"Set It And Forget It" Article Marketing - The Only Way To Article Market

[jaypick]

Thank you for the information, It gave me something to think about when writing articles. What exactly is backlinking I don't quite understand it yet. Is that just the research you do to see if your ranking in the top 3?

[sagasu44]

Hi Nigel and Co.

I came across this thread while trying to find out more about article submission software and have found it fascinating. I began article writing several months ago and from reading all this I obviously had no idea what I was doing. Basically I was adding contect to my site, writing articles about that content then manually submitting those articles backlinked to that page to as many article sites as I could. Talk about labour intensive!

I figured from the beginning it was more about quality content than quantity, that made obvious sense to me, but i still felt I wasn;t getting the results i expected and must not be getting it quite right. I could see that some of my articles were continually working for me but I was confused about how I could continue to maximise on those successful articles without duplicating content....it had never occurred to me to backlink to articles themselves!

So my questions are mostly in relation to auto submitting software:

Are these programs worth the investment or would I just be duplicating my content in a big way?

Article sites have so many different formats and rules, minimum and maximum words etc, so I can't help but wonder how the auto submitter can submit a fluid article and I wonder if using one can increase the risk of badly written articles through editing them incorrectly.

Is it okay to just edit the successful articles to re-submit to the same site or is it better to try and rewrite them and give new title etc so as not to have them rejected.

Hope my questions are not too dopey, lol, but would appreciate some advise.

[Wordpress Champ]

This is really a great. Am also starting with my article marketing campaign and this really gives me a refreshing idea for my next online project.

[glucose]

how do you normally build your link?

[Kalidasa]

Originally Posted by SimonP

In reality how many backlinks should you require on a site that is in the top three...a rough figure?

siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ Find a site that you want to out rank, and enter it in siteexplorer, then click on the inlinks box, this will bring up another dropdown to the right of it. Select 'show inlinks except from this domain' that will give you a rough idea. You may need many more links though if you're trying to beat out an authority site.

[Tim45]

I have found that trying to promote to many niches is doing yourself a disfavor. That has been my problem for a long time. You'd be better off monetizing one niche at a time to it fullest no matter how long it takes. If I would have done that five years ago when I started in IM, there's no doubt in my mind that I'd have one heck of an income compared to what I have today.

[Brian.expert]

That is really the right idea! One has to definitely be at the top rankings, surely 1 to 3 for all the mind one has put up in the article writing. Getting good and high ranking backlinks would really serve your purpose. But I would suggest getting links from relevant category and that would really get you the conversions.

[DanGTD]

Great tips.

It's also important that your article have time-insensitive information, that is information that was as true ten years ago as it will be ten years from now. Don't write time-bound articles, like news or thought of the day.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by john7334

Mike, how many niches are you currently in, if you don't mind? How long have you been doing this, too.

Hi John! I have been doing this for about 3 years but only over the past 6 months have I shifted to this approach to article marketing. I am active in 5 niches but I have old articles in other niches that I'm slowly reviving with this technique.

Originally Posted by john7334

I'm only in a few, and am fairly new, but I'm really starting to rank in one niche. I figure I want to get really entrenched in this niche before I move on.

That is so key! And let me add that you should consider going after your niche with multiple keyword phrases....You're probably at a point where you know your niche fairly well. Take advantage of your knowledge base and take a stab at branching out into other keyword phrases in your niche. Try a couple of new articles that have other keyword phrases.

Originally Posted by john7334

Posting comments on blogs and other sites really sounds like a drag, so I'm not doing that so far because I'm doing that all myself. Do you do a lot of comments and that kind of thing?
Anyway, thanks alot.

When I'm on other sites, I either setup my links in my profile which will backlink to my articles as long as the website does not have "nofollow" links OR if you cannot setup a profile, I link to my article in my comment or blog post. With commenting, you have to post a thoughtful and somewhat detailed post. Otherwise, you will be kicked off.

[AnthonyWilson]

Hi Mike,

You have just exposed a real secret here!

Everyone (should) know about creating backlinks with articles and various web 2.0 sites but it has often been overlooked that you can compound your results with actually promoting your promtional articles!

Also everyone take note of Mike's other comment that it is the keywords you initially select that you must focus upon.

[Tim45]

Another good way to get back links is to answer questions at yahoo answers. What I'd do is set up a blog on blogger.com and relate it to the niche I am in and then just answer questions. For instants, howtorepairplumbing.blogspot.com If a person is looking for "how to repair a leaky faucet" I'd answer that question and then put a link to my website explaining more in detail.

