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EZA versus Guest Blogging

by Why9999
26 replies
Which of the above gives you more backlink power, submitting an article to EZA or guest blogging on a site with a decent serp and/or page rank?

The reason I am asking is that I submitted quite a few articles to EZA but never felt like that did not much for my serp, so now I am going to try guest posting on other blogs I guess. The only thing is that it sounds like a lot of work and I'm wondering if it's worth it?

Also, if anyone has any comments on how to find sites for guest posts, I'd appreciate it. I've tried googling on guest post guidelines and that gave a few results. And I know I can "cold call". But any other ideas are much appreciated...
#blogging #eza #guest #versus
  • Profile picture of the author Mangozoom
    Personally I think Blogs are better for backlinks and Eza ... however Eza is great for creating fast traffic that lasts.

    So I do both.

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author Trent Brownrigg
    I would definitely say an original guest post on a high quality blog gives you more benefit than an article on EZA. But doing both is my recommendation.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sam1985
      I think the blogs are much better than posting articles in eza to find more traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    I think you're going at it with the wrong idea. You should not be posting to EZA for the backlink.

    What you really want from EZA is to have other publishers use your articles on their sites - the equivalent of guest-posting on a blog. Of course, this means submitting content worthy of appearing on other publishers' sites.

    Which brings up that four-letter word again, w-o-r-k...

    If you're dead set on getting links for sake of getting links, here's an idea for you.

    Publish all of your articles on one site, and then offer the feed as a bonus to all the people who make autoblog and other scraper site software and plugins. Of course, many of those links will be no-follow and a portion will have your resource box and other links either stripped out or substituted for, but that's what happens if you want to play in the neighborhood.

    WARNING: I have not personally tried what I just suggested, so if anyone wants to do it, it's on your head. Full transparency here.
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      I think you're going at it with the wrong idea. You should not be posting to EZA for the backlink.

      What you really want from EZA is to have other publishers use your articles on their sites - the equivalent of guest-posting on a blog. Of course, this means submitting content worthy of appearing on other publishers' sites.

      Which brings up that four-letter word again, w-o-r-k...

      If you're dead set on getting links for sake of getting links, here's an idea for you.

      Publish all of your articles on one site, and then offer the feed as a bonus to all the people who make autoblog and other scraper site software and plugins. Of course, many of those links will be no-follow and a portion will have your resource box and other links either stripped out or substituted for, but that's what happens if you want to play in the neighborhood.

      WARNING: I have not personally tried what I just suggested, so if anyone wants to do it, it's on your head. Full transparency here.
      I don't mind the work. I spend a ton of time on my site, including writing a mountain of original content.

      Your top point is well taken. Can I ask an ignorant question? If someone uses my material that is on EZA, do they generally include my resource info? That's the goal I take it? That way you get a multiplier effect on your backlinks?

      Now I don't think that I would dare go into those neighborhoods, but out of curiosity, how would you even go there? I mean how do you find people like that? Don't they just lurk? Isn't this the equivalent of an "SEO warez" crowd all wearing black hats and mohawks?
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  • Profile picture of the author mahesh2k
    EZA and Guest blogging are entirely different ways to approach traffic & backlink. You're likely to get loyal readers and comments from guest blogging. EZA is like getting into crowded fish market,you'll get what you want but it'll not be personal like blog.
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    • Profile picture of the author ElizabethAdams


      Hello, Why9999...

      If you're thinking of guest blogging, here's my recommendation:

      Guest blogging: Looking for guest bloggers or guest post? Join MyBlogGuest!

      Regards, Elizabeth ...



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      To make your article writing go faster, download my free Article Elf.
      Great Headlines — Instantly!       helps you make words make money.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
        I'll be darned if I can understand why so many people are hung up on backlinks.

        In a super saturated niche, you couldn't get enough backlinks to crack the
        top 3 sites if you stood on your head and whistled Dixie.

        In a wide open niche, you don't need them. Heck, just sprinkling your articles
        to a few directories alone will get you more than you need.

        The main purpose of writing articles is getting eyeballs to your offer, opt in
        page, authority site, sales page, whatever.

        It is NOT to get a freaking backlink.

        I'm getting too old for this.
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        • Profile picture of the author Why9999
          Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

          I'll be darned if I can understand why so many people are hung up on backlinks.

          In a super saturated niche, you couldn't get enough backlinks to crack the
          top 3 sites if you stood on your head and whistled Dixie.

          In a wide open niche, you don't need them. Heck, just sprinkling your articles
          to a few directories alone will get you more than you need.

          The main purpose of writing articles is getting eyeballs to your offer, opt in
          page, authority site, sales page, whatever.

          It is NOT to get a freaking backlink.

          I'm getting too old for this.
          Wait - wait. Don't give up. Besides, I'm older than you anyway...

          I am in a supercompetitive niche and that's half my problem. Well, at least my core content is supercompetitive.

          I have been getting a lot of traffic through twitter and writing quality content that people return to day in and day out.

