Allen Graves Walks The Walk

[Steven Wagenheim]

Allen Graves asked me to try out his article directory. Said it should perform
just as well as Ezine Articles if not better.

So I took him up on his offer.

To compare apples to apples, I submitted an article to EZA on Nov 4.

I submitted the SAME exact article to Allen's directory the next day, Nov 5.

The views gotten from the article submitted to Allen's directory are almost
twice as many as the views from EZA.

Now, here is what I discovered.

At the start, EZA's views are quicker. but die out faster.

Allen's directory starts slow but then continues to rise over time.

So for whatever reason, my articles must be either ranking higher in the
SEs or, because maybe there aren't as many articles to go through, they
are easier to find.

Again, I can't really explain the better performance but it's there.

So my hat's off to Allen. He said I'd get just as good results if not better
and he was right.

So now I have to start submitting more articles to his directory.

Naturally, this may vary depending on your niche, so by all means, do
the same test. Submit the same article to EZA and Allen's directory and
see which one performs better. Give it about 2 to 4 weeks because as I
said, Allen's directory is slower out of the gate.

Hope this helps somebody.

[Tenzo]

Thanks for posting your results. Can you post the URL of Allen's site? Or would you prefer if interested people contacted him directly?

Thanks again.
Kevin

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Tenzo

Thanks for posting your results. Can you post the URL of Allen's site? Or would you prefer if interested people contacted him directly?

Thanks again.
Kevin

I'd prefer if you just contacted Allen.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Can somebody please tell me where I have insulted another Warrior
with my post?

I just received an infraction for insulting another Warrior.

My God, I can't believe some of the stuff that I have to deal with.

Here I am stating that somebody's directory performed for me and that's an
INSULT?

Know what? I give up.

[KarlWarren]

Infractions are a strange beast - they manage to disappear all by themselves

I think that the same study over a longer time period and with a larger batch of articles (and perhaps different niches) would yield very interesting results.

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by KarlWarren

Infractions are a strange beast - they manage to disappear all by themselves

I think that the same study over a longer time period and with a larger batch of articles (and perhaps different niches) would yield very interesting results.

We'll await your results Karl with baited breath! []

Rich

[Ron Douglas]

How do you know if you receive an infraction?

I guess this post could be deemed promoting your buddy's site just like the Harlan thread. Pretty silly though in my opinion.

I guess I'll check Allen Graves sig for the link to his article directory.

[Chris Hunter]

Steven,

What about click-throughs to your site? Better than at EZA?

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

How do you know if you receive an infraction?

I guess this post could be deemed promoting your buddy's site just like the Harlan thread. Pretty silly though in my opinion.

I guess I'll check Allen Graves sig for the link to his article directory.

Ron, Allen, while a nice enough guy, is not my buddy and I get nothing out
of this other than just to report that EZA isn't the only game in town even
though I personally believed it was. I was extremely skeptical, but the
results speak for themselves.

What this has taught me is that I need to be more open minded about
things because there was a time I wouldn't have even bothered trying.

[KarlWarren]

Originally Posted by richt1971

We'll await your results Karl with baited breath! []

Rich

Not me sunshine taking a looooooong break from IM and work in general once my current to do list is finished.

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

How do you know if you receive an infraction?

I guess this post could be deemed promoting your buddy's site just like the Harlan thread. Pretty silly though in my opinion.

I guess I'll check Allen Graves sig for the link to his article directory.

I think the system sends a PM to the infractee.

Silly indeed - but each to their own. Others can see the infraction in the icons below an individual post. Clicking the icon reveals the reason - and the infractor.

[Ralf Skirr]

I checked Allens directory yesterday. I think it's a promising concept. (Apart from the design maybe, but that can be improved over time.)

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Know what? I give up.

Steven, that doesn't sound like you.

But I agree it's hard to understand why that post received an infraction.

Ralf

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Chris Hunter

Steven,

What about click-throughs to your site? Better than at EZA?

