Ezinearticles newsletter about 1,000 articles - shock!

Haven't read the newsletter yet, but that also has to be balanced with this blog entry from Chris Knight where he identifies problems with Googles algorithm changes and how traffic is down at Ezine.

Search Engine Algorithm Changes

This suggests that they're having a purge on "thinly crafted" articles and are looking to raise the minimum word count to 400, with the norm being 600+ words.

As you say Carolyn, generating 1,000 totally unique quality articles for one niche seems rather excessive and you also have to question whether the ROI is even worth it!!

Who is to even say that all these changes EZA are looking to do, will even reverse the so called "stamp down" Google has given them.

I'm not happy with some of their changes like the no follow resource box, but ones like 400min words is not unexpected and make sense I guess.

In the end they can do what they like, it's their directory.

They have lost a huge chunk of their ad revenue basically overnight and in all honesty they are desperate to get that $$$ back.

Google will always put money ahead of the people who put the life in their business (us webmasters) and EZA will do the same as we have seen. Of course they try to put a positive spin on things saying its for the "users" but it's all about the big mighty dollar.

Internet marketers may just need to adjust like we always do...

Hello Carolyn,

it really depends on your strategy. Are you playing the numbers game hoping that people will randomly come across your articles and click the links in your resource box?

Or,

are you creating content of very high quality which people would read and feel compelled to share with others? Syndicating your content across the web, building up your reputation and sending you tonnes of highly targetted visitors for years to come? In which case, quality over quantity is the order of the day.

(I know which I would choose)

Chris

I write around 300 articles a month. So it takes a little more than 3 months to write 1000. In order to do this, you need three things:

1. Knowledge and understanding. If you enjoy the subjects about which you write you will pick up a lot of knowledge in this area. 500-1000 words on the subject should be no problem.
2. An article writing system. You need a method that allows you to write a large quantity of high quality articles quickly and painlessly.
3. Discipline and Endurance. It takes time to build up your endurance. In the same way a person who can run marathons starts off finding a couple of miles a tall order, a writer must build up his stamina and be able to last the distance. Not burn out after three 500 word articles.

The trouble is that most article writers are passing themselves off as experts in areas they know very little about. On top of this they have very little writing experience. It is little wonder they find article writing so hard going.

I've lost count of the number of threads about writing articles for EZA and so forth by people who have just got into their niche. Someone who decided to try their luck in the IM niche on Monday starts submitting articles on IM on Tuesday in the hope of being an 'expert' on Wednesday.

The reason EZA are having to take radical steps at the moment is because their directory is full of drivel.

Sorry if this sounds harsh. None of it is directed personally towards the OP.

It's not that hard, just set yourself 2-3 hours of writing everyday. On the weekends spend 4-5 hours a day. You'll see results in a couple of weeks...

It's a load of crap. We do very well with affiliate niche sites and have no where near that amount of articles. Perhaps in some niches, such as weight loss you may need that many.

Methinks ezine is frightening people to write more articles for their site to boost their add sense revenue. And to combat the fact that they are losing their power in google, which is causing articles to slip down the rankings.

They let a lot of junk content be approved, and now they are paying the price. There are smarter ways to get rankings in google and eyes to your site. I will never be one of those people that waste time writing articles to build up other's sites. My time is valuable and I will spend it boosting my own sites.

3 per day.

Will

a) You use an ultra-spinnable article and submit it 1000 times?

b) outsource

c) you sit down and type on your keyboard

d) ?

e) profit!

Several years ago ezinearticles worked well for me - each article that I wrote got excellent clickthrough, sent several dozen visitors to my blog, and earned me several dollars in adsense clicks, and after a couple of months of writing articles I stopped - and the several dollars a day in adsense clicks continued. And, my ezinearticles alone got me a pagerank of 3.

I recently tried this again with a similar blog in a similar niche...and was SHOCKED at how few visitors each article got. It was like night and day. I kept trying for weeks, and finally gave up. I also looked at the other articles on ezinearticles.com's home page, and it seems as if across the board, all of the articles get waaaay fewer views then they did several years ago - in every niche.

