Archive for the ‘article marketing’ category
20 Top Article Directories to Target for Your SEO Campaign
Following are twenty of the top article directories, roughly ranked by recent Alexa ratings. These directories all have a reasonably high PageRank, a low Alexa rating (lower is better), and allow Do Follow links. This is a good list to use for your SEO campaign.
- Ezinearticles.com. The king of article directories.
- Buzzle.com.
- Goarticles.com.
- Gather.com.
- Ezinemark.com.
- Infobarrel.com.
- Ideamarketers.com.
- Thefreelibrary.com.
- Amazines.com.
- Sooperarticles.com.
- Pubarticles.com.
- Articlerich.com.
- Triond.com.
- Articledashboard.com.
- Articlecity.com.
- Isnare.com.
- Submityourarticle.com.
- Articletrader.com.
- Articleblast.com.
- Articleclick.com.
Using Amazon.com for Topic Research
If you’ve read much of our blog (or our articles, books, etc.), then you know that we are HUGE advocates of using content distribution as a primary search engine marketing strategy. It has many benefits: it establishes your credibility as an expert, it gets your name in front of a lot of people, it generates many keyword links to your web site, and it drives direct traffic. However, coming from the perspective of someone who has to write many articles on all different subjects on behalf of our clients, I can honestly say that it can be a grind. Sometimes it is hard to find the research material you need to write an article, especially with all the garbage that you find in a typical Google search. However, we’ve discovered that Amazon.com can be an excellent research tool to help you write your content.
The way this works is by using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. This feature allows you to view and read passages from books for sale on Amazon that contain specific keywords. Amazon, shrewd business people that they are, only allows you to use this feature if you are a registered user on the site and have actually ordered something. So sign up for an account and buy yourself a good book to read. Then you’ll be good to go.
To use this as a research tool, you will search books by whatever keyword you are researching. Then, scroll through the list of returned results and find a book that has the “Click to LOOK INSIDE” logo on top of the book cover image. Click on that book cover.
On the next screen, you will see a search box labeled “Search Inside This Book.” This is the search box that allows you to specifically search in the book, so type your keyword in that box and perform another search. You will now be returned a list of links to passages in the book that contain the keyword. If you are a registered user with an order history, then clicking on the link will show you that passage. Otherwise, Amazon will tell you Sorry, you gotta order something first.
Searching through a book like this will provide you with all kinds of information about a keyword from a real book written by a real expert. This can be a richer mine of information than other types of online searches, such as searching article directories.
Anyone can be a successful writer of online content for distribution if he takes the time to do his research. This process can be tedious, but using the best sources of information will make the process a whole lot easier.
The Thirty Minute Writing Challenge
Write thirty minutes every day. That is one of the challenges to myself at the start of 2010. Day three (not counting the 1st, which was a football watching, beer drinking, chilling out kind of day; the 2nd, which was a Saturday devoted to catching up on chores; and Sunday the 3rd, which was a church and family day), this is day three of my New Year’s writing challenge. Assuming I end up typing for in the neighborhood of thirty minutes, I can check off three consecutive days.
So what’s the point?
When I am finished with this piece, I will have three new blog posts or articles, all dealing with my industry, and all containing keywords and keyword links to my main web sites.
If you do that…if you create a new piece of content every single day that gets posted on a blog, or posted to one or a hundred article directories, or to any one of dozens of high quality social media sites…all with keyword links back to your web site…you will accomplish several things:
You will get your name in front of a lot of people.
You will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry.
You will improve your web site’s search engine rankings.
You will drive traffic to your web site.
That is an impressive list of benefits. In the general scheme of things, thirty minutes doesn’t seem like much, but I can attest (and I’m sure many of you will agree) there are many days when you just can’t find a half hour to do nothing but write. So maybe you do it early in the morning. Or maybe you do it at night (it’s 10:34PM Central at the time of this writing). Or maybe you just pay somebody else to do it. It’s worth the effort.
