article marketing - numbers game or not?

[Simon Stanley]

Hey all

What tactics do you use when article marketing? I have heard from some people that "its a numbers game" and that the more articles you post the more chance of getting more visitors.

However I have also heard from some that it is best to build it slowly - submitting say 5 articles at a time and building backlinks to them - rinse and repeat.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

Simon

[pheonix44]

I used to believe the same thing. But Trust me when I say that it is better that you learn to utilize the articles you have already written, so that you can leverage the traffic you will recieve. Trust me, it is better to rank well for 10 articles then to have one hundred that will bring you in a initial flood and then dwindle down. With proper backlink building you will continue to see the fruits of your work way down the line.

[Simon Stanley]

wow, great answer! thanks

[mohd]

Originally Posted by pheonix44

I used to believe the same thing. But Trust me when I say that it is better that you learn to utilize the articles you have already written, so that you can leverage the traffic you will recieve. Trust me, it is better to rank well for 10 articles then to have one hundred that will bring you in a initial flood and then dwindle down. With proper backlink building you will continue to see the fruits of your work way down the line.

Well I don't know 'bout that;
cause I've seen people consistently writing 6 times per day
and submit it in one go;
they still able to make a nicely $30-$60/day.

The question now which one is more profitable:

1) consistently submitting 6 articles per day
(this seems to be an Olympian work but the result is there)

or

2) submit 6 articles (SEOed) and build backlinks to it
(smart way but I haven't seen a valid statistic to backed-it up)

Has anyone done that before?
Plus how fast can one see the result using the second method?

mohd

[Simon Stanley]

very interesting, would be good to hear from anyone who has experienced both sides of the article marketing world

[WendellC]

Simon -

Hi.

I think the original strategy that people used with article marketing was based purely on a numbers game for getting links. You could put up any old article and other people looking for free content would copy your article -- and hopefully your bio box -- and you would get a link to your site.

You could get away with writing articles with pretty thin content because all you wanted were links from other sites.

However, I personally have had MUCH more success by writing GOOD articles -- ones that are truly unique and informative.

These types of articles -- at least for me -- seem to stay in the search engines much longer and at a higher search engine position. Also, in many cases my site may not even be ranked for a keyword yet I get a lot of traffic because the article in EzineArticles is ranking so high.

So I think in the long run it does pay to have good, informative and unique articles even if it may cost a little more in terms of time and money.

Just my 2 cents.

Wendell

[Allegro]

If you just submit articles, you get an initial rush of visitors (I personally have a CTR of a bit more than 10% while 100-150 people view it in the first place) and, without tweaking, I guess i get 5 visitors per month per article. If you SEO them properly and show up high in Google then you can get hundreds of visitors per day.

[Simon Stanley]

well at the moment, it seems that SEO the articles rather than blasting them out seems the most effective - and cost effective form of article marketing, especially me as I outsource my articles.

[Adrian Cooper]

My view is that Google discount the SEO benefit of article back links and have for some time.

The approach is to submit SEO optimised articles that rank in their own right, using carefully chosen keywords.

To this end it is a much better use of time to create say one quality, optimised article per day, rather than write articles for the sake of it.

The best place to publish is WikiPedia if you can post a unique contribution in the required format.

[John Durham]

Originally Posted by apc01

My view is that Google discount the SEO benefit of article back links and have for some time.

The approach is to submit SEO optimised articles that rank in their own right, using carefully chosen keywords.

To this end it is a much better use of time to create say one quality, optimised article per day, rather than write articles for the sake of it.

Been reading your posts. You're all about the "quality" aren't you! Thanks for calming me down some.

[Mark Coverdale]

It depends on what you want to use the articles for.

You can use them for link juice and submit as many as you can to build backlinks to a site or you can use them to drive targeted traffic straight to an offer.

I used to submit as many as possible thinking it was a numbers game but I soon learned that getting a good ranking in the search engines should be a priority. Why go through the effort of researching a subject and writing a good article if your only using it for 5 visitors a month?

Pick a niche, do your keyword research, write your articles and submit them and then build backlinks to each article until you get them in the top 3 results in google. It builds more long term traffic.

Of course there is a lot of factors to take into account when aiming for a top 3 result but if you know how to get them there it is a lot more profitable.

I think back in the day you could probably bang up a heap of articles and you were nearly guaranteed to make some money off them but now quality is just as important if not more so. The user wants good information, not just a link to a product.

Article marketing requires a lot of work to make it successful. Just like everything else online.