According to my AWStats, the CTR is the same, as it should be. It's
the same article doing the same good, or bad job. So if the CTR is the
same, then getting more views is going to get you more sales.

So far, this particular product is now converting at about 3%, which for me
is great. Most of the stuff I promote is around 1 to 2% tops. So I am very
pleased with this campaign.

[Chris Hunter]

Great! Thanks for the info, Steven!

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Ralf Skirr

I checked Allens directory yesterday. I think it's a promising concept. (Apart from the design maybe, but that can be improved over time.)


Steven, that doesn't sound like you.

But I agree it's hard to understand why that post received an infraction.

Ralf

Get kicked around by certain people here long enough and you'll understand
why I said that. It's easy to say to somebody "doesn't sound like you" until
you understand that they've had that stick poked in their side for almost
2 years now. It's getting tiresome.

[Ralf Skirr]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Get kicked around by certain people here long enough and you'll understand
why I said that. It's easy to say to somebody "doesn't sound like you" until
you understand that they've had that stick poked in their side for almost
2 years now. It's getting tiresome.

I understand that.

Unfortunately it's always that way: the more exposure (attention) someone has, the more people use him as target for negative campaigns. It's frustrating, but nothing that can be prevented.

The good side is: the more you get slapped, the more attention you obviously have - which is good for business.

I know that doesn't really help on the emotional side, but what can one do except continuing on his path...

Ralf

[Jenn Dize]

Allen's directory is amazing! I'm embarrassed to say -- I've been a member for over a month and haven't submitted.

He really is all about the writers. You'll also find amazing article writing tips + get his article marketing book free. I've read (and ghostwritten) tons of article marketing ebooks -- his is the best.

It's Website-Articles.net Exclusive Article Submission Platform

As for the design, what in the world do you have against it Ralf? Lol. It's really cool in my opinion and totally focused on the author and not making the owner money. I'm not getting on you, just curious about what you would change

Thanks for reminding me that I have to take advantage of my membership, Steven.

*blush*

Do keep us updated on your programs Steven -- it's always good to find more than one avenue for submissions

[Emailrevealer]

I'd like to check out Allens site. Can you post the link?

Originally Posted by Ralf Skirr

I checked Allens directory yesterday. I think it's a promising concept. (Apart from the design maybe, but that can be improved over time.)


Steven, that doesn't sound like you.

But I agree it's hard to understand why that post received an infraction.

Ralf

[Ralf Skirr]

Originally Posted by Jenn Dize

As for the design, what in the world do you have against it Ralf? Lol. It's really cool in my opinion and totally focused on the author and not making the owner money. I'm not getting on you, just curious about what you would change

There's one crucial change I'd suggest:

right now the width expands to your total window width. I have a large monitor and thus the lines are extremely long. As we know in IM long lines aren't good for readability, so I'd definitely change to a fixed width design for the main content area.

The rest is a matter of taste of course. To me it looks a bit old fashioned. It clearly puts content first - which is an excellent choice. Doing that calls for a modern looking web 2.0 design.

A web2.0 design would even help positioning the directory. The claim is:

We're simply changing the way article directories do business.

Now imagine a fresh look like apple.com (a very typical web2.0 look) instead of the told article direcory style. That would fit the claim perfectly.


But again: good directory and promising concept!

Just my 2 cents.

Ralf

[Jenn Dize]

Very cool, Ralf! Stuff I would never think of, but it all makes sense.

[Ralf Skirr]

Originally Posted by Emailrevealer

I'd like to check out Allens site. Can you post the link?

http://www.website-articles.net/

[BlueSquares]

Way to go Allen...I'm glad to hear this directory is taking off. I've been keeping my eye on it for some time.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Ralf Skirr

right now the width expands to your total window width. I have a large monitor and thus the lines are extremely long. As we know in IM long lines aren't good for readability, so I'd definitely change to a fixed width design for the main content area.