          However, I was hoping that if I got some more backlinks I would be able to move my way up in the serp world a little. But now you've got me thinking: maybe I need to just concentrate on "traffic in a world without Google"?

          If you could say more about this, I'd appreciate it...
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        • Profile picture of the author ElizabethAdams
          (giggle!)

          nah, Steve ... you're not too old ... just a little white around the edges !!!



          Seriously, though ... I have reason to suspect that things are changing
          in article marketing, especially as far as EzineArticles is concerned ...

          Services are emerging in the marketplace that easily enable people
          to publish good, well-written articles on relevant blogs, thus by-passing
          EzineArticles altogether and -- most importantly -- keeping their
          resource boxes intact ...

          ArticleRanks is one of them.

          Basically, instead of putting your article on EZA and waiting til somebody
          comes along and says, "Oh, yeah, let's use this one," you take the initiative
          and go find that somebody yourself, either on your own or through a
          free service like MyBlogGuest or a paid service like ArticleRanks.

          The beauty of it is, you can write not only to the subject matter of
          that blog, but to what's going on in it, as well.

          I know you've done very well with EZA, and I'm happy for you that
          such is the case, but lots of people these days are doing lots better
          with posting directly to relevant blogs where their article can actually
          be seen and appreciated by the blog's followers, instead of buried
          in a mass of submissions at EZA.

          I could be wrong about this, but I think we'll see the day when EZA
          is no longer the force in the marketplace that it has been up til now.

          And if not EZA, then what?

          Best to be exploring alternatives ahead of the curve, don't you think?

          warmest regards, Elizabeth ...



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        • Profile picture of the author SoEasyMoney
          Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

          I'll be darned if I can understand why so many people are hung up on backlinks.

          In a super saturated niche, you couldn't get enough backlinks to crack the
          top 3 sites if you stood on your head and whistled Dixie.

          In a wide open niche, you don't need them. Heck, just sprinkling your articles
          to a few directories alone will get you more than you need.

          The main purpose of writing articles is getting eyeballs to your offer, opt in
          page, authority site, sales page, whatever.

          It is NOT to get a freaking backlink.

          I'm getting too old for this.
          Steve you are always right on the money and I LOVE reading your posts. You're not too old for this...don't even utter those words!
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          • Profile picture of the author Why9999
            Originally Posted by SoEasyMoney View Post

            Steve you are always right on the money and I LOVE reading your posts. You're not too old for this...don't even utter those words!
            I don't see a lot of clickthroughs to my site from EZA at least. I would never get enough "eyeballs to my offer" from EZA doing things the way I am now at least...So any ideas are much appreciated...
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            • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
              Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

              I don't mind the work. I spend a ton of time on my site, including writing a mountain of original content.

              Your top point is well taken. Can I ask an ignorant question? If someone uses my material that is on EZA, do they generally include my resource info? That's the goal I take it? That way you get a multiplier effect on your backlinks?

              Now I don't think that I would dare go into those neighborhoods, but out of curiosity, how would you even go there? I mean how do you find people like that? Don't they just lurk? Isn't this the equivalent of an "SEO warez" crowd all wearing black hats and mohawks?
              On the first question, if people follow the publisher agreement with EZA, they're required to leave your resource box and your article as written - including the live links. Getting those live links on sites with real, live readers is exactly the point - not only do you get a link, you get eyeballs.

              On the second question, many of the real black hat products do indeed require that you learn to navigate neighborhoods I choose to avoid. On the other hand, there are several scripts and plugins for publishing RSS feeds to blogs and other sites automatically. These can be used for benign purposes, or abused to create autoblogs without going completely over to the dark side. These are the folks you would offer the feed to.

              And I think Elizabeth has a good suggestion as well - hooking up with a service that will syndicate your content for you.
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              • Profile picture of the author Why9999
                Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

                On the first question, if people follow the publisher agreement with EZA, they're required to leave your resource box and your article as written - including the live links. Getting those live links on sites with real, live readers is exactly the point - not only do you get a link, you get eyeballs.

                On the second question, many of the real black hat products do indeed require that you learn to navigate neighborhoods I choose to avoid. On the other hand, there are several scripts and plugins for publishing RSS feeds to blogs and other sites automatically. These can be used for benign purposes, or abused to create autoblogs without going completely over to the dark side. These are the folks you would offer the feed to.

                And I think Elizabeth has a good suggestion as well - hooking up with a service that will syndicate your content for you.
                By syndicate you mean RSS, right? I'm doing RSS right now. Admittedly, I'm quite unsophisticated: I create the files manually and update them once daily. But, for my site anyway, I'm getting a fair number of hits.

                Anyway, is that you're referring to?

                And thx for the help. You've helped before and I appreciate it...
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                • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
                  Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                  By syndicate you mean RSS, right? I'm doing RSS right now. Admittedly, I'm quite unsophisticated: I create the files manually and update them once daily. But, for my site anyway, I'm getting a fair number of hits.

