Does “Article Marketing” Work?
September 11th, 2008 by Bob Bly
A popular piece of advice given by Internet marketing gurus is to market yourself by writing and posting articles on article submission sites such as http://www.articlehub.com/
The idea is to write a zillion articles, post them all over the Internet, and generate a ton of traffic as people who read your articles click on the link to your site in your bio or resource box at the end of the article.
Oddly, though, while this “marketing with articles” approach is widely recommended and sounds sensible, almost no one I know actually does it.
The usual reason given: “I know I should, but who has the time?” — the implication being that article marketing is a low priority compared to PPC advertising, SEO, e-mail, and other online tactics that presumably have better ROI.
Are YOU one of the smart minority of marketers who actively markets by writing and posting short articles at all of the online article directories?
If so, how do you manage to get it all done? Not just producing all those articles, but posting them on all those sites and tracking the results?
And speaking of tracking results, does article marketing give you a big ROI? Or is it a marginal marketing activity at best?
Does the quality of the content in the articles matter at all? Or does article marketing work just as well with crappy articles you pay some elancer to write for you for $25 a pop?
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Actually, this is the whole point of blogging. The reason for reposting content elsewhere is because it will automatically point back to your blog or website, and thus improve your visibility.
But search engines don’t focus on articles nearly as much as links. They LOVE links; it’s like food to the little search engine spiders. So rather than spend so much energy in writing and reposting new articles, give the search engine spiders what they love: link juice.
1) Link to other blogs and websites that cover what you write about. For example, I just posted a copywriting article on my direct mail blog and linked to your blog. There’s a little juice for both me and you.
2) Post comments in those other blogs. I just linked to my blog here in this comment. Now the search engine spiders will see the link from my site to this one, and give me a little spider point. Then they’ll see the link here (assuming html works here), and we’ve both got a little more juice.
The upside is that by writing this comment, I’ve taken a fraction of the time and energy as the article writers and posters, but gotten as much, if not more, benefit out of it as the article writer. And it didn’t cost me $25 to do it.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I’m doing this, just because I’m not ready to do PPC yet for myself. I do see a jump on hits when I use the articles.
As for increasing sales, I’m not a good judge of that yet since I’m using it to build my presence, rather than sales. Also, I’m only using this method on a market that’s tough to work right now. But my opt-in list does seem to grow because of it.
I can say that I’m happy enough to continue using this method when I finish putting together my affiliate sites this month and next.
As a side note, the blogging, responding to message boards, and making articles available that drive to a sales page have made me a buck or two in affiliate sales.
I suspect that once I pick up the pace on this method that it will give me good results.
Not sure on the quality. I know I improve with each effort, but can’t really tell the difference in results with the way I’m using it. Plus I have a problem with many of my articles turning out too long and becoming free-bees for my subscribers instead. *grin*
September 11th, 2008 at 11:34 am
It depends, mostly on where the articles are published. Erik is right in the approach for articles and comments. Another ‘faster, better cheaper’ way is to write proper, intelligent comments in chat forums, since Google constantly tracks for new content everyday, and add a link yo your site there if possible and appropriate.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[…] Does ‘Article Marketing’ Work?… […]
September 13th, 2008 at 1:25 am
There are many marketers who are using article writing to promote their products and services very successfully. One key to achieving success with an article marketing strategy is consistency and a second is volume.
One person who I know who is a master at article writing and marketing is Jeff Herring, The Internet Article Guy. He has produced a number of free templates that you can use to speed up the article writing process.
He also provides great tips on how you can maximise the returns you achieve on each of your articles.
For more information visit: http://www.articlemarketingandwriting.com
To your article writing and marketing success!
Nickolove
September 13th, 2008 at 6:18 am
I heard that Google ignored a lot of the more general article directories because they tend to republish and duplicate the same content.
However, I’ve found targeting specific industry websites to be effective. A couple I use are marketingservicestalk.com and imnewswatch.com, and marcomprofessional.com republish your RSS feed.