Just curious- if that is too wide for you, why do you have your browser window so big?

What is the point of Allen fixing his site width at, say, 800 pixels while your browser window is 2000 wide? Is there some great benefit to having lots of empty pixels?

I'm sure if he made it fixed width, somebody else would complain it was too narrow on their screen.

This is a bit like calling the TV station to complain that their shows look too big on your 100 inch TV.

[jazzyjeff]

Thanks Steven,

I am going to attempt the same test with my article on EZA and Mr. Allen's site. I will reveal the results in a future post. Hope my results will help others on this forum.

Jeff

[Allen Graves]

<edited July 2009>

I have made the pages a fixed widt now. And I am in talks with another Warrior to redesign the site once again - hopefully to a more web 2.0 style

</edit>

Holy cow, I've been out all day with the wife and kids and I came back to find this thread. Thanks for the kind words, Steven...and everyone else.

I'll not speak about my site for obvious reasons...but I'd say that the infraction you received Steven was just as much aimed at me as it was at you. I've been closely watched by this person since I made my stupid mistakes back when I was playing around with Patrick.

I learned my lesson, but some people are still hanging on to those days and believe that anyone who speaks nicely of me are plotting something evil. LOL

Anyhow, thanks for the kudos and good luck with your future submissions. I'm honored to have you as a member of my already kick-butt author base!

Oh yea, one more thing - I wonder if you'd have received an infraction had you started a thread about how EzineArticles.com is just as good as...oh...say, articlesbase. I doubt you would have been questioned at all. Ya think?

Thanks Steven.

Allen Graves

[captivereef]

thanks steve, i may check them out. I have been having great luck with articledahsboard and goarticles lately and was looking for another option to add to the arsenal

[Mark McWilliams]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I just received an infraction for insulting another Warrior.

Someone gave me one a while back for a similar invalid reason!...

Thanks for the post though Steven, nice to see some different results from
other warriors sites/products! And looking on the plus side of things, you'll get
more links back to your sites from various other sites too. (Article Directory)

Thanks
Mark

[Canada]

Thanks for bringing this directory to my attention. I've been trying to get back to basics, as I really need to start making some tangible income vs. just paying for my "hobby", but I've been reluctant to begin submitting articles again to EZA. I think I'm going to give Allen's directory a try, and substitute his directory for EZA in my process.

[Ralf Skirr]

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

Just curious- if that is too wide for you, why do you have your browser window so big?

What is the point of Allen fixing his site width at, say, 800 pixels while your browser window is 2000 wide? Is there some great benefit to having lots of empty pixels?

I'm sure if he made it fixed width, somebody else would complain it was too narrow on their screen.

This is a bit like calling the TV station to complain that their shows look too big on your 100 inch TV.

Chris,

I'm doing a lot of stuff in my browser window besides reading
articles and I'm moving and resizing windows a lot between 2
monitors.

Fixed width layouts actually are quite popular and considered
good usability. Have you noticed that most sales letters use
it?

Email marketers sometimes even break lines at 35 characters
for easy reading.

Regarding the TV example: I would never complain, I watch
DVDs sitting in my bed looking at a 2.70 m screen.

The web site formatting would not apply to a TV screen as TV
is rarely used to read lengthy text. And if it was, the text
would get bigger (which makes reading easier) but it would not
have plenty more words per line.

I doubt that anybody would complain that an article doesn't
spread to 2000 pixels.

The most flexible solution while maintaining good readability
would be a design that sets minimum and maximum width and
allows flexibility within.

Ralf
P.S. Signed up right now.

[Mark Coverdale]

Steven,

I give you an anti-infraction for the good info you have given here. I know it doesn't do anything in the stats but at least you know theres a lot more people thanking you for your posts than getting "offended" by it.

People can be very petty.

[Sylvia Rolfe]

Okay here is a breakdown of numerous articles I have submitted to both. I won't give the actual links because I don't want it to be seen as self promo but heres some to compare, I will even include some of my first articles which were crap lol.

