Is Article Marketing Dead?

Putting all your eggs in one basket is when article marketing becomes problematic.

This is where using properly spun versions for video, audiopods, blog posts, blog comments, guest posts, squidoo & hub pages, even facebook and tweet series.

and the list goes on and on.

In some niches, video may be more responsive, in some, it will be audio. This gives you something to test in your niche as well.

So while some may not be article marketing in it's strictest sense, much of it begins with a well thought out article correctly spun so that each version is of the same high quality as the original.

hahahahaha that's what i like to hear !!

What?? That doesn't make any sense. That's like saying Google doesn't want any more pages of content added to the Internet. As if everything has already been discussed online and we should just live with what is already out there.

Article marketing has "evolved" to the point where you can get your article listed in website networks that have agreed to leave the do-follow links in and post your articles as-is.

Some of these systems require you to create multiple versions of every paragraph and sometimes every sentence so that the same points are discussed in the article but the words are different to reduce duplicate content.

Article marketing is far from dead, but more of an expansion of what has been around all this time.

Tom,

Article marketing is NOT dead. No way.
Article marketing is an effective marketing
promotional method. No doubt about it.

But I've to agree with you on the statement you made.

In terms of scalability, speed of results,
control, the ability to gather data quick -
paid traffic (e.g. PPC, PPV, media buy)
is way more efficient.

Article marketing relies mainly on SEO traffic.

We have to realize that SEO traffic only constitute
a very small % of the overall web traffic.

To maximize the results you get from article marketing,
you need to do things like spinning and submitting
spinned articles to multiple article directories.

Even with automation, this can be a very long tedious process.

Let's not forget the waiting time involved during
the article vetting period.


That said, I want to make clear that I'm not knocking
article marketing or SEO for that matter.

I do them.

I just want to say that paid traffic offers a lot more
in terms of speed and scalability. Sure, you need to
spend. But with constant optimization (due to fast
gathering of data), you can quickly get your ROI, which
is what count the most at the end of the day.

Also, when you can gather data fast, you will know
what product works and what doesn't.

So you can quickly abandon duds.

If you engage in article marketing, you can spend
a huge amount of effort on creating articles, spinning
and submitting - only to find that the ROI may be
what you desired, perhaps because of competition
or poor conversion of sales pages.


BTW, doing article marketing is not exactly free.
There is time involved too. And time is money.

What about opportunity cost when you can
get traffic in from other channel in much quicker time?

When you invest in article submission and spinning
tools, there is cost involved. And you have to pay
some article directories for some of the value-added
features they provide to.

Make no mistakes - there is always cost involved.

Question is - what is ROI and absolute returns that we can make?


Article marketing is a great promotional method.

But I no longer focus on it. I outsource it completely.

So that I can put most of my focus on paid traffic
to really ramp things up quickly.

It's all about 80/20 rule - focusing on channels
that give you the maximum results for the
same amount of effort.

Jag

I hope its not dead! I've submitted quite a few articles. I mainly use them for backlinks but I get some traffic directly from my articles so it's working for me.

James,

I always look forward to your posts when it comes to article marketing.

I agree article marketing is not dead. It work's very well when it's very targeted and done properly.

For example, I am going to do article marketing for my offline service but I will not be submitting articles to EZA, Articlebase and other article directories.

My articles will be placed on websites that match my demographics. I'm not talking about $5 articles neither. The subject matter deals with selling your business to private investment firms, my articles will be placed on websites that TARGET that demo.

When it's done like that, article marketing will not only work but it'll really brand you as a true expert in your field and end with a good result.

I also found doing it that way you don't have to churn out 50 articles a month.

My process takes time and effort and if you're paying a writer, A REAL WRITER, not $2 per hour writers, it will cost you but the returns are lovely.



Ron

Article marketing may appear dead ... to those who:

Submit to all low level article directories.
Spin at a rate less than 40-50%, 30% does not do as well lately.
Don't know how to leverage their article marketing efforts with other back link techniques.
Think that writing one article a week will make them rich.
Fail to follow a plan to find niches that convert.
Fail to find converting keywords.

The list can go on.

I hope article marketing is not dead since I am about to get into it. I do think in the long run shorter articles are not going to do as good as long ones. Like if someone has a 250 word article vs. someone who has a 400-500 word article.

From what I've learned, article writing needs constant work.

It isn't set-and-forget at all. If you want to earn a decent income, expect to write 10-20 articles per day everyday to keep your income consistent.

Some people can do that......I can't. It's just too monotonous for me. I'm not bad at writing (At least I think not, haha), but I don't enjoy writing about subjects that I'm not passionate about.

Anything that I'm passionate about has no connection whatsoever to IM.

But for the people who do have that work ethic that Article Marketing requires, more power to you! We all have our favorite methods, so stick to one that you can do!

James,
This is another reason why many article directories will go out of business in the next year. Many seem to think all they need to do is slap up an article directory and allow some junky auto submitter to submit articles by the thousands and boom they will make a million dollars from adsense and other junk marketing ads.