Ezinearticles was a great traffic driver back in the day, but unfortunately, for me at least, it seems to be completely dead. Once upon a time, the whole "bum marketing" thing - writing articles and using them as your main or only method to drive visitors to your site - worked beautifully, but the internet has evolved and I doubt that model works well for anyone any more. I've switched my business model completely.

So Chris Knight is considering changing to an "exclusive to EzineArticles.com" business model, which I believe is how Buzzle.com operate.

Hmm.

According to the data provided below, Buzzle.com did not escape the reach of this latest algo change either:

Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality - SEO-Blog

It is how Buzzle.com operate, and if anyone's interested I'm offering big odds that Chris won't follow their example.

If he did, there'd certainly be a few hundred/thousand professional writers who would never submit there again. Chris won't be shooting himself completely in the foot any time soon: that's just not going to happen. :p

Well, look ... if I owned EZA, I'd want everyone to believe that, as well.

I suspect that he's talking about the "rinse and repeat" model of article marketing, in which you use article directories primarily for backlinks and traffic. And I suspect it may be "sort of true-ish" for most of those following that model, actually? Without unusually good writing skills, it's probably going to take most people 100 of "those articles" to get far, isn't it?

For myself, I don't (and wouldn't be willing to) write more than 1 article per day, which with multiple niches doesn't produce that much collective output for a long time, of course. But then again, I'm not using an article-directory-dependent, Google-dependent, "rinse and repeat" model of article marketing, because I don't believe in it, couldn't make a living from it when I originally tried it (knowing no better at that point), and see most people who try it understandably failing with it.

Well, it all depends what you mean by "article", doesn't it?

If you mean "chunk of 400 EZA-acceptable words, including some relevant keywords, to which a resource-box can be attached" then yes, it's trivially easy to write 1,000 articles in a year: that's only 3 per day, and "articles" like that can be written in half an hour. But that's not what you and I understand by the word "article", of course. (And it's not building a business from which you can make a living either, of course, as thousands have discovered and thousands more are on the way to discovering, but that's another matter altogether).

Noooooooo, I don't accept this at all. I don't have people at my disposal, don't work full-time and am building a solid, growing, asset-based business through article marketing, as an affiliate. (I've been doing it more than 2 years now, I admit: it's not as though I started yesterday).

I don't think so. Arguably it depends what you mean by "ordinary people". Clearly it's not as easy as it was 5 years ago. But clearly it's still possible for people willing to follow a viable business model, see behind all the "urban myths of internet marketing", question intelligently and examine for themselves much of the nonsense they're so widely told, and set up their business as a business. (It could, of course, be argued - from one perspective - that all of that excludes "ordinary people", in which case you have a point).

The thing is your ezine articles will not pull in many search results. There are always bigger site that will outrank your ezine articles in many cases. what do you do about it? You build a blog and use your own unique articles on it and input your seo into keyword research, keywords in your title of the blog post etc. By creating yourself a niche blog instead of using ezine your far more likely to rank (over time) and stay ranked. It requires more work but article marketing I only use it with my junk articles and for backlinks. They dont pull in the traffic like they used to

Ugh. First the FTC, then Google, now the top article directory? Good thing I stuck with one niche and learned how to type fast. :rolleyes:

wow... I haven't read the article, perhaps it was a typo? That is 3 articles a day, every day...for a year....I cannot fathom that at all. I will have to go and read that today. Thanks for the heads-up!

That's ridiculous! I think it's an attempt to beef up their database so they can get more articles which in turn means more views and more Adsense revenue for them.

I'm kind of glad they got a kick in the pants! Maybe it will bring them down to Earth!

Using myself as an example, I currently have 55 articles in a certain niche that promotes one product on EZA and several other directories. I make $300-$500 per week consistently from those articles. However, the product pays a $66.50 commission per sale, so I only have to make 5 or 6 sales per week, which 55 articles easily does.

Honeslty, I post one article every day but I usually take about an hour or so to do keyword research, look at other articles in the niche and see how many views they got, etc.

I can't wait until I have 1000 article online in that niche! I'll be making $1000+ per week EASILY!

