My 4 year journey with EZA

by Rien
29 replies
I logged into my EZA account today and saw that it has been
exactly four years since I submitted my first article there.

I took a look at the stats on that article and it made me laugh.

Over 1,000 words, 270 total views and 2 clicks.

I spent hours, and days I kid you not, trying to get that thing
perfect. I had gotten so attached to it that I was wasting way
too much time on it.

Over the years I learned a thing or two that has worked for me,
and I hope it helps someone out.

Here are just a few:

1 – Don’t write articles that are TOO long. I noticed my CTR’s
improved when I started writing articles that were 400-500
words in length.

2 – Don’t give away too much information. If your articles are
intended to pre-sell, then don’t give away the farm. Otherwise
there is no reason for the reader to click through to your site.

3 – Test different resource boxes to see which ones get you the
most clicks. Changing one or two things in your resource box
could make a huge difference.

4 – Don’t take your titles for granted. This is the first thing that
readers will see, so make it as attention grabbing as possible.

5 – Have your article transition naturally to your resource
box.

Hope this helps. If you got any of your own, please add them.

Rien
#eza #journey #year
  • Profile picture of the author PLR Basket
    Originally Posted by Rien View Post

    2 - Don't give away too much information. If your articles are
    intended to pre-sell, then don't give away the farm. Otherwise
    there is no reason for the reader to click through to your site.
    Well, I heard that it's better to give away your best tricks upfront so that your reader becomes an instant follower...
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
      Here's another idea for you...

      Having your articles syndicated to high PR context relevant sites with lots of highly relevant readers interested in what you have to say with a link back to your presell page, creating a list before they go to the actual sales page...

      ...as opposed to only trying to get backlinks from a directory (when the only reason for a directory in the first place was syndication) thinking that just because EZA has a PR of 6 doesn't mean the page you're on has any PR at all. Check it out for yourself. EZA's home page is PR6, none of any of the pages your articles are on are likely to be above 0. That's why it's called page rank and not site rank.

      Backlinks from the directories is a tiny percent of the success I've had, it's all down to syndication, which hasn't even been mentioned here.
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
        Originally Posted by John McEachern View Post

        Can't we keep it that way - at least for one of these threads?
        Do you mean don't talk about syndication or can't we focus on the better way of doing this more often?

        Sorry John, my brains tiring here.
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      • Profile picture of the author inter123
        There is talk of Google with the new alogorithms not ranking syndicated content highly as before. Are you making any contingency plans given the news?

        Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post

        ...it's all down to syndication, which hasn't even been mentioned here.
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        • Profile picture of the author erictan678
          Originally Posted by inter123 View Post

          There is talk of Google with the new alogorithms not ranking syndicated content highly as before. Are you making any contingency plans given the news?
          That is quite a problem.....will backlinking the articles help? Also, how would they know which one is the original?
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
          Originally Posted by inter123 View Post

          There is talk of Google with the new alogorithms not ranking syndicated content highly as before. Are you making any contingency plans given the news?
          You need to read the latest thread on this.

          I don't mass submit my articles. It's quality content I send to 1-3 directories and a few high PR sites in the niches I'm involved in. The new algorithm has nothing to do with this.

          If it is, there will be no article marketing again and that would be silly wouldn't it?

          This new action is to stop people mass submitting the same content to every directory, with mass submission tools or creating useless crap that no one wants to read. Not people like me that provide quality content for relevant sites. It's not against syndicated content, it's against no good mass produced, mass submitted content, content farms, autoblogs etc, that they're after, or scaring.

          Seriously, I'm not being rude but read the threads on this and listen to the people that know what they're talking about.

          Besides, article marketing is one of many ways I get traffic just as IM is just one of the ways I earn a living.
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          • Profile picture of the author inter123
            I don't know about silly but I have just started doing article marketing and I'd be seriously p****d off if there was no article marketing.

            I have been reading a lot about algo changes, maybe I have misunderstood but Google are looking at the positions of sites with little in the way of origional content. So if my ezine article ends on an autoblog of some sort, I can potentially forget about the usefulness of it. All hypotetical of course since there are no real results as yet.