When discussing article/content marketing with clients I always ask for a list of their industry magazines and then check whether any of them accept submissions for their website’s news page. They get free content to attract visitors and my client gets exposure and a backlink from a highly relevant source.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Apparently Google loves ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com
If you can find search terms that have a decent number of monthly searches but not too much competition you can rank on the first page of Google search results within a couple weeks.
The key is to use the search term as your headline and maybe a few times scattered throughout the article. Also, make sure that your content is relevant to your title. Give them what they want!
Once it’s ranked in Google it can stay there for months or even years…it can take some time but it’s certainly a “set it and forget it” type approach.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:00 am
[…] I’m not a huge fan of article marketing, to be honest. I think it’s spammy and much of the articles sent to these article marketing sites aren’t very well written. I know plenty of my web writing friends disagree though. Check out “Does Article Marketing Work? at Bob Bly […]
September 15th, 2008 at 2:17 am
I do write and submit articles but I only submit to a couple of sites. I do get visitors from these articles, even years after submitting them. So yes, it is important to write well and ti include keyword.
I do it more for links though. The more I submit the more links I get. Not every site is one you would advertise on PPc either. Most of mine aren’t.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:35 am
[…] Bly recently asked on his blog, “Does Article Marketing Work?” He asks his blog readers for examples of using articles to generate […]
September 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Hola,
I have used internet article marketing for the past 6 months, and so far…
-I have received dozens of new clients.
-Been approached to write articles for ALL of the large trade magazines in my industry.
-Had other blogs and “gurus” use my articles on their blogs (with proper credit given)
-I now receive about 20 more hits to my website per week because of article sites (per Google Analytics)
- Been asked to be on the advisory board for two startup companies in my niche.
I use articles I have sent to my clients in my client only newsletter, or even short articles I post on my blog. My assistant is actually in charge of distribution to all the article sites.
I create good content once, and share it with everyone I can through my blog, articles,videos, and even twitter and facebook (GASP!)
You can choose to ignore the internet, or you can make it work for you…
September 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
The majority of the free articles out there are completely useless. They consistently state the obvious and offer no helpful information whatsoever. It’s rare to find a blog with tips, hints, advice, etc. that you can really use.
Another thing that concerns me about article writing is the unethical SEO types who lift your original content, post it to a blog, and insert spammy words with links to their sites.
Hopefully those unreadable postings are completely ignored by the search engines.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 am
Thanks for all the helpful responses. The article submitting is something I keep meaning to do, but it keeps getting put off. I can see that it works for some. I think quality is critical for your reputation though–so many of the articles aren’t well done. I appreciate this discussion.
Kristi Holl
Writer’s First Aid blog
September 24th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I’ve used article marketing for some of my clients. I’ve managed to get their website and some of the articles placed on page 1 of Google for their main keywords.
The result is not only increased traffic because of their good ranking, but it’s also effectively kept some of their main competitors off of page 1 results.
Susan
October 1st, 2008 at 12:50 am
I’ve recently tried writing a couple of articles and had a few limited hits from them.
I really don’t know whether I can afford the time to continue. I know all the theorists say I should. But time is a constraint.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am
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October 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
No one really reads those articles, but according to so-called SEO experts this tactic works well at building inbound links to your site.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am
Writing articles is indeed a well cited SEO tactic for propagating back links to your site. The logic being that you write a cracking article with relevant useful content that other website publishers incorporate into their own sites. Obviously you leave a relevant keyword rich link (a keyword phrase for which you would like to be ranked of course)in the Author bio in the footer.
As someone pointed out above though, a large proportion of the articles are trash and other than getting a single link from the article in the article directory your wasting your time. The real results come from spending the time and effort to produce a quality article that is worthy of being used by website publishers. One good article that is published on 20 different websites is better than 10 poor articles that are published on non.