[Nigel Greaves]

Simon,

If you haven't already seen it you might want to check out Mid West Mike's excellent thread:

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


Nigel

[John Durham]

For numbers: Recruit some affiliates, and teach them to to send your site traffic by writing articles...get 1000 of them to write 1 article per day.

[ken_p]

i think it wont hurt if you apply both tactics. lets say in the begininning you try and write as much as you can, and then once you get tired with it, try building your backlink from one of those posts you made. i guess, it all depends on what works for you.
goodluck

[mohd]

Originally Posted by ken_p

i think it wont hurt if you apply both tactics. lets say in the begininning you try and write as much as you can, and then once you get tired with it, try building your backlink from one of those posts you made. i guess, it all depends on what works for you.
goodluck

Spot-on, I'm thinking of that too.

Since I'm currently on the verge of promoting my first ever ebook
and thus low in capital..

I kind of like to rewrite some of the PLR, submit it 3x per day;
then reinvest back in building backlink to the performing articles (high CTR).

Nothing to lose, everything to gain.

mohd

[ediddy02]

You know what..i think the whole article marketing thing is overrated..you just get a few clicks or a few visits and thats it..and worse of all..for sites like ezine it takes a decade for articles to be approved.sometimes it makes you go nuts..i think success is combining a whole lot of strategies together its not about submitting 7 articles a day or creating backlinks from your articles all the time..i have the candid opinion of SEOing your articles somehow and using other marketing strategies like blogging,forum threads,off line marketing -using magazine ads or article ads on newspaper and off line print and probably ppc with adsense..then you have an entire marketing offensive instead of depending on what articles can and cannot do for you..just my thoughts

[Adrian Cooper]

Originally Posted by kadensnga

Been reading your posts. You're all about the "quality" aren't you! Thanks for calming me down some.

It is all about quality.

Quality products.

Quality customer service.

Quality articles.

Quality pays plain and simple. People appreciate quality and will respect you for it and buy more stuff. We are selling to real people, not IP addresses.

If you focus on quality, focus on the customer and just generally focus, the business will always succeed.

[mohd]

Originally Posted by ediddy02

You know what..i think the whole article marketing thing is overrated..you just get a few clicks or a few visits and thats it..and worse of all..for sites like ezine it takes a decade for articles to be approved.sometimes it makes you go nuts..i think success is combining a whole lot of strategies together its not about submitting 7 articles a day or creating backlinks from your articles all the time..i have the candid opinion of SEOing your articles somehow and using other marketing strategies like blogging,forum threads,off line marketing -using magazine ads or article ads on newspaper and off line print and probably ppc with adsense..then you have an entire marketing offensive instead of depending on what articles can and cannot do for you..just my thoughts

all seems logical in sense, but
have you not know the power of split testing?
you will not know unless you try and test it

I know this take times, but
it worth giving it a shot.

I'm not jeopardizing doing all things at once.

nobody in IM will give their highest value asset
of what converting and what not.

if you've found the formula,
then duplicate it,
move on to the next traffic source.

and that's all about the formula of success.

"ALWAYS TRY and TEST"
be it landing page, traffic source, etc.

mohd

[DavidO]

Go for QUALITY, not quantity. What good do 500 articles do you if they don't get read and followed to your site and sales page?

I have a relatively small number of articles, about 50 over three years of promoting my site, but they consistently bring me quality traffic and buyers.

Let quality research and writing guide your pace, not trying to fulfill some ridiculous number. Remember that 90% of the junk on EZA doesn't get read.

Remember also that you need quality in your promotion as well. I used to bookmark my articles on a massive scale. It was not really much better than spamming and the results showed it.

Now I produce a quality article and bookmark it with thoughtful comments that might actually attract attention. I spend time choosing a variety of methods and different social sites for promotion so that it looks natural.

Quality will win.

[ladysuccesstips]

I just limit myself of submitting at least twice a day each article offers significant information and with keywords properly optimized. I also try spinning it but was not really satisfied with the result. So I just focus more with two to three quality articles per day.

[mohd]

Originally Posted by DavidO

Go for QUALITY, not quantity. What good do 500 articles do you if they don't get read and followed to your site and sales page?

I have a relatively small number of articles, about 50 over three years of promoting my site, but they consistently bring me quality traffic and buyers.

Let quality research and writing guide your pace, not trying to fulfill some ridiculous number. Remember that 90% of the junk on EZA doesn't get read.

Remember also that you need quality in your promotion as well. I used to bookmark my articles on a massive scale. It was not really much better than spamming and the results showed it.

Now I produce a quality article and bookmark it with thoughtful comments that might actually attract attention. I spend time choosing a variety of methods and different social sites for promotion so that it looks natural.

Quality will win.