            And there is the talk of doing away with content farms. Wikipedia (Content farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) states:

            "Content farms are criticized for providing relatively low quality content as they maximize profit by producing just "good enough" rather than best possible quality articles. Authors are aware that the quality is not that good."

            The OP talks of longer articles having limiting impact in terms of click though and is effectively advocating "content farm" type articles which does not give away all the info and these may have a problem ranking in the future. Perhaps longer articles on blogs and niche sites are more effective then Ezine Articles or these blogs receive a huge amount of traffic such that a small click through rate is sufficient for traffic.

            I think I am going to forget about Ezine, Go Articles and co and just contact potential blogs for guest blogging "gigs".

            Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post

            You need to read the latest thread on this.

            I don't mass submit my articles. It's quality content I send to 1-3 directories and a few high PR sites in the niches I'm involved in. The new algorithm has nothing to do with this.

            If it is, there will be no article marketing again and that would be silly wouldn't it?

            This new action is to stop people mass submitting the same content to every directory, with mass submission tools or creating useless crap that no one wants to read. Not people like me that provide quality content for relevant sites. It's not against syndicated content, it's against no good mass produced, mass submitted content, content farms, autoblogs etc, that they're after, or scaring.

            Seriously, I'm not being rude but read the threads on this and listen to the people that know what they're talking about.

            Besides, article marketing is one of many ways I get traffic just as IM is just one of the ways I earn a living.
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            • Profile picture of the author JaySchmidt
              Great titles, ideal number of words, proven resource box, keyword research, desire created in reader, blah, blah, blah, blah.

              The fact is, it's not worth doing EZA unless you get on the 'most viewed' and/or 'most published' list(s).

              OK, if you're in a category that isn't heavily trafficed, you probably don't care one way or the other.

              But if you're using EZA to make money, you need to get your article on one or both of those lists, by hook or by crook.

              I'll leave it to you to figure out how these folks get 15K+ views in less than 60 days on their 'manhood enlargement' articles.

              But for novice article marketers, just take a moment to understand that the playing field is not level. Unless you have the ability to get on those 'most popular' lists for the 60 days during which your article is eligible, you're just wasting your time and you'd be better off publishing somewhere else that doesn't surround your articles with tons of adsense.
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              • Profile picture of the author ZerosToHero
                Originally Posted by JaySchmidt View Post

                Great titles, ideal number of words, proven resource box, keyword research, desire created in reader, blah, blah, blah, blah.

                The fact is, it's not worth doing EZA unless you get on the 'most viewed' and/or 'most published' list(s).

                OK, if you're in a category that isn't heavily trafficed, you probably don't care one way or the other.

                But if you're using EZA to make money, you need to get your article on one or both of those lists, by hook or by crook.

                I'll leave it to you to figure out how these folks get 15K+ views in less than 60 days on their 'manhood enlargement' articles.

                But for novice article marketers, just take a moment to understand that the playing field is not level. Unless you have the ability to get on those 'most popular' lists for the 60 days during which your article is eligible, you're just wasting your time and you'd be better off publishing somewhere else that doesn't surround your articles with tons of adsense.
                Last April I somehow got on the most viewed list for a fairly competitive niche. I got 2,500 views and 1,200 clicks in less than a month. Too bad people can't play fair anymore. It's been almost a year since I've done it. Back in the day I could write an article with a great headline and get on the most viewed. Too bad people have to game the system nowadays.

                You think Ezine would be a little suspicious of articles that all of the sudden have 40,000 views from a bunch of junk traffic sources. I wish they would monitor these articles and do away with them.
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              • Profile picture of the author 52.ct
                Originally Posted by JaySchmidt View Post


                I'll leave it to you to figure out how these folks get 15K+ views in less than 60 days on their 'manhood enlargement' articles.

