Article and Content Marketers - The Game Is Changing!

If you are doing any sort of article or content marketing, you've probably noticed at least a little bit of a shift over the past 6 months or so. It's getting to be a fairly tough game for those that don't adapt quickly. One of the biggest things that seems to be holding people back..and down is that they look to EZA as the be all and end all to Article or content marketing.

If you would have asked me 13 months ago or so, I would have told you without hesitation that EZA was where it was at, BUT with some recent, and some not so recent changes...it's time to broaden my and your horizons a little bit, and to look at MORE EFFECTIVE ways to get market with your content.


Ezinearticles is good for two things if you REALLY think about it.

1. Instant traffic - If you are involved in a niche that has a ton of articles ranking high in Googles or another search engines index, then there is a good chance that you can get a good initial burst of traffic from being in the "other recently submitted category". However, once your article drops from that list, the traffic stops, unless by some chance the article start ranking in the index on it's own.

Typically this doesn't happen, BUT in some cases it certainly does, especially if EZA has enough content in your niche that it is seen as an authority.

Some things to think about here...

If you are working in a niche like...Organic farming...for instance, that doesn't have many articles ranking...and isn't seen as authority, you probably won't even see that initial burst of traffic. So, all you have really done is given a "good" piece of content to an article directory.

If you are working in a niche like ...how to get your ex back...for instance, that does have several articles ranking in the index, you do have a DECENT chance of getting SOME traffic right off the bat, BUT in this day and age, it's kind of a luck of the draw type deal.

Why?

Because more than likely, if it is a good "EZA NICHE" there is someone like me...or ME...piling 4 or more articles an hour into that category, thus pushing YOUR articles out of the "other recently submitted" category.

So what's my point?

There isn't as many benefits there for the "average" Article Marketer as there were a year ago.

What about the SEO benefits?

There are none. EZA's link juice has gone the way of many of the WEB2.0 properties...SOUTH! While at one point, having a ton of links from EZA to your website did count for something, that doesn't really hold true these days.

So, what are they good for then?

The pages that your article creates is a decent starting point for an SEO campaign. What I mean is, if EZA has a decent keyword density for a particular phrase, if you throw some backlinks at it there is a GOOD chance that you could get a page 1 ranking...which of course COULD give you a good steady stream of traffic.

BUT, there is now a small downside to that as well...

Over the past 6 months or so, EZA as a directory has done just about every single damn thing that they can to grab more attention to their blocks of ads, and other monetization methods of their own. It's there site, so there definitely isn't anything WRONG with it, but it doesn't give YOU and ME the authors as many benefits to submit our content to them.

2. A jumping off point for an SEO campaign - As I mentioned earlier, if you are in a niche with a decent keyword density at EZA, the pages aren't that hard to push up in the index if you have a good SEO strategy.

While they are definitely doing what it appears to be everything they can to steer clicks away from your resource box and towards their ads, it still doesn't hurt to have an additional page...other than your own money site, on the first page

With all the automation, and other aggressive tactics that some people are using in the article marketing arena, the playing field definitely isn't level anymore for the person jumping in and trying to do things "by the book" .

So, what to do?

Depending on your niche, your budget, and your skill-set, sitting down and coming up with a solid plan is definitely a good idea.

One thing that has worked VERY WELL for us over the past year is when we go into a niche, posting content to EZA right off the bat to get the initial traffic that they can provide just to see if the niche converts well from organic traffic.

If it does...

We will continue submitting content for the daily traffic, but in the background we set up our own "article directory" - this can be done easily with wordpress, and a plugin that is publicly available.

We through up a few good pieces of initial content to get everything indexed, and then we automatically post scraped content from EZA and ArticleBase on top of that....

As soon as the directory starts moving up in the index, we set the settings to ensure that the old scraped content is pushed down, and start submitting our own unique, fresh, and promotional as hell articles on TOP so that they are likely the only ones seen.

This way we have control of any Adsense blocks that we decide to post, we can post CPA banners if they are applicable to the traffic, and we can be as salesy as we wanna be in our content.

KA-CHING

The only "problem" with this strategy if you can call it a problem is that at times it can take a little bit of time and actual work to get traction. The little bit of time, and the actual work part usually causes marketers that need results immediately to have the motivation to continue, to drop out of the niche and move onto a different strategy all together.

As more automation, and more aggressive tactics move into the market place, it is going to require that marketers new and old make adjustments to what they are doing in order to either continue to see the money coming in, or to see that first check depending on which end of the spectrum you are on.

One thing to keep in mind is that more and more the directories are changing the way they are structured, and the way they operate to ensure that the relationship that we have with them as authors, works out more in their favor than in ours...wait...wait...wait...before someone jumps in and says:

"it's their site - of course they are going to make sure it works out better for them, Idiot"

I understand that it is their site, and I'm not saying that they shouldn't be coming out on top. I'm just saying that the it wasn't long ago, that they at the very least wanted it to appear that the relationship was as benneficial for us as authors as it was for them. However, now that there are thousands of Article Marketing ebooks out there telling people to go to a few specific directories, they know that the content is going to flow regardless of how they change things.

It's very similar to the way things went down with platforms like Squidoo, HubPages, and a few others. One day they love us as marketers, they want all the content we can give them because with each article you post, they are becoming more and more of an authority in hundreds of niches, which in turn makes their ad revenues go through the roof, and they are banking a million ways to Sunday.

THEN THEY DROP THE HAMMER...

Suddenly, they "hate" marketers. We are referred to as spammers, and they start to treat us like garbage, and why shouldn't they? We served their purpose...we made them authorities, which in turn made them ROCK STARS in Googles index.

So, if you're smart, and if you have even a tiny bit of business sense...as Article and Content marketers, it's time to start thinking of ways to branch out, and expand your horizons beyond making sites like EZA rock stars.

When you submit content to 3rd party sites, make sure it is your "B" material

When you submit content to 3rd party sites, make sure it's indexed on your own site first

When you submit content to 3rd party sites, take advantage of ANY "loop hole" you can find

When you submit content to 3rd party sites, if after a reasonable amount of time it isn't bringing you any traffic...DELETE IT

I could go on and on about this subject...But it's Sunday night and BoardWalk Empire just came on. So, let's use this as a jump off, and get a good discussion going about different ways that we can benefit from using 3rd party sites.