Monday, May 7, 2007

5 Article Marketing Secrets

If you are new to Article Marketing to boost traffic to your website or blog, there are just 5 things you should do immediately. Best of all, these five things will not cost you a penny!

Article marketing is most probably the most effective link building strategy in existence. Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you submit. Inside this resource box, you include a link to your website. If you submit just one article to 100 article directories and it is approved for publication, you will immediately receive 100 back links to your website. There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web!

Now, if you submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you may get 500 back links easily! How? Again, by including the link to your website or blog in the Author Box at the end of your articles like I have done below. The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks (PR). We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your search engine standing!

There are many questions about this tactic of submitting articles to directories. Here are my answers to the the top 5 questions.

1. If I submit the same article to many article directories, will it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?

The simple answer is - No - but see #2 (below) for a loophole. Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines will assume that the submitted content is your original work. This is the reason why most article directory editors are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they try to avoid, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services. They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR (private label rights) articles as well as articles loaded with Affiliate links.

PLR articles are those you buy that were written by someone other than you. These are not a good way to go because the authors are selling the same articles to hundreds of other people. Using PLR articles will create a "duplicate content" problem for you with both the search engines and with the Directory editors.

2. Should I submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

If the article was posted on your website or blog first, the answer is "Yes, absolutely!". If you submit your articles to directories first, the search engines may assume that where the articles first appeared, in the Article Directory, is the originator of the content. In that case, your articles could be distinguished as "duplicate content". This could lead to the de-indexing of your articles. It will not, however, get your website de-indexed. The key is, you want your articles to appear on your website or blog first and be indexed first as originating with you. Wait a few days and then submit them to directories.

3. Can I submit as many articles as I want to as many article directories as possible?

Absolutely, that's what I do and I do it often! This is very much advised as a fast way to build up your link popularity and secure a great page rank for your website or blog. I have only found one directory so far that only allows one submission per day. I have not found any others that have any limits whatsoever.

Bear in mind that search engines are quite wary of any website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that when you submit articles to the article directories, wait a few days between each submission. There is one exception to this. When I began submitting articles I had 10 that I submitted on the same day to get caught up, so to speak. After that I limited my submissions to one a day to each directory.

4. My page views are are still quite low even after submitting my articles. Does article marketing really work?

Yes, article marketing does work! If your page views remain at low levels after submitting many articles, ask yourself, or someone you trust, the following:

a) Is the subject of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?

b) Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?

c) Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation to others?

d) Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you are sharing?

I almost always ask my wife or my best friend for their advice on my writing. I have no ego to bruise. I want my articles to be readable and helpful. So ASK! If you get - "No" - to any of these, you have found the factors that contribute to your low page views. Doing some editing to correct the problems you have identified can dramatically increase the number of times your article is viewed.

I have some articles that were viewed more than 30 times in just a few days through just one Article Directory! Multiply that by about 300 and you can see the impact. Many of the readers clicked my Author Box link and visited my blogs for more Free Resources on a particular topic. I pride myself on providing lots of Free stuff on my blogs and you should too.

Remember, some article directories attract only a few visitors so viewing will also be low. If you are writing on a highly specialized topic, low page views would not be unusual.

The key is, your articles are published and your back link in your Author Box is pointing to your website or blog and that helps your page rank even on a low viewed directory.

5. Can I be sure that my articles will be kept intact by people who would use them in their own websites or eZines?

You can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster published your Author Box links. If he did not, you could ask him to include them. If you get no response, contact the article directory editors so that they themselves can act on the matter. Vigilance is the key. It is rare but it does happen.

A positive side of directories is the editors will recognize "duplicate content" when the thief tries to submit your article under their name. The article will be rejected. This leaves them with placing it on their own blog or wesbite and you can find that out by doing the search as described.

Do these 5 things and watch your traffic increase.

Lastly, finding Article Directories to submit to is simple - Google "Article Directories" and you will get a huge list. Or, do what I do. I use software that submits the articles with a few button clicks (see my blog). This has saved me hours upon hours of tedious hand-submission because the software has over 350 of the best directories built in so you do not have to search for them.

Keep in mind, submitting articles takes work, tons of work when submitting to one directory at a time. Check out various software like I did. The best software does cost a few bucks so do not expect to get off cheap. There is free or low cost software but "you get what you pay for".

Articles, written by you, are still the fastest and cheapest (Free!) way to get more traffic and higher search engine rankings.

Source:
Jim DeSantis

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Difference between buying backlinks

I'm sure that some of you invest into buying one-way backlines to your website or blog. Along the way you will always notice prices with such a big range. You can get a link on some PR5 for $10 per month and on another PR5 site, it would cost $40 per month. Most people think that this second site is just an overpriced site and doesn't know the market too well. Well those who think that are totally wrong, that price fits exactly the package that is included when you get your link onto that webmasters site.

Difference

Many of you should know that the amount of traffic that you recieve to your site has to do nothing with your PageRank. PageRank is 100% decided from the quality of your backlinks, the more and better quality your backlinks are, the higher your PageRank would appear. When you pick that offer of $10, all your getting is a PR5 backlink, nothing else. This person will always most likely have very little traffic to his site, so your only paying the 10 bucks for a backlink.
Now, the webmaster that is offering to put a backlink up to your site for $40 per month will likely have alot better traffic then the one with the $10 price. So your not only getting a backlink, your also getting additional traffic from his site.

So either way you can look at it, I would always choose the sites that have traffic and a high PageRank.

PPI/PPC/Affiliate - Optimization

When I'm browsing through websites, I commonly notice how a large number of webmasters chose to use their website as an extra income. That is great for them, but most of them share a common problem. The three most common programs that are used to generate revenue with their sites are :

PPI - Get paid for 1k impressions
PPC - Get paid for each click
Affiliate - Get paid for each sale made through your site

These three programs center around one thing. and that is the percentage of targeted visitors to your site. Target visitors consist of visitors that have interest in your niche. Non-Targeted traffic is traffic that consists of visitors that have no interest in your niche.

Problem

The problem is that most webmasters use the less efficient program depending on their targeted traffic percentage. Let me tell you a real life story, I know a person who receives a heavy 9k unique targeted visitors per day organically. It's all from the search engine, but he uses PPC program. PCC wouldn't be that bad, but if he would use an Affiliate program, his earning per day would increase by three or four times the amount. Since this traffic is so well targeted, his conversion rate would be extremely high.
Below is a scale that you should pay attention to when deciding which program to use:

Targeted /Visitors Program
0%-25% /PPI
26%-50% /CPC
51%-100% /Affiliate

By following that scale, you can optimize your earning for your website. Some webmasters even use all three of these programs, though this isn't always recommended since your site quality will decrease and it may cause some of your visitors to become irritated.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Changed!

As some of my return visitors can notice, I have now changed my blog template completely due to the fact that the last one was dull and not that user friendly. This week I will be trying to put my effort into adding different links and information onto the template to make it more professional.

Thanks,
Martin