                But for novice article marketers, just take a moment to understand that the playing field is not level. Unless you have the ability to get on those 'most popular' lists for the 60 days during which your article is eligible, you're just wasting your time and you'd be better off publishing somewhere else that doesn't surround your articles with tons of adsense.
                Are you implying that black hat tactics are involved?
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        • Profile picture of the author J Bold
          Originally Posted by inter123 View Post

          There is talk of Google with the new alogorithms not ranking syndicated content highly as before. Are you making any contingency plans given the news?
          Um, no, the "news" is google want to evaluate sites like autoblogs that only publish content that has been published elsewhere.

          Remains to be seen what this will mean, if anything, for all kinds of syndicated sites.

          I think Google's point is mainly to try and scare autobloggers and other sites that exist solely on republishing contents from other sites.

          Google News, anyone?
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    • Profile picture of the author Rien
      Originally Posted by Chris Moore View Post

      Well, I heard that it's better to give away your best tricks upfront so that your reader becomes an instant follower...
      I am by no means saying not to give away good info,
      just not too much of it.

      In my experience when I am more general about tips,
      instead of specific, my CTR rate increases.

      If you tell your reader everything in your article, then
      what reason is there to click through to your site?

      The best way to find out is to test it out for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author inter123
    Thanks for sharing your experience. There have been lots of posts until this week about the positivity of writing longer articles in the hope synchronisation. Did any of these 'longer' articles appear on other websites which perhaps bought you traffic?
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
      Originally Posted by inter123 View Post

      Thanks for sharing your experience. There have been lots of posts until this week about the positivity of writing longer articles in the hope synchronisation. Did any of these 'longer' articles appear on other websites which perhaps bought you traffic?
      It's syndication. Also note the people who are getting their articles syndicated seem to enjoy a lot of success as opposed to those chasing only low PR context irrelvant backlinks.

      Anyway, what do I know. :rolleyes:
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      • Profile picture of the author Rien
        Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post

        It's syndication. Also note the people who are getting their articles syndicated seem to enjoy a lot of success as opposed to those chasing only low PR context irrelvant backlinks.

        Anyway, what do I know. :rolleyes:
        Article syndication is a great way to get your quality
        articles picked up and send more traffic to your site.

        Unfortunately for me, those first few sites SUCKED.

        Rien
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        • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
          I have had really big amounts of visitors based on what my title says. I have had great articles full of excellent information in the exact same market that get virtually no clicks.

          And comparing my keyword stats to my clicks, it is almost always because of my title.
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
          Originally Posted by Rien View Post

          Article syndication is a great way to get your quality
          articles picked up and send more traffic to your site.

          Unfortunately for me, those first few sites SUCKED.

          Rien
          I'm not, I assure you trying to pick a fight here, I know what you've written has been in a very positive and helpful manner, I'm just creating another angle and I'm off to bed in a moment so may not be back until the morning.

          You see the thing I realised, from other very successful people here and in my own testing was the true way to successfully get your articles syndicated was to actually find the high PR authority sites yourself and do your very best to show them your articles are very good (I always see how good my competition is and exactly who they are before I enter any niche to compete).

          You approach them, as opposed to waiting for them to find your articles on the directories. Alexa Smith and Bill Platt (TPW) are 2 people that have taught me a great deal in this area and are quite possibly two of the most successful article marketers I'm proud to call my friends.

          I'd like to very respectfully recommend you try this route a bit more. Yes, some will say no, some will be rude but some will contact you for more content and can become the main ingredient in your article marketing success. This can lead to some very good relationships not to mention JV and other opportunities.
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          • Profile picture of the author Rien
            Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post

            I'm not, I assure you trying to pick a fight here, I know what you've written has been in a very positive and helpful manner, I'm just creating another angle and I'm off to bed in a moment so may not be back until the morning.

            You see the thing I realised, from other very successful people here and in my own testing was the true way to successfully get your articles syndicated was to actually find the high PR authority sites yourself and do your very best to show them your articles are very good (I always see how good my competition is and exactly who they are before I enter any niche to compete).

            You approach them, as opposed to waiting for them to find your articles on the directories. Alexa Smith and Bill Platt (TPW) are 2 people that have taught me a great deal in this area and are quite possibly two of the most successful article marketers I'm proud to call my friends.