That is obviously true,
I'm not saying go for quantity and let quality fumble

I know I have lots of QUALITY PLR articles, only I haven't use it yet
then what's the point of having lots of QUALITY PLR if I'm not using it???

Like I said, since I'm kind of low in capital,
I'll rewrite QUALITY PLR for short-term profit,

and then, I'll look at what convert most

only then I'll send traffic to propel the most converting articles for long-term profit (reinvest=outsourcing)

beside, I've got nothing to lose right?
this is a win-win situation for me:-)

mohd

[JamesMSpacey]

It depends on how much time you have and how much time it takes you to write articles (and if you are posting articles to build backlinks to another site or whether you are just trying to get traffic from the articles.There are different reasons why people post to article sites.)

At the risk of repeating the advice that has been given previously, but hoping that my contribution helps to add to the debate, what's the point of wasting time writing something that brings in a few visitors and a few dollars today, when for only a small amount of additional effort you can get visitors consistently over time?

Articles can become a perpetual traffic source if you do the research, pick the right keywords and get your articles to rank #1, or even to rank #1, #2 & #3, dominating the first page. In this regard I'd highly recommend learning about SEO and about writing the kind of content that Google will reward above your competition and apply that knowledge when you write articles. Good luck.

[shirland]

Quality is where your focus should be, if you write good articles that people derive value from then after a while you will be view as an authority in that field and then you may build your business. Write good quality articles and the rest will take care of itself. Article marketing is just one of the strategies in attraction marketing, so it is better to be consistent all the way around.

[mohd]

I've come to my conclusion:

let say I write 3 quality PLR articles each day
(each has the same keywords that I want to rank for)
and submit it to ezinearticles.com

then i send a lil' bit of traffic to those 3 quality articles
until each achieve 1000 views mark

Results:
Quality article A: 40% CTR to landing page
Quality article B: 10% CTR to landing page
Quality article C: 25% CTR to landing page

My point I want to prove here is that
both quality and quantity are essential
in developing great content.

But, our thought can be deceiving,
the truth is in the statistic (split testing),
we want as much as visitors to land on our page.

What we think might work (in this respect all of the three articles
are of high quality with optimized keyword), but until you split test it,
only then you know which converting and which not

thus, there's nothing wrong in integrating quality into quantity.

last word, quantity is also important.

do you see my point, lol...

Mohd

[Simon Stanley]

so it seems overall... quality is definitely the key... getting to higher rankings rather than seeing an initial surge or traffic then it dying off

[sagasu44]

I'm no guru but I have to agree, quality over quantity...which will eventually result in quantity over time.

When I first started out writing articles I was challenged by ezineartcles themselves to write 30 articles in 30 days, so as a newbie I thought heck, this is a quantity game.

Then I was also bomarded with offers to buy expensive auto submitters and again as as newbie I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of article directories out there and thought how the heck am I going to keep up with this.

Having a personal quality over quantity mindset in the first place I chose to ignre the autosubmitters and stay 100% in control of my articles, but in the end the fact is that it is impossible to really create true quality articles when your under the pump. Yes, you can rehash other articles, PLR's etc, but in the end all it is is rewritten material.

So, I busted my butt to do the 30 day challenge. Out of those 30 articles 2 still bring in consistent traffic, the rest just faded away, and why wouldn't they, they weren't really good, as in really really good....they were rushed....quantity quantity quantity. Imagine how much better the two articles would have been if they were the only 2 that I wrote!

So, I got in on the 'set it and forget it' thread mentioned earlier, followed Mikes system and now its a different story. I might go a whole month or more before writing an article. But when I do put one together it is darned good. Then I backlink (such joy) until I get to the number 1 spot, then I backlink a bit more until I'm pretty much stable at the 1-3 spot. Done and dusted.....now time to start thinking about another article.

Of course, in the mean time there is a whole lot of other promotional stuff going on, you can't rely on articles alone, but for me quality articles are simply the best way to get free traffic.

[Burtgummer]

I think it's a mixture of both. I don't really know though since I really haven't been too successful yet with articles.

Today I wrote an article on a keyword that gets 180-200 searches per day, but it only has about 1200 results in Google. I've read that it would pretty much equal a goldmine, but I think I'll need to do backlinking.

One question though. I'm using Angela's backlinks, so how many would be necessary to rank on the first page? I've read that 5 is enough, but I've also read that people are making account after account to make 50 or so per day. What would be the recommended about of high PR backlinks to rank on the first page with 1200 results?

