Article Marketing - Mostly A Scam

I think that as an individual, not a company with employees, it's easy to look for a quick or easy way out.

Can you imagine how much time it would take to put together a legitimate SEO campaign with REAL, QUALITY content?

It's hard enough for most people to put together an SEO campaign that cuts corners.

I think Rand has some good points, if we lived in a perfect world.

Unlike Matt Cutts, this guy was actually able to differentiate and mention that some types of article marketing are "scummy". His bottomline line is to write things that are real and useful. Sounds good to me. Here's a tiny snippet of his intro:

RoD "I'm-Not-Scummy" Cortez

Manual article marketing (writing good quality content) is going to be a profitable venture for a very long time. Crap article marketing is going to punish those who practice it, and legitimate article posting will reward those who do it.

It is Google's fault that crappy article marketing is profitable to some.

I am a "quality content" nazi.

Before there was anything such as Google, and before people decided Google was all that mattered in marketing, those of us who have been around for years were doing article marketing.

The old school article marketers such as myself focus on building a quality audience, by providing quality content to the people interested in receiving it.

The new school SEO article marketers focus on building any kind of content to put a link on the internet, that Google will hopefully use to validate the marketer's website.

Between the old days and now, the focus of the majority has shifted from" giving good people good quality content and providing real value to the audience" TO "just throw some words on a page, add links, and wait for Google to come count it."

Sounds quite good, to me.

Four little observations ...

(i) You can also try to get the article syndicated, yourself, to some websites in your niche (rather than just waiting for people to find it in an article directory and re-publish it from there if they want it). That can bring some targeted traffic (and the relevant backlinks are worth overwhelmingly more than article directory backlinks, of course);

(ii) I spent a year submitting to about 8 - 10 article directories, and found that there's no benefit from it at all, really. On the directory front, I don't submit to more than EZA and usually one of GoArticles and ArticlesBase in addition, myself. The extra 7/8 directories just aren't worth bothering with - there's really no remaining value in using directories for their own traffic or their own backlinks. One copy in EZA (and maybe one more somewhere) is good, in case it gets syndicated, of course - that's what article directories are there for, after all - but most people using them to source content go to EZA first and foremost, I think;

(iii) .edu sites and links aren't worth anything extra for being .edu sites, for all the reasons discussed and explained here;

(iv) Ezine publishers are always looking for content for their ezines, and this can bring floods of highly targeted traffic, if you find some who'll publish your article. The difficult thing is finding them. The best way is probably to use the Directory of Ezines, but it isn't free.

(Your PDF idea can work well. I don't "do video", myself, but people certainly say that can work well, too).

Great. The only thing worse than a poorly spun article with bad content is another rant on the Internet full of emotional tirades, but offering no actual info that really helps someone.

That's not a bad list, give it a shot. And since you're doing a video any way, take the audio from it and make it into a podcast and submit it to the various podcast directories.

The list looks good, but you should consider (assuming you will be using just 1 article) spinning the article into variations. Then using a unique variation for each submission you do.

But you will need to spin it well, in order for it to sound good in all variations (manual spinning works best).

I thought it looked good until point 3...

3. forget about the domain extension. I mean really, it doesn't mean anything
4. Select 2/3 of the very TOP directories at most
5. no direct experience of this, but I can't see it being hugely valuable. there are better uses for your time (try writing another piece)
6. Actually agree with this IF you do a good job of it and drive traffic to it.

Scorpa wrote:
1. Write a unique article of at least 750 words.
2. Submit article to my website to get it indexed.
3. Submit article to a couple of .EDU/.GOV sites with links to my website
4. Submit article to top ten article directories with link to my website
5. Convert article to pdf and submit to document sharing sites
6. Convert article to video, and submit to video sites

At least to me, thats the correct formula for article marketing. Assuming you want to do it right, and have the article get indexed first on your own site before the article directory.