            I'd like to very respectfully recommend you try this route a bit more. Yes, some will say no, some will be rude but some will contact you for more content and can become the main ingredient in your article marketing success. This can lead to some very good relationships not to mention JV and other opportunities.
            Hey Richard,

            I definitely need to try that route more, just laziness
            on my part.

            One of my problems with those first few articles was
            that the sites I was sending them to (my sites) sucked.

            I enjoy the writing part of article marketing, everything
            else I suck at.

            Any other tips you have would be most appreciated!

            Thanks,

            Rien
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            • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
              Originally Posted by Rien View Post

              Hey Richard,

              I definitely need to try that route more, just laziness
              on my part.

              One of my problems with those first few articles was
              that the sites I was sending them to (my sites) sucked.

              I enjoy the writing part of article marketing, everything
              else I suck at.

              Any other tips you have would be most appreciated!

              Thanks,

              Rien
              Oh, I see, sorry Rien. I thought you mean't the first few sites you had articles syndicated too, sucked. Sorry, my misunderstanding.

              Do you write articles for others? You see I can write them but I rather outsource them due to my rather hectic schedule. If you write for others I may be able to use you in exchange for payment or, if it's sites and presell pages you're not too good at, those instead.

              For me and this is what I've learned off others, is that creating a good article that others want is paramount, a good presell page that collects a emails etc is also paramount and thirdly, having a decent product, that does need to follow a certain criteria, is also paramount.

              Like I said, the two people I mentioned earlier, I would watch them and listen to them. Alexa's posts are worth a huge amount to any aspiring article marketer. I'd look through some of her old posts and look for the criteria she suggests for picking products to sell. If not, PM me and I'll send you a link to the post first thing tomorrow.

              If you have any questions, I'd be glad to help. I like people with a keen interest in improving what they're doing, admitting errors they may have made and a willingness to keep plundering forward.

              Good for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author mymamasafi
    Give and you shall receive
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    I heard this, I heard that...

    It all comes down to your personal experience, what's worked for you, and even your philosophy that defines your strategy.

    Some people are going to want to go to get traffic from the articles so they want clickthroughs, and a lot of them. Some people have made this kind of an art and can get 50% clickthroughs, yes even from EZA even though they have adsense all over, bla bla bla...

    Others just want to put out tons and tons of articles for backlinks, only.

    Others will say you should write long, quality articles with the hope that they will get republished and syndicated to other sites giving them authority links back to their site.

    I say, whatever floats your boat and works for you, and what you have success with and what fits in to your philosophy, regardless of the advice others give, is what you should go with...
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    • Profile picture of the author Rien
      Originally Posted by redicelander View Post

      I say, whatever floats your boat and works for you, and what you have success with and what fits in to your philosophy, regardless of the advice others give, is what you should go with...
      This can't be said enough - do what works for you.

      Test, test and test some more.

      There are so many different things that come into
      play with article marketing that it is vital that you
      test it out and see for yourself.

      There are very specific article directories that perform
      better for me than EZA in certain niches. And the
      opposite in other niches.

      Find what works for you and keep doing it.

      A perfect example is an idiotic mistake I made
      because I was bent on believing that I had
      written the perfect resource box.

      After writing over 20 articles and no sales, I
      decided to make one little tweak to my resource
      box to see if it would make a difference.

      It definitely did, as the two articles I submitted
      with the new resource box pulled in three sales.

      Nothing changed except the resource box, submitted
      to the same directory, submitted the same time of day
      as the previous ones, using the same keywords
      and the same type of titles.

      Just get out and test it out for yourself and see.
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  • Profile picture of the author caseycase
    Originally Posted by Rien View Post

    I logged into my EZA account today and saw that it has been
    exactly four years since I submitted my first article there.

    I took a look at the stats on that article and it made me laugh.

    Over 1,000 words, 270 total views and 2 clicks.

    I spent hours, and days I kid you not, trying to get that thing
    perfect. I had gotten so attached to it that I was wasting way
    too much time on it.

    Over the years I learned a thing or two that has worked for me,
    and I hope it helps someone out.