[copywarrior]

For me it's a balance between the 2. I have been submitting articles on a wide range of niches daily for myself as well as for my clients and I am getting good returns.
My articles are all 400-500 words in length and have a decent mix of theme keywords + long tail keywords. Also, I pay good attention to the resource box. I try to write unique resource box for each article. That's working fine for me.

Being a writer, I can't compromise on quality and definitely, for me more articles I submit, better for me.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Jay B.

[John Burton]

As you can see from the site in my signature, I have experience of both sides of the coin when it comes to article marketing. In my experience, it is DEFINITELY better to build up good rankings for articles than to write 6 plus per day.

You may see a more instant result from writing every day and could make maybe 30.00-50.00 per day but this amount will not increase.

If you concentrate on getting 10 articles a good SEO rating, they will continue to bring you an income with little work on your part. You can then move onto another 10 articles. If you would like more information, download the free eBook on my site for great advice on this subject.

John Burton

[Burtgummer]

Originally Posted by John Burton

As you can see from the site in my signature, I have experience of both sides of the coin when it comes to article marketing. In my experience, it is DEFINITELY better to build up good rankings for articles than to write 6 plus per day.

You may see a more instant result from writing every day and could make maybe 30.00-50.00 per day but this amount will not increase.

If you concentrate on getting 10 articles a good SEO rating, they will continue to bring you an income with little work on your part. You can then move onto another 10 articles. If you would like more information, download the free eBook on my site for great advice on this subject.

John Burton

Maybe it's because I haven't slept, but I don't see a free eBook on your site.

[gameswala]

if ur getting some real good visitors and money till then u can enjoy this thing otherwise day by day u will get bored from this thing. personally i dont like to write articles as i have tons of other work to do in free time on net i am just putting some games on my website

[tomw]

All business is a numbers game and especially online. I would imagine article marketing to be exactly the same.

Tom

[bhopkins]

I stand on both sides of this argument. You need both. I've been using article marketing to promote CPA offers for quite a while as I'm too cheap to pay for PPC. I put together a report of method for this and thought of selling it, but I'm not sure if there is a market for it or not.

For a long time I did not believe in the effectiveness of article marketing as I thought it was better to keep all your content under your control. I changed my mind once I figured out some things. Bottom line is you should write quality SEOed articles and a lot of them, then with some other tricks you can rank very well for the niches you promote.

hth
Bruce

[megabuck4u]

I am of the opinion that quality and quantity of articles are important to generate more traffic to your site. But quality is more important. The question is how many quality articles can you write a day? If it is one or two quality article you can write a day stick to it. Don't compromise quality for any reason. If you have the money to outsource for additional quality articles for your marketing, please do it. The more quality articles you have for your marketing, the better for your business.

[mfleisch]

Hi All,

I have to say that I've been article marketing for a long time but not as an affiliate direct strategy. I've tried to generate sales directly from articles but have had little success. I've been more successful using articles to improve my search engine rankings for web sites sites and blogs.

I've also has some success with giving away stuff via article (but requiring registration for the download).

[LegitBlogger]

Yes, it's a numbers game no doubt, but you will win
better if you add some QUALITY to the QUANTITY,

[DAS_Matt]

Why choose between the two? There's no reason that you can't do both approaches. Why limit yourself to one approach when you can do both? Both approaches are valid. Both approaches make money.

For example. Maybe some niches that you really enjoy and know about you do the more personal approach with magazine quality articles but for niches that maybe you aren't as interested in or know as much about you go more the numbers route.

[vagabondette]

I do both. I have 180k PLR articles on my hard drive. I will spin them, load them in an auto-submitter and let it chug in the background submitting to hundreds of sites. In the mean time I'll write a few high quality articles and those are the ones that get submitted to EZA and GoA.

With this method I get the best of both worlds because it doesn't take long to re-write an article and the submitter is no effort at all.

[Matthew Olson]

Writing quality articles AND getting them to rank in the top 3 spots of the serps through good backlinking is a much better strategy than just cranking out massive amounts of articles...

When I first started article marketing over a year ago I subscribed to the numbers game approach. A few articles ranked well in the serps and continue to bring in a residual income.

But most didn't... and I ended up with hundreds of articles that are basically just lingering out there is cyberspace with little to no views.

Now I know better and concentrate more on backlinking. I wish I had focused more on this in the beginning. Lesson learned.

My attitude towards this subject really changed when I saw that the top searched keyword for one of my niches was an EZA article. Using yahoo site explorer, I saw that this article had around 6,000 backlinks! And those are just the ones that are showing! The article to date has over 145,000 views. I conservatively estimate that this one article brings the author at least and extra $500 per month if not more.

Imagine having 10, 20 or more articles performing like that...