Chris Knight just pulled that one out of thin air I think. Must have sounded good to him at the time, or maybe he had a few too many.

Guest posting is the new article marketing.

What a great group of advice flowing out of the mouths of MYOB, Alexa, Chris Worner, and John McCabe's mouths....if you did not hear what they said I'd advise...



Then go back and listen to what they said again...

Barry

No way that's true. I've made more money with far less articles.

But you seem to be "shocked" about the article quantity, and to tell you the truth I don't even think you work hard enough.

If you can't come up with at least 30 articles per day, I have no idea then. A thousand articles can be achieved, all you have to do is write 30 or so per day for a month. And that's a bare minimum, I've outsourced a whole lot more.

In the end, why are you in the kitchen if you can't stand the heat?

If you write 3 per day, you will have over 1000 articles at the end of one year.

If you are writing articles only for back links, then that may be good advice.

Also keep in mind that EZA profits from as having more articles on its site.

If you are writing articles for any value beyond back links, then that advice is pure and simple, bull****.

I have made a good living for more than a decade, and my revenue has been generated using article marketing for 98% of my promotion. Yet, I have fewer than 400 articles out there promoting all of my websites, under a variety of pen names in a variety of niches.

That would be possible if you will hire writer to do that.

Keep in mind that good articles only need to be 400-600 words. It's easy enough to write at least a few good quality articles per day at this length, meaning you can easily have 1000 after a year if you just keep at it.

I can write 15 per day, but I like to do around 5 and then spend the rest of the time doing my research, backlinking, rewrites, etc. I'll probably eventually outsource those tasks so that I can write more articles. I don't think I'll ever outsource my articles though as I deal with niches that I enjoy, so it really shows in my writing.

Anyway, don't be discouraged, just keep in mind that it takes time to build up a full time income, otherwise everybody would be doing it. Also, 1000 articles is not a number that automatically applies to everyone. A lot of factors go into effective article marketing.

I have found that longer, more in depth articles have a greater chance of being pick up and republished by other websites.

Ok, take a step back and read what they said: 100 minimum, and 1,000 optimum. That's a big spread. You're fixated on the 1,000, while ignoring the 900 other options in between.

While it does seem daunting, it is a very possible task.

I actually haven't obtained 1,000 articles so far. I'm around 350-400....I've had alot of other obligations though that have caused me not to write (or write very little) the last few months. The 350-400 were written over about 4 months....roughly 75% or so of those articles are above 1,000 words.

Carol, with all due respect you just defined yourself as a hobbyist and not a businesswoman.

Let me reword the email for you -

Welcome to ezine articles and thankyou for choosing us as your preferred marketing medium. While the level of commitment to your business is up to you, we strongly recommend that you have a marketing budget of atleast $5000. This will give you a broad range of exposure of potential clients to your business.

A business has a marketing budget.

A hobby does not.

There is nothing wrong with a hobby, but if you have an expectation of making a living from a hobby, then you will come unstuck. The same reasoning goes for offline businesses that fail - 80% fail in the first 5 years and the majority did not have a business plan. As for me, I have a 16 step business plan that every site I do follows - what is yours like?

'Instant Expert' is a MYTH. Too many have bought into it.

I estimate my article count on my main niche to be around 5,000 articles.
They have been written over 15 YEARS.

Who said it has to be done in a year, a quarter, or a month?

But let's say it must... there's still a way to throw money at the project
and get it done - by freelance writers who are good at the subject.

At $20 per article, that's a $20,000 investment. All that's left to work
out is the ROI on that investment! With the right niche and strategy, it
could be well worth it.

All success
Dr.Mani

Seriously, I know that EZA wants to take back their profits but its not acceptable to force everybody to go and make a massive thousand articles. Right now I am thinking of switching my attention to other article directories instead and forget about Ezine. I will focus in my site's content rather than stressing about this new rule by the almighty EZA.

Andrea

It's unbelievable how much useless content EZA has accepted over the years, and I'm convinced that their latest guidelines can be put down to scaremongering.

EZA make a living from Adsense, and with Google's latest changes, they are panicking and scrambling for improved content to boost their otherwise compromised revenue.