EZA WA Date Published
Article 1 66 83 May 5th 2008
Article 2 169 502 May 7th 2008
Article 3 73 94 May 19th 2008
Article 4 24 26 Nov 11th 2008

And the list goes on. Very very few that I have published with EZA in the long run outdo WA stats and I find the CTR on WA is usually higher (less bleeding areas on the page.) And these samples are all in very different niches and are by far low performers.

[John Rowe]

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

I guess this post could be deemed promoting your buddy's site just like the Harlan thread. Pretty silly though in my opinion.

Whoever infracted Steven probably just jumped the gun. This post is nothing like Harlan's. Steve is not pretending to help members, he actually is.

[oregongal]

I for one want to thank Steven! I am a recent member of Allen's article directory and find this info extremely useful. It has also spurred me on to start a comparison to my articles on Ezine and those on Allen's site. None of them on Allen's site are a month old yet though, so I feel like I'll know more after a month to six weeks. Thanks again Steven!!

[Charles Harper]

Man..I am like Jenn Dize. I pay for this thing, but have not submitted. I was just about to get rid of the membership. I will keep it now and start to submit.

[Steve Porcaro]

How can one make a new successful article directory? I remember seeing Chris Knights early questions on many forum before EZA became the king...however he had a vision and a plan

I have thought of opening an article directory...however I have only thought of things I would not allow so it would not become a spam site.

So what makes a new artilce directory site? I ask this question as to me anyone can do this....however I remember Chris Knights early questions from other forums............

[mudmat]

Has his article directory been up for a while or is it totally new?

Hmm.. How can Allen's article directory be better than EZA?

[Mary Gallivan]

Hi Steven

I'm so glad you posted this. I was looking at the site in question over the weekend and have also spoken to Allen about it. I think it looks a great site and am thinking of joining.

Now that you have tested an article there and I respect and value your opinion on it with the test you did, I think I'm going to jump in as soon as I can.

Please don't ever give up Steven, we all need you here and I still need you here or I'll never improve my articles. If I can get to even half as good as you are at article writing I'll be pleased. I'm learning from you all the time and will get there one day.

Best wishes

Mary

[PRandContent]

Whoever gave Steven an infraction needs a serious kick in the butt!

Allen, I can't wait to try your directory out. I've tons of articles to submit!

[aboutalhah]

He Allen,

You are doing a great job. I'll join soon.

Franck

[JayXtreme]

Hey Steve..

Thank you VERY much for sharing your results... it's good of you, many people could have kept this one under their hat and mined for gold quietly...

You rock, dude!!

Peace

Jay

[zerofill]

It used to tell you who gave you an infraction...
But yeah it was probably Allen's stalker who no one else on the forum likes either...
So your ok hehe...
Probably because you didn't fill that "PIAB" order for him Allen LOL

Allen is a cool guy that will help you if he can...and provides killer information in the handbook he has out...and does a great job running his article site...
Anyone wants to give me an infraction for saying that go ahead...but I will call you out on it hehe...

[trippmarxx]

I'm thinking about giving this directory a shot, since I've never really heard of it previously.

The thing I want to know though, is it worth the $10 monthly membership? Have you seen the results that make it worth that? The only reason I ask, is that I've never seen an article directory charge a membership fee (except EZA's new Premium Membership deal)

[Allen Graves]

Website-Articles.net doesn't want the general public to think of them as a paid directory...rather a paid article marketing education site with an exclusive directory that can be used by the members.

So the membership fee is for the ongoing information and education that you receive. The directory is just a bonus for the members.

[Louis Raven]

To be honest, I was a member of two article directories and YouTube before signing with EzineArticles.

With a video I get on average 5 visitors a day from by the way.

Everyone under the sun said how good it was for sending traffic so I signed up EZA. Wrote a cracking article, submitted, waited 7 years for approval, and now get 4 viewers a day (average) for that article.

4 viewers as opposed to my 5 visitors??