[Dennis-White]

Of coarse its a numbers game, you don't have be a amazing author but the article needs to make decent sense but its all about numbers and outweighing the competition. JMO

[Versus]

Quick question regarding article marketing, Do you guys submit the same article to more than one article directory? I know google doesn't like duplicate content, however I keep reading things that say you should, and some that say you shouldn't.

Any thoughts ><!

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by Simon Cad

Hey all

What tactics do you use when article marketing? I have heard from some people that "its a numbers game" and that the more articles you post the more chance of getting more visitors.

However I have also heard from some that it is best to build it slowly - submitting say 5 articles at a time and building backlinks to them - rinse and repeat.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

Simon

It is only a numbers game if you are on the right track otherwise it is an exercise in futility.

[Nicketas]

Google is a reflection of human behavior, not the other way around.

You have to remember this.

What google cares about is traffic, along with the backlinks.

If lots of people keep reading the article, it will maintain the ranking even if it has few or no backlinks.

This tells the SERPS that your article is RELEVANT and USEFUL which is good for them, and their advertisers.

Google WANTS people to have easy access to great content.

I've written articles that have gotten thousands of views and maintained that position for days or weeks, and became syndicated. Without any backlink work on my part. I just wrote the article and submitted it.

I've had other articles that I had to backlink in order to maintain rankings because they only had a few dozen to 100 or so views.

More often than not, its the articles that had the most PASSION behind them in a PASSIONATE niche which get tons of views.

In other niches where the users want to gobble up as many tips as possible, you need to submit lots of articles.

GIVE THE READER TIPS OR ACTION STEPS THEY CAN DO RIGHT THERE WHILE READING THE ARTICLE and you'll get a MUCH higher response rate.

You bridge the gap between yourself and your computer this way.

THIS is what makes the difference between one sale, or none, and 5-10 sales or opt-ins per article.

Understand?

As pro copywriters often say, SPEAK HUMAN.

Tell the truth.

If you focus on telling people what REALLY works in your niche, you'll write unique content effortlessly, especially if its a topic that YOU enjoy (or learn to enjoy) also.

If you try too hard to be unique, you'll sound just like everyone else.

From there, whether you backlink or not is up to you. It can only help, however

It's worth putting in the extra effort to land more home runs

When you nail your writing quality and style just right and "line everything up", it's exciting to watch your article skyrocket to 13,000 page views and 300-500 resource box clicks in one day

[bretski]

Originally Posted by Nicketas

Google is a reflection of human behavior, not the other way around.

You have to remember this.

What google cares about is traffic, along with the backlinks.

If lots of people keep reading the article, it will maintain the ranking even if it has few or no backlinks.

This tells the SERPS that your article is RELEVANT and USEFUL which is good for them, and their advertisers.

Google WANTS people to have easy access to great content.

I've written articles that have gotten thousands of views and maintained that position for days or weeks, and became syndicated. Without any backlink work on my part. I just wrote the article and submitted it.

I've had other articles that I had to backlink in order to maintain rankings because they only had a few dozen to 100 or so views.

More often than not, its the articles that had the most PASSION behind them in a PASSIONATE niche which get tons of views.

In other niches where the users want to gobble up as many tips as possible, you need to submit lots of articles.

GIVE THE READER TIPS OR ACTION STEPS THEY CAN DO RIGHT THERE WHILE READING THE ARTICLE and you'll get a MUCH higher response rate.

You bridge the gap between yourself and your computer this way.

THIS is what makes the difference between one sale, or none, and 5-10 sales or opt-ins per article.

Understand?

As pro copywriters often say, SPEAK HUMAN.

Tell the truth.

If you focus on telling people what REALLY works in your niche, you'll write unique content effortlessly, especially if its a topic that YOU enjoy (or learn to enjoy) also.

If you try too hard to be unique, you'll sound just like everyone else.

From there, whether you backlink or not is up to you. It can only help, however

It's worth putting in the extra effort to land more home runs

When you nail your writing quality and style just right and "line everything up", it's exciting to watch your article skyrocket to 13,000 page views and 300-500 resource box clicks in one day

Well said...AWESOME...AND well written I agree. Many of my early articles that I wrote when I was just plugging along hit #1 on google for the product name that I wrote them for and they have been there for 9 months or so now. They even beat out the product that I am promoting!

I agree...there is something to be said for writing with passion. Not that "needy" passion, but that passion to help and give and genuinely cure someone's problem.

Ok...enough...dinner and then of to write some more! Thank you for this! As much as I want/need cash and a few pointers on how to do that there are times when I need a reminder of who I am and how focusing on the money can really screw things up...for me, at least.