I know this is elementary but I think its worth going over.

[ayolov]

This looks like an interesting post, can anyone tell me if google will give more value to an old article when you update it, or will a rewrite (in a new page) one be a better idea?

Thanks!

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by jaypick

What exactly is backlinking I don't quite understand it yet. Is that just the research you do to see if your ranking in the top 3?

Backlinking is the process of placing links to your article on various other websites. It can be time-consuming but very effective! To effectively backlink:

1) The anchor text of your link should be the keyword phrase you are trying to rank for....If your keyword phrase for your article is "stop persistent migraines" then your actual link on another website will say "stop persistent migraines" and link back to your article.

2) Your links should be placed on high Google PageRank sites that allow backlinks. To see if a site will allow backlinks, check the source code of the website and see if you find any "nofollow" tags in the links section. If you don't, then you have a good site to backlink from.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by Brian.expert

Getting good and high ranking backlinks would really serve your purpose. But I would suggest getting links from relevant category and that would really get you the conversions.

I used to think that relevancy of the backlinks was everything! In actuality, the number of backlinks has far greater weight in affecting your SERPs than the relevancy of the backlinked sites.

My mantra is "quality" for your articles and "quantity" for the backlinks.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by ayolov

This looks like an interesting post, can anyone tell me if google will give more value to an old article when you update it, or will a rewrite (in a new page) one be a better idea?

Thanks!

Google trusts older pages more than newer pages. Therefore, stick with your old article. It has more value. Update it and (more importantly) add backlinks!

[vicone]

Another good way to get back links is to answer questions at yahoo answers. What I'd do is set up a blog on blogger.com and relate it to the niche I am in and then just answer questions. For instants, howtorepairplumbing.blogspot.com If a person is looking for "how to repair a leaky faucet" I'd answer that question and then put a link to my website explaining more in detail.

Tim, this method - and variations of it - can also be an effective way to attract traffic from Yahoo Answers. What has been your experience of this as regards traffic flow?

Traffic from Yahoo Answers would also seem to me to be prime targets for an opt-in page where a free report is being offered which explains in more detail the answer to their question.

It could also help if you had a friend who asked the right questions!

Ivan

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by Tim45

Another good way to get back links is to answer questions at yahoo answers. What I'd do is set up a blog on blogger.com and relate it to the niche I am in and then just answer questions. For instants, howtorepairplumbing.blogspot.com If a person is looking for "how to repair a leaky faucet" I'd answer that question and then put a link to my website explaining more in detail.

I know this is elementary but I think its worth going over.

Yahoo Answers has its merits.....It is an excellent place to give your articles a good boost.

Still, matching your answer to your link is so crucial. If there is even a slight variation between your answer and your link, you stand a good chance of getting flagged.....

Overall, it is a great alternative to giving your articles an immediate boost!

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by john7334

Anyway, I was curious how many new articles you pump out a day per niche?

Hi again, John!

I try to spend as much time on backlinking as I do on new articles. I try to get out at least 5 articles a day all in different niches. I limit myself to 4 hours a day for new articles and then the rest of my time is spent on backlinking and other fun stuff!

Since I have quite a glut of articles out there, the logistics can be crazy to try and backlink all of them so I only focus on the winning articles....Still, time is at a premium so I probably will end up outsourcing most of my backlinking. I'm just so stubborn to give up control but somethings got to give!

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by john7334

I think article marketing sounds like a whole lot of grunt work to a lot of people, including myself at times, but it's starting to come together for me. I think it's just about building a system that works and then scaling it up with outsourcing and the like. I'm still learning how how to properly set up that system. And I can't outsource until I know how to properly perform a method that I want outsourced. At least that's I think at this point.

One great performing article is worth more than a 100 articles that get a surge in traffic from EZA or whatever article directory and then fall off the face of the earth. So, writing article after article without keeping an eye on how they are performing seems like work just for the sake of doing work. That's what I've done for basically 4 months.

Take any given niche and look at the top performing articles in EZA. Almost all of them have at least 100 back links. The best have over 1000 or more. If I want a chance at beating those articles, I better get backlinking.

Thanks again, Mike

You've expressed the kind of sentiment that most article marketers feel....That is, feeling like you're doing work just for the sake of doing work.