Normally I write something a bit more technical or specific to some aspect of search engine marketing (see the way I linked the keyword “search engine marketing” to my company’s main web site?). My brain is fried from debugging .NET code all day (.NET programming definitely does not fall under the domain of search engine marketing; however, one of the things that Work Media takes pride in is being able to do WHATEVER our clients need us to do to keep selling), so this is what you get.
I’m at 37 minutes…with a couple of lapses to watch a few minutes of reruns of the Office…so I can call this one done.
Whiteboard Planning
We’re trying something different at Work Media. It seems like every December we create a marketing plan for the coming year, only to have the plan sit around and collect dust as we get back to business as usual. For big corporations with many specialized employees, maybe the thick paper marketing plan works because there are people who actually have time to look at it and tell other people what to do to stick to the plan. But I’m not sure how well it works a lot of times for small companies like us.
So we’re trying something new. We’re whiteboarding it. I will probably still end up creating a paper plan to flesh out details (SEO, advertising, direct mail), but for the big picture, I’ve written what we want to accomplish in 2010 on a whiteboard so everyone in my office can see it. Now obviously, there is a limit to how much detail I can go into. But details are meaningless unless everyone in the office knows what the “big” goals are, what what we’re trying to get done.
So what is my on our whiteboard? At the top of the board is our revenue goal for the year. Now, your business may be different. There may be a different metric that is most important to you. But for us, being in a business with low capital requirements, I know that if we hit our revenue goal, everything else will fall into place.
Beneath our revenue goal, I’ve sketched out in very broad terms how we will hit the number: how much we have to generate in product sales, how many clients we need, etc. I’ve also created a picture of what our company structure should look like with arrows going this way and that. I like visual diagrams when trying to demonstrate something that can be complex in as simple a way as possible.
The whiteboard approach may not be effective for you. If you have a large office, with lots of employees disbursed in different places, then a whiteboard might not work because not everyone would even see it. But my point is, you should try to come up with something to keep your company’s goals for the year in front of your people’s eyes. Maybe some kind of weekly report would work for you.
Do you have your goals set for 2010? If not, that is obviously the first place to start. Set your goals, decide how you are going to accomplish them, and then make everyone in your company know what the plan is.
If you’re small enough, you might even want to whiteboard it.
Software to Avoid: Article Video Robot
First off, let me say that I LOVE the concept behind this product. The idea is that you can load up a text article into the system and it will automatically create a video, with a robotic voice that reads certain parts of the article. The web site claims that you can do the whole thing – create a video from an article – in three minutes. You can then distribute it to a bunch of video directories right from the same interface.
Great idea…very poor execution.
This software might be adequate if you make your living from affiliate sales and just want to create dozens of junk videos to distribute to try and generate search engine visibility for long-tail keywords. Personally, I am against the creation of junk content just to try to sell something. I am NOT against the creation of large amounts of content, but I think that content needs to be legitimate and of a reasonably high quality.
If your image is important to your business’ success, then you should probably not use this software. The videos basically consist of an audio voiceover combined with somewhat animated still images. There is nothing wrong with the idea of creating videos this way (we do it all the time), but transitions should be smooth, and the voiceover should sound somewhat professional. We were spending so much time trying to tweak on our videos using Article Video Robot, it became apparent after a few tries that it would be much quicker to just create our videos manually using video editing software (even if all you have is Windows Movie Maker).
One of the main problems is that the computerized voice readings of article text tend to need a LOT of tweaking to sound reasonably human. The software gives you the option of recording your own voice for each “frame” (which corresponds to a paragraph of the text article) of the video. But again, by the time we do all that, it would have been just as fast to manually record an audio track and mix it with some still shots using video editing software. As for the creation of videos in three minutes…only if you want your videos to look and sound like garbage.
The Article Video Robot web site claims that the company offers a risk free trial. This is not true. After requesting a refund, having used the product for less than two weeks (well within the trial period), we were denied a refund because we had done four video submissions (which was actually two videos, due to two failed attempts at using the system). What I wonder is how we were supposed to thoroughly try the system out without actually creating and submitting videos.
Trust me, I wish I had the time back that I spent trying to use this junk software.
Article Video Robot is definitely not recommended.