    Here are just a few:

    1 - Don't write articles that are TOO long. I noticed my CTR's
    improved when I started writing articles that were 400-500
    words in length.

    2 - Don't give away too much information. If your articles are
    intended to pre-sell, then don't give away the farm. Otherwise
    there is no reason for the reader to click through to your site.

    3 - Test different resource boxes to see which ones get you the
    most clicks. Changing one or two things in your resource box
    could make a huge difference.

    4 - Don't take your titles for granted. This is the first thing that
    readers will see, so make it as attention grabbing as possible.

    5 - Have your article transition naturally to your resource
    box.

    Hope this helps. If you got any of your own, please add them.

    Rien
    Rien,

    Great thoughts. EZA gets me a lot of traffic just from the articles plus from the backlinks. I agree with the others here that you can use EZA as a way to build a list, and guest posts on high PR sites are awesome and probably more effective than EZA, but EZA alone does work well for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author LauraJames
    Thank you for this information. It is certainly helpful. I like writing articles, but have wondered at times why some articles vary with the CTR. I appreciate the insight. Best wishes to you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Coby
    On the subject of long vs short... I think it kinda depends on the niche on how easily you will get picked up from other sites...

    I recently started a new niche site a few months back and have submitted 10-15 articles to EZA for this site. All original (because there is NO PLR, lol) content and all in the 300-600 range and every single article has been picked up and syndicated for that particular niche and I've gotten well over 90 backlinks from this last I checked.

    However, in the IM niche, it seems to work better to give a small, yet useful, bit of information in order to get a click through. Also, I think you are less likely to get syndicated in the IM niche simply because there is more competition. For example, I've only had a few articles in the IM niche that were syndicated (with a lot more that 15 articles, lol) but several of the IM niche articles have lots of views and clicks.

    So just find what works for your niche and go from there...

    In the IM niche I don't have a problem using PLR content and spinning it and submitting it to 3 or 4 directories. Whereas in some of my micro-niches I don't have that option and have to write the articles myself.

    I think I may have got a little off topic, but hope this helps someone
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
    Your articles should be as long as they need to be, what is more important is your conversion rates. You may have got higher click-throughs with smaller articles, but did your conversion rates become higher as well?

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author bighostchennai
    Originally Posted by Rien View Post

    I logged into my EZA account today and saw that it has been
    exactly four years since I submitted my first article there.

    I took a look at the stats on that article and it made me laugh.

    Over 1,000 words, 270 total views and 2 clicks.

    I spent hours, and days I kid you not, trying to get that thing
    perfect. I had gotten so attached to it that I was wasting way
    too much time on it.

    Over the years I learned a thing or two that has worked for me,
    and I hope it helps someone out.

    Here are just a few:

    1 - Don't write articles that are TOO long. I noticed my CTR's
    improved when I started writing articles that were 400-500
    words in length.

    2 - Don't give away too much information. If your articles are
    intended to pre-sell, then don't give away the farm. Otherwise
    there is no reason for the reader to click through to your site.

    3 - Test different resource boxes to see which ones get you the
    most clicks. Changing one or two things in your resource box
    could make a huge difference.

    4 - Don't take your titles for granted. This is the first thing that
    readers will see, so make it as attention grabbing as possible.

    5 - Have your article transition naturally to your resource
    box.

    Hope this helps. If you got any of your own, please add them.

    Rien
    Thanks for your post, Iam new to this IM, I started only last month, I must have written some 30 -40 articles, articles which ever I wrote with the title which promises a solution to a probelm, generated more views, I could sell few ebooks. This was very encouraging sign and Iam planning to scale up this month by writing more than 150 articles this month.
    This forum is fantastic. I learned lot. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author NateRivers
    OP,

    Great advice. I've had that same realization with almost every aspect of IM. I used to spend days designing fancy logos and graphics, tweaking videos for hours, customizing the blog theme, etc etc. Now I just knock out projects, fast. Admittedly I have acquired a lot skill over the last few years from pure repetition and can now produce quality stuff very quickly.

    The point is, get the job done... don't try to perfect every little thing.
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