Article marketing is not as immediate as PPC which is why so many people are so eager to jump to PPC. Still, I would bet that as you start to backlink to a lot of your old articles and start getting sales from old articles, you will truly see the fruits of your labors.

I had an old article that I managed to bring back from the dead and just recently crack page one. I even managed to eek out a sale from it. That alone was all the encouragement that I needed to press on. If I can make a sale at position #10, just imagine what it would be like at the top!

Keep the faith...we're in this together!

[sagasu44]

Originally Posted by john7334

Take any given niche and look at the top performing articles in EZA. Almost all of them have at least 100 back links. The best have over 1000 or more. If I want a chance at beating those articles, I better get backlinking.

Thanks again, Mike

Hi John, how can you find out how many backlinks an article has?

[sagasu44]

Hi Midwest Mike, this post has been so fantastic. Thanks for the heads up on using anchor texts in our backlink as opposed to just the regular web url. Can you or anyone tell me what I am doing wrong with mine below as it is not showing as a link? Is this because i have not been in the forum making enough posts yet or is it the wrong code?

[Sheryl Polomka]

Mike, sorry if this has already been covered and I missed it. Just wondering what you do to get your backlinks. I know you mentioned posting or commenting on dofollow blogs, but are there any other methods that you use for getting your backlinks? Do you write more articles and link them to the original article that you are working on or do you mainly stick to the blogs?

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by sagasu44

Hi Midwest Mike, this post has been so fantastic. Thanks for the heads up on using anchor texts in our backlink as opposed to just the regular web url. Can you or anyone tell me what I am doing wrong with mine below as it is not showing as a link? Is this because i have not been in the forum making enough posts yet or is it the wrong code?

Go to "User CP" which is your user control panel.

Next select "Edit Options"

Then go the bottom to the section entitled "Miscellaneous Options." From there, select the WYSIWYG option.

After you do that, you will have a more robust post editor to work with.

To do a hyperlink, just highlight the words and then click on the hyperlink icon (globe with link picture). Now you can put in your web address.

[Oland]

Originally Posted by Sheryl Polomka

Mike, sorry if this has already been covered and I missed it. Just wondering what you do to get your backlinks. I know you mentioned posting or commenting on dofollow blogs, but are there any other methods that you use for getting your backlinks? Do you write more articles and link them to the original article that you are working on or do you mainly stick to the blogs?

Sheryl, earlier in this thread Mike recommended subscribing to Angelas backlinking package and I do too.

You can find it in the WSO forum.

[Sheryl Polomka]

Thanks Oland, I have subscribed to Angela's backlinks, I have used them for my sites but didn't think to do it for articles.

[Preben Frenning]

Have you tried SeNuk'ing the articles? I think that would DOMINATE the search engines completely

[Yogini]

Mike,

When your article backlinks to a website you own do you find that it will get a higher ranking than the article itself after a certain period of time?

Also if you write 4-5 articles a day what percentage of those will do backlinks for? I have gotten some with just 2 backlinks into page 1 so it doesn't necessarily have to be very time consuming but it still is a lot of tracking to know where you link from etc and locating new places to link from for multiple articles. How do you keep track of that?

Debbie

[feefondo]

How do you find do follow blogs?
Shouldn't you backlink to your own site or sales page? I thought articles were made for the backlinks.

[Rus Sells]

Hey great and very timely post for me!

If one were writing say 5 articles on the same topic would it be good to cross link the articles with each other as well?

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

Hey great and very timely post for me!

If one were writing say 5 articles on the same topic would it be good to cross link the articles with each other as well?

Thanks Rus!

I've always found better results with just one link in my article going to my affiliate/squeeze page....I figure, give them less choices and they're more likely to click on your sales link!

[Terry Kyle]

Hi MidwestMike,

Great post and a few more detailed questions that answers will hopefully add more value to this thread:

[1] What keyword density do you aim for?

[2] Do you have rules like, keyword phrase in the first paragraph, last paragraph and bio box etc?

[3] Do you aim for a secondary keyword as well as your primary one with each article?

[4] Have you noticed an optimum word count (or range e.g. 250-275 words) for an article? What do you aim for?

[5] Do you use the identical anchor text for your backlinks (as per Angela's advice) or do you apply another formula?

[6] Have you played around with GoArticles formatting options like bullet point lists, italics etc to improve readability/conversions?

[7] What's the maximum number of links you've ever put in a GoArticle article (not the bio box) and gotten away with it?

