Web University

Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?

Don’t exactly know what it is about starting a new year of
marketing online, but I always stop and take a hard look at all
my marketing tactics and methods. Article marketing is always at
the top of my list, mainly because it is and has always been the
cornerstone of everything I do on the web.

By cornerstone I mean it is the key to basically all of my
online earnings. Without article marketing I wouldn’t be a
full-time online marketer – it’s as simple as that. No articles,
no income.

Articles bring in the targeted traffic. Articles build those all
important one-way backlinks. Articles build those even more
important top rankings in Google for your chosen keywords.
Articles build your online reputation and credibility in the
eyes of your visitors.

I was struggling on the web for around three years before I
wrote my first article. “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site”
which is still on around 8,000 sites around the web.

Writing was always a passion of mine, but it was more on the
creative side, although I did work briefly as a reporter for a
very small community newspaper. Looking back on it, I believe
(perhaps falsely) that I had to gain all those years of
experience before I could start writing articles about it.

Which was the totally wrong attitude to take since anyone can
research a favorite subject or topic and write a short
informative article on it. Most of us have been doing that since
grade school – it is the same as writing a report or an essay.

Only with article writing you actually see monetary returns
almost immediately. Surfers search for an answer in the search
engines, your article pops up, they read it and then click the
link to your webpage where you have conveniently placed your
affiliate links or your own products.

A Small Percentage of Those Article Readers Will Buy Your
Products and You’re in Business.

Over time, all those backlinks in your resource box at the end
of your article will make your keywords rise in the search
engines, especially Google. Then as someone searches in Google -
your site pops up, they click thru to your webpage and a small
percentage of these visitors will buy your product or affiliate
product displayed on your page.

Smart marketers will also start building a large list of
prospective customers by offering a free guide, ecourse, ebook
or software program to get those visitors to sign-up to your
opt-in list. These marketers can then do follow-up with all
these potential customers.

That in a nutshell is an article marketing model or funnel which
thousands of online marketers and webmasters are using. And have
been using for years.

But Will Article Marketing Remain Effective in 2010 and the
Coming Years?

More than likely the answer would be yes but the web is
constantly changing and there are other games worth playing. The
same kind of marketing system could be done with Videos, Blogs,
Social Networks and even with Twitter. Your options are more
varied…

However, I find article marketing can be integrated into all
these elements. For example, EzineArticles lets you Tweet your
articles to all your followers. I turn my best articles into
Videos and place them on YouTube which opens up a whole
different flow of traffic to my webpages and affiliate links.

Likewise, you can place your articles or links to them on
FaceBook, MySpace and the other social networks. I find getting
your articles on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon… can bring in a lot
of traffic and increase your rankings.

But the Question Remains – is Article Marketing as Effective
as It Once Was?

My own answer and personal opinion is no since it’s
effectiveness has been watered down somewhat because every “tom
dick and harry plus sally” is doing it. Everyone has discovered
how writing short informative articles on the topic of your site
can be very lucrative.

When I wrote that first article five years ago, I was ‘writer
#1561′ with Ezinearticles. Now they have over 242,000 writers!

Back then, I found your article was placed on a lot more sites
mostly because there wasn’t that many articles out there and
competition was much, much less than it is now. More people
writing more articles simply means your article falls into a
bigger pool of other articles.

I believe video marketing is at the stage article marketing was
at around five years ago. So turning your articles into short
“how to” videos would probably be a wiser move and you would
have a lot less competition. You can also place your marketing
into the whole Video/Youtube craze that is still bringing in
tons of traffic and interested customers.

However, the popularity of free article directories have grown
and some of these sites have very high traffic numbers. Here are
some of the main ones I use:

* EzineArticles
* GoArticles
* iSnare
* IdeaMarketers

And I also like to place my articles on important but perhaps
lesser known sites such as:

* PromotionWorld
* SelfGrowth
* American Chronicle
* Buzzle

However, article marketing is still a very good way to get your
site and name on the web. It can still bring in traffic and help
build those all important backlinks and search engine rankings.
This is one marketer who will not be giving up article marketing
any time soon.

Some of my most effective techniques for article marketing are:

– Place your targeted keyword phrase in the title, usually
at the beginning.

- Make sure your article is informative and supplies the
information a reader is searching for – but always try to
motivate the reader to click your links in the resource box
for further information since your main objective is to get
the reader to click thru to your site.

- Most experts say to keep your article short, around 400 – 700
words, but I have found longer articles of 800-1500 words do
really well.

- Place your targeted keywords in the anchor text of your
resource box links, that’s the underlined clickable part.
Vary these keywords to avoid keyword spamming.

- For very important sites, try writing an exclusive unique
article for that site alone.

- Always spell-check and proof-read your articles. Grammar has
never been my strong point so what I do for finding the
correct usage of some tricky phrases or words – I do a search
in Google with “quotation marks” to find out which one has the
most links/usage… I go with one that has the most links,
even if it’s wrong. Thousands of people are making the same
mistake. Many marketers do the same thing with misspelled
keywords.

While they can be expensive, I also like using paid article
submission sites such as SubmitYourArticle, ThePhantomwriters
and Isnare… mainly because article marketing has been so
profitable for me, I don’t mind pouring some of those earnings
back into those sites. It saves me time and extends the reach
of my articles.

Article marketing will continue to be one of your best ways to
build backlinks, raise your rankings and bring in potential
customers to your site. It still works for me and hundreds of
thousands of other webmasters – it should also work for you.

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