                  Anyway, is that you're referring to?

                  And thx for the help. You've helped before and I appreciate it...
                  Not necessarily restricted to RSS. The way I understand some of these networks operate is that they either create or 'jv with' (for lack of a better term) sites looking for certain types of content.

                  When you submit an article to these networks, they match it with sites in the network and post your content to those sites directly. Each site owner then makes the decision whether or not to use the article on the site they control.

                  The trouble with relying on RSS feeds, as I see it, is that they can be very difficult to restrict access to.

                  Something I've done in the past, and likely will do again in the future, is build a private syndicate of sites that want my content. When I write something new for the syndicate, I email it to the list of syndicate members. That way, I control who gets the content. If I find that syndicate members are not honoring the terms I set, they simply lose their spot in the syndicate. If I tried to do that with RSS, it would be much more difficult than simply deleting a line in a database.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Why9999
                    Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

                    Not necessarily restricted to RSS. The way I understand some of these networks operate is that they either create or 'jv with' (for lack of a better term) sites looking for certain types of content.

                    When you submit an article to these networks, they match it with sites in the network and post your content to those sites directly. Each site owner then makes the decision whether or not to use the article on the site they control.

                    The trouble with relying on RSS feeds, as I see it, is that they can be very difficult to restrict access to.

                    Something I've done in the past, and likely will do again in the future, is build a private syndicate of sites that want my content. When I write something new for the syndicate, I email it to the list of syndicate members. That way, I control who gets the content. If I find that syndicate members are not honoring the terms I set, they simply lose their spot in the syndicate. If I tried to do that with RSS, it would be much more difficult than simply deleting a line in a database.
                    Okay, I think I'm having an epiphany/eureka moment. What you are describing here is something I have seen a few other sites do in my niche.

                    So can you give me a few examples of such networks? And do you have any good links for things I could search on to read more about the mechanics of how to do this, i.e. syndication agreements? how to find interested parties? etc.

                    Btw, even in a competitive niche if you could get even a handful of people to publish your syndicated comment it should very significantly help your serp and possibly give you some traffic, right?

                    Again, thx for all the ideas...
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  • Profile picture of the author Alfredo Carrion
    Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

    Also, if anyone has any comments on how to find sites for guest posts, I'd appreciate it. I've tried googling on guest post guidelines and that gave a few results. And I know I can "cold call". But any other ideas are much appreciated...
    Try to post a thread on the Wariors Joint Ventures section asking for a guest post. Remember to specify your target niche.

    Some days ago Kim Roach post a super-thread that can help you if you're on the IM market:

    96 IM Blogs that Accept Guest Posts

    If you work on more niche markets, she has a post about it too:

    500+ Places to Syndicate Your Content


    Alfredo
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  • Profile picture of the author entrepreneurjay
    How about Articlesbase.com instant approval, and the articles I submit are picked up by other webmasters, and bloggers for more backlinks. Sorry Steve lol I said the B word!

    All kidding aside Articlesbase is a great directory to submit too. I prefer them over Ezinearticles.
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by entrepreneurjay View Post

      How about Articlesbase.com instant approval, and the articles I submit are picked up by other webmasters, and bloggers for more backlinks. Sorry Steve lol I said the B word!

      All kidding aside Articlesbase is a great directory to submit too. I prefer them over Ezinearticles.
      I chose EZA probably for the wrong reason based on the above. What I had noticed was that EZA was ranked, at least in my niche, much higher much more frequently than any other article directory. For example, I don't ever remember seeing an article from articlesbase ranked prominently.

      So let me ask this: what is the big advantage over articlesbase then, considering that EZA generally approves all my articles within just a couple of days? Is someone really more likely to pull an article out of articlesbase more than EZA for some reason I am missing?
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    • Profile picture of the author caseycase
      Agreed. I use both, but I see much more syndication from articlesbase. Although, if you want backlinks from the original article posted to the site, articlesbase is nofollow.

      Originally Posted by entrepreneurjay View Post

      How about Articlesbase.com instant approval, and the articles I submit are picked up by other webmasters, and bloggers for more backlinks. Sorry Steve lol I said the B word!

      All kidding aside Articlesbase is a great directory to submit too. I prefer them over Ezinearticles.
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      • Profile picture of the author Why9999
        Originally Posted by caseycase View Post

        Agreed. I use both, but I see much more syndication from articlesbase. Although, if you want backlinks from the original article posted to the site, articlesbase is nofollow.
        Thank you for the tip. I'll try it out today!
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  • Profile picture of the author fazlerocks
    Blogs are better to generate traffic via backlinks! provided they don't go into guest blogging section and they get updated regularly.
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by fazlerocks View Post

      Blogs are better to generate traffic via backlinks! provided they don't go into guest blogging section and they get updated regularly.
      That's an interesting comment. Your saying that Google is aware of which parts of the site are for "guest blogging" and then downgrades accordingly somehow?
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