Not too bad. A few things were missing from the way I do things, hopefully these help you out:

* Don't forget to submit the article to your own website.
* Press releases compliment article marketing extremely well, especially if you have your USP and foundations all set in your business.
* As Kurt already mentioned utilize podcast directories (you can also get quite a bit of traffic from places like iTunes as well).
* Find authority niche blogs and sites in your niche and develop a relationship with some of them. Find out who needs /wants quality content. In some niches, there aren't enough writers and content creators to meet the demand.

I have strategic alliances with many webmasters whereby, as one example, I will post their content on my websites and they post their content on theirs. This is also true of thank you pages (where you have their affiliate link and vice versa), e-mails, guest appearances and interviews, etc.). You can get really creative with this.
* At least once or twice a month, take your most profitable keywords and type them into Google, Yahoo, and MSN; take notes on who is showing up on the first page. Contact those people and put together a proposal that will be beneficial to both of you. If you're just getting started make sure it heavily favors them. The long-term benefits will be enormous.

You will also get pleasant surprises every once in awhile.

* A lot of people miss out on offline publications, but if you're already writing original, quality content to a specific audience, then owning The Writer's Market 2011 edition will guide you and give you references on how and where to contact magazines and other publications to post your work.

It's a lot of work, but all it takes is one article to get published in a national or regional publication and from there it get's easier because you'll be able to write on your resume that you've been published in "O" Magazine, Glamour, Guns & Ammo, Muscle & Fitness, or whatever your target market reads.

Lastly, consistency is critical during your first 90 - 180 days of article marketing. You have to establish working habits that are going to see you through the growing pains.

RoD

The message is that articles should be well written and useful.

I wonder how many threads there needs to be on this???

Problem isn't spinned content:

- It's how effective it is right now.

As soon as Google solve that part, problem will fade away, and another one will born...

Wow is that guy in that video smarmy and annoying. I had to stop the video and read his ramblings.

I used to do something similar to this a while ago. My recommendation:

1-Yes
2-Yes
3-Don't bother
4-Stick to top 3 or even just EZA.
5-Don't bother
6-Youtube only

The time you save on the steps you skip, concentrate on trying to get your content on other sites in your niche and SEO.

Nevertheless, the most valuable article content still continue to stand out and it will continue to be so.

Yep. Gotta agree with Rod. Some article marketing techniques are defiantly "scummy" and not ethical.

But Article Marketing works, it works if you're putting up unique content, not spinning the content into garbage and not stuffing the article with links back to your website.

Not only that won't work, but it'll also pass negative link juice to your website.

I completely agree. I remember when someone sold me on the idea of article marketing. I was quite upset because I spent countless hours following their advice and applying what they said. It was to no avail. Yes, I got traffic, yes I got click-throughs, but did I make any sales? Absolutely not. I wish more people would explain how you need to have a real system in place in order to start making money online instead of saying writing articles will make you sales. It really doesn't work that way at all. I believe having an autoresponder and all the other essential tools are what really creates a successful affiliate campaign.

I agree. I have seen ppl posting these scammy articles. If you are really looking for success then you should write original articles only so that they could be picked up by others and you will get the link juice.

nice post regarding article submissions...i have tried article submissions for my website...and it really helped me in getting huge traffic as well as backlink building...really helpful ..thanks

I've found several excellent article writers throughout the internet that have been a great help. Also, to post in directories helps a bit.

Articles in all the article directories are 99% crap. The title always says something like "blogging secrets finally revealed - become a millionaire by blogging" and then the article tells you to write about something that interests you and try to be creative and .. oh yeah, if you REALLY want to become a millionaire by blogging then just buy this product that will make you a millionaire in minutes.

It all depends where your articles go, most directories are crap and just for backlinking, however submitting to ezine is not a scam, people actually read those articles.

So a real signal for the article marketers who just like to spin articles and submit to different directories.Its the time to work only with the outstanding and unique articles.

Say what?

Provide quality articles that actually help people?

Amazing! Next thing you know, they'll put a man on the moon.

What's next?