I thought I had to be a really bad writer or something because everyone was using EZA for worldwide promotion but now it seems.. I was right all along to doubt them.

Also, I think that's the first time I'd been led the wrong way by a group of Warriors.

EZA is great for backlinks and I do understand the power of getting your article published but with other directories and video I can more or less guarantee a good bunch of uniques each day.

By the way, the article I tested in EZA was a 4 step tutorial with a killer resource for 8 more free steps.

Louis

P.S. before the usual bunch start telling me how the owner of EZA should ban me for bad-mouthing I want to state: EZA is a great directory but I find other sources better.

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by mudmat

Has his article directory been up for a while or is it totally new?

Hmm.. How can Allen's article directory be better than EZA?

It has been online since 2005.

[Joseph Ratliff]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Allen Graves asked me to try out his article directory. Said it should perform
just as well as Ezine Articles if not better.

So I took him up on his offer.

To compare apples to apples, I submitted an article to EZA on Nov 4.

I submitted the SAME exact article to Allen's directory the next day, Nov 5.

The views gotten from the article submitted to Allen's directory are almost
twice as many as the views from EZA.

Now, here is what I discovered.

At the start, EZA's views are quicker. but die out faster.

Allen's directory starts slow but then continues to rise over time.

So for whatever reason, my articles must be either ranking higher in the
SEs or, because maybe there aren't as many articles to go through, they
are easier to find.

Again, I can't really explain the better performance but it's there.

So my hat's off to Allen. He said I'd get just as good results if not better
and he was right.

So now I have to start submitting more articles to his directory.

Naturally, this may vary depending on your niche, so by all means, do
the same test. Submit the same article to EZA and Allen's directory and
see which one performs better. Give it about 2 to 4 weeks because as I
said, Allen's directory is slower out of the gate.

Hope this helps somebody.

Shame on you for trying to post useful information Steve, LOL

I gotta test this now.

Thanks for the heads up Steve!

[howdo-i]

I started posting articles on WA on the 11th August and have slowly built it up to 25 articles. I have some original articles posted but the majority are articles previously posted at isnare. I'm recycling my work to make the most of it. It's early days and the pick up is slow which is only to be expected. I think that the original articles are getting a little more traffic than the reprints but it's hard to tell. All of the articles posted more than a few days ago are getting some traffc.

Currently I'm getting about 20 views a day with a ctr about the same as with EA. Ctr is not easy to determine as some of my links point to other articles but I am seeing visitors to my website too. All in all I'm pleased with the results which I believe will increase slowly and I'm adding about 1 article a day.

To put this in context My first article at EA is dated October 2006 and I have a total of 144 articles. They have produced a total of just over 1 million views. Website-articles is producing 500 views a month to 60,000 a month from Ezinearticles. I think that WA is doing better than EA did for me at the start so I'm more than happy to keep posting articles there.

I hope this helps.

Steve

[Allen Graves]

Steve,

FYI - WA integrates with StatCounter, Woopra and/or Google Analytics.

You can get some killer information if you use it...including the things you mention above that you aren't so sure about.

AL

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Besides being a TB fan, Allen is a good guy

He has a great directory that is set up to directly benefit writers....because he is a writer. Anyone that is article marketing that isn't putting at least some of their content there is missing out.

[howdo-i]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Steve,

FYI - WA integrates with StatCounter, Woopra and/or Google Analytics.

You can get some killer information if you use it...including the things you mention above that you aren't so sure about.

AL

I am using statcounter which shows me a good deal of information but I can't see the links that visitors leave from. There is an "Exit Links" feature in the statcounter statistics menu but it's empty. Am I missing a trick ??

Funny - I don't have an Exit Links on my other statcounter projects at all ???

Steve

[cballi]

Thanks for posting this Steve.

I joined Allen's directory about a month ago mostly to get ahold of his AM guide but have still not posted an article. This is the kick in the behind I needed - off to post my first article.