and have a sample ready.)

3) Use community publishers that build relationships with mainstream media outlets. I created one to solve this problem for myself (link in my signature). The purpose of a community publisher is that the aggregated quality contributions of the community attract mainstream media outlets as they scan the web for related content. This also gives you more flexibility on your writing style, making it easier to add high-value content (including images or videos) and attract readers and links. Add in the ability to easily socialize that content and the results grow with time, as opposed to being at the mercy of search forever.

My belief is that Article Marketing is morphing into a process that requires socialization to survive. As people move to a "recommendations-based surfing" mentality and less a "Google-everything" mentality, your articles need to be positioned on the cutting edge.

Are you prepared?

The exact reason why I created the site I have .. It's time for a Revolution... Too many articles directories are getting strict and using too many google ads. Using all those google ads cost the author clicks and sales..

James

[Ronnie Nijmeh]

I think you're right about it morphing.

The key is to remember that there's no "quick fix." If everyone else is doing the same thing then the value is diluted.

I've seen this years ago when I was marketing some pretty specific software. At first it was easy to dominate the market, but as more and more people came into the market (with their half-ass websites), the traffic was dispersed and everyone suffered.

[Kay King]

Would you write and publish articles if there were no profit potential in it for you? Why would anyone run a large directory (with staff, space, etc) and not run ads to monetize it?

When articlesdirectories raise the bar and strictly enforce the quality of articles - good writers benefit from it.

kay

Originally Posted by Kay King

Would you write and publish articles if there were no profit potential in it for you? Why would anyone run a large directory (with staff, space, etc) and not run ads to monetize it?

When articlesdirectories raise the bar and strictly enforce the quality of articles - good writers benefit from it.

kay

This depends upon how you place those ads..

My new website has no site ads on it at all and never will. I will not add any google ads or any other similar ads.

I fully allow the authors to advertise their own sites in their articles, I fully allow the authors to create a full sales article page with html, images, flash, video, payment buttons, and etc.. This does not mean I allow anything to be posted because all articles that include links or advertising must be links or advertising for that authors own product or service..

I am in no way following those other article directory websites, my site offers way more than anyone of them and it is geared to help the authors, not hinder them...

I had an article rejected from EZA recently just because one of my products names was mentioned one time in the body. The article itself was very informative, I had to edit the article just to remove that one simple name.. To me this is getting over-strict and is hindering more than helping. So while places like EZA goes right, I will go left ...

James

[Marcus Paul]

Congrats, James! That is what I am talking about. The articles need to be more engaging and interactive and not just about SEO for the host.

Originally Posted by youTribunedotcom

Congrats, James! That is what I am talking about. The articles need to be more engaging and interactive and not just about SEO for the host.

Thanks..

Go view my site from the wso link in my sig .. You will see an example full page article sales page. I call these Article Sales Pages because that is exactly what they are.. I have an option when posting your article to post traditional article or article sales page.

I look at it this way, if I am providing you great content that is helping your directory then why the hell is my article flooded with google ads ?? Atleast have the respect for my article not to litter it with trashy mlm google ads..

I am in no way saying google ads are bad, but they have their place and their place should not be plastered all over my articles that are helping the article directory to begin with..

James