The fact is unless that article directory is actually marketing that article directory then it will be of no use to anyone because the authors will soon learn they get nothing from providing quality content.

A paid business model will always and I do mean always outrank and out-do any adsense farm any day of the week. A paid business model where the author pays to be a member will always do better due to the fact that the site will be of higher quality without all those junk ads and without all those auto submitted articles.

I know many do not want to hear this because they want to auto submit to 1,000 directories and there is nothing wrong with this.. As I said you should be out there anyplace you can be but let's be honest here.. A directory that actually advertises the authors articles and builds links to those authors articles will always out perform a adsense farm that does not advertise or market the authors articles.

An article directory must go way beyond just marketing the front page of the site ....

James

Problem is, most people don't have a clue how to article market or for that
matter, even WHY they're doing it and for what purpose.

There are many strategies and depending on what it is you're trying to
accomplish, some work better than others.

I am not going to go through an exhaustive list here (I'll be typing all day
and I really want to get into the recording studio to work on my new tune
"Welcome To Hell") but here are a few things you SHOULD be doing depending
on what it is you're trying to accomplish.

If you're trying to show people that you're an authority on a subject, then
you should put up your own blog under YOUR name. This is something I
wish I had done sooner, but that ship has passed and there's no sense
crying over spilled milk.

All your content should go there.

Then, you should submit them to the top directories that will get you
views...actual eyeballs.

But don't stop there. You also want to re-purpose your articles.

Combine relevant ones and put them into a PDF as a free report and
give it away to build your list. Make sure your list gets the URL of your
blog so that they can go read your other articles.

Take a few articles and turn them into instructional videos. If nothing
else, upload these to YouTube and then post video responses to related
videos that have an enormous number of views. This will give you a decent
shot at getting video traffic quickly.

Make sure the URL of your blog is also in the videos.

Take a few articles and put them into another free report and distribute
that report to the major download sites. Make sure inside the report is a
link to your blog so people can read more articles.

You'll notice nowhere in this process do I suggest trying to sell anything.

That's where your blog comes in. All sales should come from the links in
the resource box of each article on your blog and from your products
page, if you have one.

Ultimately, you want to come off as an authority to your readers. The
more content you have on your blog, the better your chances of pulling
this off.

Now, if all you're interested in is backlinks (and the jury is out for me as
far as how effective this is) then you probably just want to submit your
articles to every directory in existence.

Honestly, with over 14,000 backlinks to my blog now, I don't know how
effective or not effective this will be, so you'll have to test it out. Some
swear by it, some say it's a waste of time.

But for the most part, forget about getting any real eyeballs from those
directories. During the brief time (years ago) that I did do autosubmission,
I found it to be a waste of time.

But that's just me.

So test it for yourself.

See how many backlinks you get and how much actual traffic you get
from the articles themselves.

As far as quality versus quantity, depends on the niche.

I feel you always need quality, but for some niches (I'm in 6 that fit this
scenario) one article could be enough to get you 1,000 plus views per
month. But those niches are the exception rather than the rule. In most
cases, especially in the very competitive niches, you need to do a lot of
writing.

That either means doing it yourself or outsourcing.

Generally speaking, article marketing is the long way to doing things. If
you want immediate traffic, pay for it. I don't because I don't have to now.
But it took me a LONG time to build up the traffic that I now have.

It's not a model I recommend for somebody about to lose their home in
60 days, but if you have the time and patience and don't have tons of
cash to spend on PPC and ad buys or whatever, article marketing is still
very effective IF you do it correctly.

And that means, for starters, being able to write an article that people
aren't going to toss in the trash after 5 seconds.

If you don't have a web site and you post articles for traffic, you should create backlinks to the article, to get higher rankings in the search engines. You could do this by creating Squidoo lenses, HUBpages, post ads on Craigslist (all with backlinks to the article) and bookmark the article.

We have no idea what article directories will survive but my point is many of them not survive the next year ... Many are focused on ads and spamming their authors vs actually marketing the article directory...

You do not have to pay for auto submit.. I use auto syndication at the moment and not auto submit for articles. The fact is all you have to do is open 20 windows (browser tabs) and login each and copy and paste and click submit.. There you go you submitted to 20 sites without spending 5 hours..

Your assumption on spinning is wrong .. Using those junk spinners that replace this word or that word is what produces junk articles. Never use anything with a pre-set database of words because you will never get a true unique article.

I use a human spinner and I spin per paragraph and not word. Every single word in my articles are written by me and not some pre-set database. I can produce 1 original article spun 50 times with a 70% + uniqueness in 2 hours easily...

James

It is no problem at all .. I have people that have never spun an article a day in their lives and within 15 - 30 minutes they are spinning very high quality articles that are fully readable...

As many have said many many times it is using the proper tool and using it the proper way ... Word Replacement will never work, I do not care who says it does.. FACT and yes I did say FACT is word replacement will only get you so much and all your articles will read the exact same way.

James

If you're going to do it, you have to invest some real time in it. If you simply dabble the results won't be as good as if you focus and put serious time in it.