The Lane Kiffin Approach to Marketing
A recent response to one of my blog posts got me thinking about the concept of notoriety. Does my company push the envelope with regard to Internet marketing strategies? Hell yes! But we normally end up backing up somewhat until we find the middle ground – that area where our techniques can see results, but not get us in trouble. We don’t just do it for fun. It’s our job to learn what works, and then use that knowledge to our clients’ benefit.
But the fact remains some of the things we talk about involve strategies shunned by very mainstream marketers; strategies that some consider to result in “spam.” In a way, we are creating a sense of notoriety for ourselves by revealing our envelope-pushing techniques. And it is attracting attention. And it is earning us new clients.
It is a bit analogous to what the new head football coach at the University of Tennessee, Lane Kiffin, has done in his first few months on the job. If you are a fan of college football, then you already know the story. Lane has made many comments that have angered fans and administration of other SEC schools, he has committed a number of minor recruiting violations, and he has created all kinds of negative press about himself.
He has also shined the national spotlight on UT football (where it hasn’t been in a long time) and has gotten many top-notch recruits considering UT. Certainly, his success will be judged based on the performance of his team on the field. If they don’t win many games, then all the other stuff will be pointless. But purely from the standpoint of getting the attention of national press and potential recruits, his controversial style has done the job.
This approach may not be right for your company. You may operate in an industry where you have to have a squeaky clean image and you have to do things a certain way. But if you are in a position where the things you say can influence the buying decisions of potential customers or clients, then it may be beneficial to you to go against the grain. Get some peoples’ attention. Piss some people off. Clients can’t hire you if they have never hear about you and don’t know that you exist.
Here’s a link to an interesting conversation about the merits of aggressive blogging for law firms: http://lawmarketing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/an-advanced-blogging-strategy
Article Post Robot: Recommended Article Distribution Software
I have been trying out an article distribution software package called Article Post Robot, and so far I am impressed. Unlike many other things I have tried, this may actually be worth the money. Article Post Robot has some features that I really like. For one thing, it submits to all of the major article directories, and not just directories that are based on a particular kind of script. It also gives you the ability to add your own article directories that you want to submit to.
And it also does article spinning. It uses the traditional article spinning syntax (only it uses “{{{” rather than just “{“) and even has the ability to pull paragraphs from different articles located in a directory on your hard drive to create new articles on the fly. So it offers a lot of flexibility and actually seems to work pretty well.
It may be a little soon, because I really like to hammer on any software I use before recommending it, but I feel pretty confident about this one. So here it is: I officially recommend Article Post Robot.
Here is a link if you’d like to check it out for yourself:
In Search of the Perfect Article Marketing Solution
Jerry Work here. I do a lot of article marketing. For a while, I got heavy into video, but it is more difficult to produce video for third-party clients than it is to produce my own. So ultimately, text content creation and distribution is still the most effective strategy for generating links for myself and my clients. It gives you the widest distribution of your marketing message and greatest leverage on your time.
I am always looking for tools to help me do a better job with article marketing or do it more efficiently. For nearly a year, I used Article Marketer, an online service that is probably the top article distribution service. It gets your articles listed on many article directories in a short period, and then continues with a steady stream of submissions over time.
Unfortunately, I had to stop using Article Marketer. They have their own quality control program and are quite strict about what articles they allow. There were many occasions where I tried to argue my case about why a particular article should be allowed, but there never seemed to be any way to have a dialogue with Article Marketer staff.
In addition, there were times when it literally took weeks to get articles approved and into the distribution queue. I am a professional, aggressive search engine marketer. I service quite a few clients, and I do my own marketing. I write high quality content, and I write it fast. I can’t have my business slowed down waiting on approval by other people, and I can’t have my articles sitting in a queue.
I also need the flexibility to post articles under different names for my clients. Article Marketer requires you to have multiple accounts to do this, which can be quite expensive and difficult to manage. I need a single program that lets me distribute content under different names.
So…it seems what I need is an automated solution. I started trying out something called Jet Submitter, but the problem with it is that it only submits to directories set up using a particular script. Plus, after joining, I read all kinds of horrible reviews based on the company’s terrible customer service. You just can’t feel all that confident about a software solution in those circumstances.
