Due to the vast number of advertising venues, online and offline, I have been asked many questions about Article Marketing...is it effective, can I really get the number of visitors they say I can, is it totally free...etc. My answer to most questions is YES. If you are an advertiser or some type of marketer, you know how effective Article Marketing is. But lately, I've been hearing some other tales.... What do you think and how did you come up with that? I'm listening..........
I think that article marketing is a good way to bring in a new traffic. For my company this strategy worked very effective. Of course this is not really reflected on sales but we got higher level at SERP.
I don't think that it is unless your niche has very low advertising competition. See the work at home industry has a lot of it and it would be kind of stupid to start writing articles. It is a waste of time in my view. Again, if your niche is not that competitive then go ahead and do it.
Yes I do believe that article marketing is still very effective, and will remain e-ffective for years to come. Content Is King! The web is built around the written word and no other for of web marketing has surpassed it yet. People like reading articles, search engines like indexing articles, and articles that you write can stick around for years (or forever) if they're good enough. Plus another plus about articles is that they contain in-content text links, which is something that Google likes, especially after the recent Panda update. In-content text links are some of the strongest backlinks that you can get. And this is all possible with the power of article writing. And one of the greatest part about writing articles is that it's FREE! A few things you can do to make your article marketing strategy more effective is.. - Do good keyword research - Make you titles captivating - Make sure your articles are at least 400 words - Use good anchor text and 2 links max in articles (any more would be chancing more rejection of article acceptance). - Give useful info in your article while making the reader crave for more.. - Make each article version you submit unique by rewriting or quality-spinning it. This gets you more mileage. There's a little something to think about. Hope this helps!
Article marketing works fine, but not all articles will bring you the same amount of traffic. Marketing is a matter of consistency along with effective marketing methods. Article marketing is one of them.
FreeCashMan: Marketing is a matter of consistency along with effective marketing methods. Article marketing is one of them. That says it all! There's no reason to get hung up on article marketing per se, or on any singular marketing method for that matter. Your results will come from the cumulative results of several methods. Use as many as you can to maximize your options. Hermas
My point of view is that article writing is just one of the least effective tools to market your site and should be used in conjunction with other marketing methods. Like my own blog that niche on legitimate work at home opportunities, I have written article but so far my visitors are from the search engine, forums and twitters. None from my article. Therefore, you really need to explore how to go about with your marketing combination in order to find the right mix to get traffic. Do not depend on any single mode of marketing channel.
I relied quite heavily on article marketing for one of my websites, but after the Google update where they de ranked many articles in top article directories I went from 3000 page views to less than 500 I now spend very little time on article marketing.
I am with Barb - I used to rely pretty heavily on article marketing myself, but since Panda, I have veered off in a variety of other directions too, social bookmarketing, submitting to more directories, blog commenting etc. PLUS always content to my sites, of course!
The discussion would be better if we would define exactly what we are saying article marketing is effective FOR. i.e. Is it effective for sales? Is it effective for search engine ranking of the article? Is it effective for search engine ranking of the linked website? Is it effective for generating traffic to the linked website? This is rarely specified so when people say whether it's effective or not, it's unclear as to what they are actually talking about. Personally I think it can be effective for generating traffic to the linked website and then in turn sales. It can also be somewhat effective for search engine ranking of the linked website. These are just my opinions, but I'm interested in hearing about other people's experiences. There are those out there that say article marketing is dead and blah blah blah. My question is... do they really know what they are talking about or are they just trying to appear as if they are some sort of expert? When someone says that something is "this way" or "that way" on the internet, I always look to see what kind of evidence they have to back up what they are saying. Have they done any testing and provide the results to add credibility to what they are saying? Many times when statements are made, the person saying it doesn't provide any information to support what they are saying. They simply expect you to believe it just because they say it.
dmitch31 I totally agree! But, in addition to defining exacting what article marketing is effective for, I think it would also be beneficial to define what methods of article marketing are being utilized. Are you writing articles to submit to the top three article directories only? OR, Are you maximizing your article's effectiveness? Gone are the days where you could just submit your article to the top article directory and expect better traffic and rankings in Google. You need to put more effort into your article marketing and take full advantage of the opportunities available to you for promoting your website. Kim Roach teaches a strategy called the 10X Method that re-purposes an article as described in the following steps: 1) Write your article and submit it to the top article directories. Or, write the article to post on your blog. OR, submit the article as a guest post to another blogger. 2) Submit your article, blog post or guest blog post to HootSuite and Ping .fm 3) Convert the article into a step-by-step tutorial and submit it to eHow and Tutorialized 4) Convert the article into a Podcast and submit it to top podcast directories. 5) Convert the article into a PowerPoint Presentation and submit it to SlideShare and similar websites. 6) Convert the article into a video using the slideshow presentation you created in step 5, and submit it to the top video sharing sites. 7) Convert the article into a PDF and submit it to the top eBook directories. (NOTE: You can combine several articles on the same topic to create a short 7 page PDF report.). 8) Then submit that same PDF to the top document sharing sites like Scribd. 9) Then submit the article to related niche link roundups. 10) Then submit the article to the top blog communities like BloggersBase and BlogEngage Of course, the article, podcast, slideshow, video, and PDF you produce will all have a link back to your website. And, your content will be positioned on high PR sites that Google loves. Multi-purposing your article as described above will certainly improve your opportunities for more exposure of the article content including your backlinks.
Speaking of back links, and I have 200+ approved submitted articles already, I have not seen the effect of it yet. My back links according to Google is 6, and only one article directory was listed, and it is not EzineArticles. How about that?
After Panda updates content is important to promote a website so any content marketing activity is very effective to a website
