The Real Benefit of Using Article submission

Most still believe that having published articles in article directories with high Google PR homepages is a great and a cool and an awesome SEO strategy. It isn't. Here's why:

• The entire purpose of an article directory is for it to act as a resource of content where webmasters can search for content from other authors which they can publish on their sites for the unconditional happiness of their readers, of course including links pointing to any page that the author of the content included...

• A new page has Google PR N/A, or Google PR 0 at the very least. This means a newly published article in an article directory is a Google PR N/A or Google PR 0; and

• Even if the Google PR of the article directory's homepage is shared to a newly published article by a link in the "New Articles" section in the homepage, a lot of outbound links pointing to other onsite pages reduce the Google PR of the homepage that is shared to your article, and the recent Google algorithm updates from last year up to the most recent updates seem to have reduced the value of a page's Google PR in terms of positive Google SERP effects...

Most believe it's a good traffic generation strategy to have published articles in high authority article directories. It isn't. Here's why:

• The published article may outrank the pages of your site, but thanks to recent Google algorithm updates, an article published on your site and indexed by Google will almost always outrank a published copy of the same article that you will submit to an article directory or a syndicated copy of the same article picked up by other webmastters from the article directory for publication on their sites; and

• Having a 100% CTR is as rare as an Irish tea party, and a 3% or less CTR is as common as a weird neighbor, so 97% or more of that traffic goes to other pages of other sites on the Internet, which most of the time you don't own, through the many other links found on the page where your article is published, including big, eye-catching banner ads and text link ads...

The real benefits of submitting your content to article directories are:

• Webmasters of sites that offer content contextually relevant to the content of your site, to their members, readers and mailing list subscribers may see your content and publish it on their sites, because they go to these article directories to find content that they can offer to their viewers;

• This funnels that quality traffic from their sites to your site, via the links in the syndicated copy of your content that point to pages of your site offering supplemental content with benefits not found in your syndicated content or elsewhere...

• The syndicated copies of your content on the sites of those webmasters have less outbound links that may compete, in terms of clicks, with your links than the outbound links of the published copies of your content in those article directories;

• These webmasters and their viewers may provide the syndicated copies of your content on their sites with more natural backlinks, increasing the authority and Google PR of those pages where the syndicated copies of your content are published;

• The situation above means your backlinks in those syndicated copies also increase in terms of Google SERP value for the linked pages of your site...

To cut this long post short: It's best to publish your content on your site, have it indexed and submit it to article directories for the main objective of having it picked up by webmasters of contextually relevant, high authority sites in your niche with large membership, readership and mailing list subscriber bases, for syndication on their sites. If you seem to be having problems getting your content syndicated by other webmasters, then you may directly contact them. Let them know that you can become extremely violent when you don't get what you want, and that you have great and cool and awesome content which they can syndicate on their sites, so they can offer their viewers a life-changing experience, and that you can offer other things, such as beer or kind words or money or pole dancing videos of yourself, in exchange for syndicating your great and cool and awesome content...

Yes the violence and pole-dancing work wonders

I had to give a "thanks" for that! Great reply!

On the other hand though, if you target some longtail keywords in your resource box and do a bit of deep linking to your internal pages you have a very good chance at ranking in the SERPs for that longtail...a couple articles are often all you need for them.

Furthermore article submission provides diversity to your backlink profile which is only a good thing these days. It can be a lot of work so many people don't think the ROI is any good.

Hi Cooler1,

I'd first look at the article directories in AMR's database. Do webmasters of sites contextually relevant to your niche actually go to any of these article directories, so they can find content that they can syndicate on their sites for the benefit of their viewers? If so:

This would be a good brand marketing and traffic generation strategy as well as a good natural backlink building strategy. "Natural backlink building strategy" not because of the backlinks in your published articles on those article directories. Rather, you get backlinks in contextually relevant, high authority sites of those webmasters who syndicate your content for the benefit of their target viewers. And, the backlinks in those syndicated copies of your content can be powered up in terms of positive SERP results, since some of their viewers can post natural links in their own blogs, sites, the Web forums they frequently hang out in and in their social networks/communities. As a friendly reminder though:

As I said in my previous post: Article directory submissions aren't actually good for direct traffic generation and direct SERP improvement. Rather, you'll get better traffic generation and SERP improvement campaign results once the content you regularly submit to those article directories is frequently syndicated by webmasters of contextually relevant, high authority sites in your niche with large readership, membership and mailing list subscriber bases...

Hi,

Not exactly. If you submit your article about dog training to EZA, for instance, then would EZA be more contextually relevant to the dog training niche, even if it has matching categories and sub categories, than an article directory specifically about dog training? And, about those backlinks, you'll just have Google PR N/A or Google PR 0 backlinks, at the very least, in the published copies of your articles, under those article directories, since all new pages start out with a Google PR N/A. Why Google PR 0? The author of the article might've built backlinks, wrongly doing so, for his or her articles in those article directories. Why is this wrong? You're building backlinks for a page under a site that you don't own...

Hi Kevin,

Do you mean public relations when you said "PR", or were you referring to Google PR backlinks? About public relations:

Yes, submitting your content to contextually relevant, higha uthority syndication networks in your niche, after you published it on your site and had it indexed by Google, will promote good public relations between you and the publisher bases of those syndication networks, comprised of webmasters constantly in the look out for useful content they can syndicate on their contextually relevant, high authority sites in their niche, for the benefit of their regular readers, members and mailing list subscribers. If your content frequently gets syndicated by those webmasters, then this also promotes good public relations between you, the author of the syndicated content, and their readers, comprised of your target viewers...

About high Google PR backlinks:

No, you'll get a Google PR N/A page with your backlink, since your newly published articles in those article directories are, of course, new pages, and new pages start out with Google PR N/A. And, if you think the homepage Google PR of those article directories will be shared to your published article pages in those article directories, once your articles get listed in the "Most Recent" section or any other section on the homepage, think again, since there are a lot of internal and external links on the homepages of those article directories, diluting its Google PR...

About getting traffic from published articles in article directories:

The traffic you'd want should consist of webmasters looking for relevant and useful content that they can syndicate on their contextually relevant, high authority sites, for the benefit of their readers, mailing list subscribers and members. If you think you can get good organic search traffic from those published articles in those article directories, think again. For instance:

If your articles get a 3% CTR on average, then this means you're losing 97% of the organic search traffic, that should've been yours, to other sites linked by the other links displayed on the pages with your articles in those article directories, more so to sites with those huge, eye-catching banner and text link ads on the same page. This means:

Instead of getting traffic, you're losing a lot of it. If your articles were published on your site and were indexed by Google before you submitted it to those article directories, then it would've outranked, for your target keywords, the copies in those article directories and would've also outranked copies on sites of webmasters who syndicated your content. This means you get a huge chunk of that organic search traffic going directly to your site, instead of going to other sites and being distracted by other internal links, external links and huge banner ads...