I have also used SENuke, which has a very nice built-in article spinning feature. Unfortunately, SENuke is not of great value for article marketing because it lacks one critical feature…it doesn’t actually submit to article directories! It is a social networking tool used to set up pages on sites like WetPaint and Tumblr. This process is certainly valuable, and is one component of a well-rounded search marketing campaign, but it doesn’t replace mass article distribution.
My dream solution has the following features: 1. it distributes to all of the major article directories; 2. it requires no input on my part (works completely automatically); 3. submits very different versions of a core article; and 4. with those alternate versions being well-written and professional.
I think the software I want doesn’t exist. I’m not sure if I trust the automated solutions that are on the market. The next best alternative is a semi-automated solution, which is software that rotates from one directory to another, but still requires some input on a per-directory basis. I will keep you informed of what I discover while I try out some more options.
If optimized content creation and distribution is something you struggle with, Work Media can help! Contact us at 615-263-2811 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.
New Article Software We Are Trying Out
We try out new tools for doing our job better and faster all the time. One that I am currently trying out is an online service called JetSubmitter. This tool does two things: it creates spun articles from your seed article, and it distributes those articles to a few hundred article directories. One limitation of the service is that it only works with article directories that run on a particular script, so it does not work with most of the extremely well known (and high PR) sites. But if it works with the few hundred with which it is supposed to, then that’s good enough, given the low price of the service.
One weakness is that it does not have any kind of reporting functionality. So the only way to know if your articles are actually getting submitted is to search for your article titles in Google or another search engine. I started using the service late last week, and I have seen a couple of pages with my article show up in Google results (when searching for the exact article name in quotes), so I have verified that it is at least partly working.
Another weakness is the lack of support. User reviews of the service are horrible, with many people saying that is just doesn’t work and that there is no way to contact the creator. So far, for me, it has worked, so I am not worried about support at this point. However, I have a good bit of experience with article spinning and using similar software, so I think my personal learning curve was not as great as some other people’s might be.
If you decide to try it out, sign up for the free or $1 trial and the $17 monthly service, if you can find the page. Funny story: I had actually signed up at $27, but then I found a page offering it at $17, so I canceled the $27 account and opened another account at $17. The one thing you absolutely should not do is sign up for a year of service up front. Given the lack of communication on the part of the developer of the service, the site could shut down next week and you would never hear from anyone about it (and might not get your money back). So take the pay-as-you-go option.
Obviously, this is not a rousing endorsement, and I really can’t speak for the effectiveness of the service yet. All I will say is that, at $17 per month, if the service works like it’s supposed to, then it’s a bargain. But be forewarned – you may not receive any support. If you are new to article writing or article spinning, you should probably look elsewhere for something that will be easier for you to figure out.
You can check it out at http://www.jetsubmitter2.com.
The Article Spinning Controversy: How to Do It Ethically
I’ve read several blog posts and articles lately speaking out against article spinning, which is a practice that we endorse, so I thought it might be a good idea to elaborate on this subject so that our readers don’t think we’re telling them to practice unethical behavior.
Article spinning is the process of setting up an article with many alternate words, phrases or paragraphs, and then using some kind of automation to dynamically create different versions of the article. The reason we like this technique is that it lets you distribute lots of original, non-duplicated material from a single work, thus giving you greater leverage on your time and more impact from your efforts.
The controversy arises from the improper way some unscrupulous Internet marketers are using the technology. What they are doing is taking an article written by SOMEONE ELSE, without that person’s consent, and using article spinning software to create alternate versions of the article. So even though the finished product is somewhat different, you’ve still stolen someone’s ideas and concepts. In addition, the product of this strategy is often something that reads very poorly and looks like it was written by someone with little grasp of the English language.
So don’t do it! This is a completely unethical use of the technology. ONLY USE ARTICLE SPINNING WITH CONTENT THAT YOU WRITE YOURSELF!
Another tip is to put adequate time into the process so that your articles are truly different from one another and read like completely different articles.
If you are still having trouble with this concept and need some help figuring out how to use it for your business, give Work Media a call. We’d be happy to work with you. 888-299-4837.