[8] Do you recommend link cloaking or is not worth bothering with? Obviously GoArticles let you have aff links in the article.

[9] Have you had reasonable conversions from GoArticles? There's a lot of debate about this issue...

Many thanks again Mike for a valuable thread!

[Terry Kyle]

Many of these are answered in your free report Mike - thanks!

[rimam1]

Do you mind sharing how you add links again? You said you don't do that much bookmarking and you build links on "do follow" blogs but I wonder how do you find do follow blogs that will allow your comment?

Thanks,
Raza

[Oland]

Originally Posted by rimam1

Do you mind sharing how you add links again? You said you don't do that much bookmarking and you build links on "do follow" blogs but I wonder how do you find do follow blogs that will allow your comment?

Thanks,
Raza

Guys, much of the questions asked in this thread are already answered in Mikes free report

[Okane]

Originally Posted by rimam1

You said you don't do that much bookmarking and you build links on "do follow" blogs but I wonder how do you find do follow blogs that will allow your comment?

You could check out the blogs listed at
www*dofollowblogs*com

...Okane (Marc)...

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by Terry Kyle

[6] Have you played around with GoArticles formatting options like bullet point lists, italics etc to improve readability/conversions?

[7] What's the maximum number of links you've ever put in a GoArticle article (not the bio box) and gotten away with it?


[9] Have you had reasonable conversions from GoArticles? There's a lot of debate about this issue...

Many thanks again Mike for a valuable thread!

Hi Terry,

Thanks for the nice words!

Most of your points I address in my report but I want to answer those that don't get covered in the report.

6) I haven't really played around with the formatting options but I always tend to gear my articles towards skimmers since that's what so many article readers do. So I try to use bullet points or numbers as well as very short paragraphs.

7) I strictly use text in the article portion and only use affiliate/squeeze link in the resource box

9) My conversions on GoArticles have been around the same level as EzineArticles. Plus, as mentioned in other threads, I do find that Angela's backlinks have a better effect on my articles on GoArticles than on EzineArticles.

[shirland]

I am new to article writing, What is back linking an article?

[joan007]

Mike,

Thank you for posting this information, however I have a question that I am confused about and maybe you can clear it up.

When I click on an ezinearticle that is listed on the first page of google for a particular keyword and check for the number of links it is showing, it always lists more than a million plus, using an Seo Book Tool for Firefox.

But I have noticed in some cases that websites (not authority sites) sometimes just 2 or 3 page sites that have 30 to 50,000 backlinks (paid backlinks) are outperforming better than the ezinearticle article. EzineArticle will be listed as number #2 and not number one even tho it has many more links. However, in other cases, sometimes the website with less links will be number #2 instead.

My question is why would you be adding more backlinks to EzineArticle when it already has more than a million links associated with it because it is already an authority site. Any explanation on this subject would be appreciated. Thanks

[einfohound]

Originally Posted by shirland

I am new to article writing, What is back linking an article?

"Backlinking" or "getting a backlink" is when one web site links to another web site. Having links back to a website (hopefully yours) improves your sites "appearance" to Google. This is VERY simplified, but the more backlinks you have the more Google (and Yahoo, etc) likes your site and the better your chance of ranking highly on searches.

This is why you do article marketing - you insert links in your articles or your author bio that point back to your website. This helps your rankings.

If you are just getting into article marketing, I would also suggest a relatively new service - Free Traffic System. As the title states, it is a FREE service that will let you put your "articles" on up to 30 blog sites (with backlinks to your site).

[einfohound]

Originally Posted by joan007

Mike,

Thank you for posting this information, however I have a question that I am confused about and maybe you can clear it up.

When I click on an ezinearticle that is listed on the first page of google for a particular keyword and check for the number of links it is showing, it always lists more than a million plus, using an Seo Book Tool for Firefox.

But I have noticed in some cases that websites (not authority sites) sometimes just 2 or 3 page sites that have 30 to 50,000 backlinks (paid backlinks) are outperforming better than the ezinearticle article. EzineArticle will be listed as number #2 and not number one even tho it has many more links. However, in other cases, sometimes the website with less links will be number #2 instead.

My question is why would you be adding more backlinks to EzineArticle when it already has more than a million links associated with it because it is already an authority site. Any explanation on this subject would be appreciated. Thanks

Joan,

Pardon me if I am jumping in on your question to Mike.

What you are seeing from what I think you are asking is "total site backlinks". EzineArticles (and many other huge websites) have so many pages that they have thousands (even millions) of backlinks. This means to ALL OF THE SITE. The number of links to that specific page (or article) will be much less. The point isn't to add links to EzineArticles. The point is to add links to your article (page) on the EzineArticles site.

More than one page from the same site can rank well for any given search term. This happens often - you will notice it on the search results as an entry that is indented in the search results.

Hope this helped.

[freemoney]

i agree with you. its really work for me!
thanks for your info.

[oregoncountry]

thank you Mike, I am fairly new but I am trying what I believe sounds logical. I like your post and I ordered your ebook. I sort of consolidated your info with Jeffrey's(can't think of his lastname)and also Dianes. I feel I am finally going to be making some headway. Thank you so much for sharing your tried and true methods denise

[Paid Surveys]

I wouldn't backlink my articles personally. Lots of sites ask you to do this but why bother, it's more important to backlink to your own website or blog as that is where the real money is.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by Paid Surveys

I wouldn't backlink my articles personally. Lots of sites ask you to do this but why bother, it's more important to backlink to your own website or blog as that is where the real money is.

Of course if you have an established website then by all means, backlink them instead!

However, if you don't have an established website, my method will get you much better results.

Think about it....you can piggyback onto established, HIGH PR article sites like EzineArticles. Now, when you backlink, your site will move up faster! In fact, WAY faster than if you had a brand new website.

[absolutelee]

Nice post! One thing I was guilty of early on was trying to do article marketing through quantity, rather than quality. When I started paying attention to quality, backlinks, etc. Things got easier.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by absolutelee

Nice post! One thing I was guilty of early on was trying to do article marketing through quantity, rather than quality. When I started paying attention to quality, backlinks, etc. Things got easier.

Having quality articles in many cases makes it easier on the backlinking as well .....Many times you'll have other websites or blogs interested in your article when you offer quality information or even a fresh perspective on a regular topic. So, they will link to your article!

Of course, they're not linking with anchor text but still having the inbound links definitely helps!

[sarafina]

Originally Posted by Michael Franklin

1) Obviously, if you can dominate all of the top three, then you'll really be sitting pretty!

2) allintitle:"keyword phrase" is an excellent way to look at the true competition. I take it a step further to determine which web 2.0 property I will use for my article....If I find a keyword phrase is an excellent candidate, then at Google I will enter: site:"domain name" allintitle:"keyword phrase" for each domain (squidoo.com, vox.com,etc.) to find which domain has the LEAST competition for that keyword phrase. The domain with very few or no results is the winner and that's the property that I use for my article.

The reason being is that Google will favor new properties in the top page rankings over the same ones.

Again, to find which property has the least competion for a keyword phrase, enter at google:

site:domain name allintitle:"keyword phrase"

What constitutes few results? 50,000...5000, 1000? Please clarify.

Also if I have a blog and I am posting articles to my blog and I am also posting articles elsewhere is it ok to:

1. Have the SAME article on my blog as I have with eza or goarticles or will my site or the article site suffer in the serps?

2. Can I post the same exact articles on eza and goarticles or should I aim to outfit each article site with different articles?

[willzoboy]

So many webmasters submit their articles to the article directories and just forget them. Talk about a waste of time. Far better to build up some links to them which may help them to stay indexed by the SE's for months or even years, which in turn is going to bring in a consistent flow of traffic.

[Michael Franklin]

Originally Posted by sarafina

What constitutes few results? 50,000...5000, 1000? Please clarify.

When you do intitle:"keyword phrase" site:"domain.com" among the various web 2.0 properties, you will find that in practically all cases, that at least one will significantly have less result than the others.

When I say few results , I mean less than 10.

Originally Posted by sarafina

Also if I have a blog and I am posting articles to my blog and I am also posting articles elsewhere is it ok to:

1. Have the SAME article on my blog as I have with eza or goarticles or will my site or the article site suffer in the serps?

2. Can I post the same exact articles on eza and goarticles or should I aim to outfit each article site with different articles?

Regarding duplicate content, I find that you can use the same content in all of your articles EXCEPT FOR the opening paragraph....Why? Because out of all of the areas Google looks at, it pays the most attention to the opening text of articles.

So spin your first paragraph (or at least the first 100 characters) of each article.

[diamondseeker]

Fantastic post

This is going to help me a lot. Great information and something that no one has ever taught me before.