Search Engine Optimization September 10th, 2012
If you’ve been following the discussions of webmasters across the net, recent and ongoing changes to Google’s algorithm have been altering the rules of good SEO. With Google holding anywhere between 60 and 70 percent of the market share in today’s economy, it’s understandable why changes in how they rank and measure content have a direct impact on a marketer’s bottom lines and in turn on their strategies.
Two or three years ago, several techniques were recommended over and over again as the heart of a good SEO strategy: on page factors, content quality and frequency of updates, and building links through a variety of tactics like social bookmarking, blog commenting, and article marketing. The last one, article marketing, is interesting because it brings together several diverse elements of SEO.
Related Posts:
How to Deal with the Duplicate Content Penalty
Tips for Building Links in a Post-Penguin World
Article marketing is essentially the practice of writing articles, usually in the 500+ word range, related to your topic and then uploading them to article directories. In exchange for providing the content, you get a link or two back to a site of your choice, either as anchor text in the article or in the author box. As a byproduct you might also get some traffic back to your site if actual humans searched the directory for topic on your subject and followed your links.
Where article marketing starts to fall apart is when it’s abused. This abuse can come in the form of non-unique content (submitting the same article to dozens of directories), in poor quality content often written by non-English speakers or spun beyond coherency, content that delivers no actual valuable information, and no inherent sense of connection between the article content and the purpose/theme of the directory. The concept got further abused with paid blog networks that distributed micro-articles (think 100 or 200 word blurbs) across the web to sites that they owned to quickly flush a site with links.
In this SEO context, Google responded with the Panda (which was about promoting quality content) and Penguin updates (which was about recognizing and devaluing the impact of unnatural link profiles). So the question is, in 2012, is article marketing still a good bet?
Yes and no. Gone are days where spending hundreds of dollars to belong to low quality blog networks that syndicate your content makes sense. Not only is the money wasted, but you might actually be damaging your site’s link profile in a way that causes you to get delisted or to drop in the rankings. Gone are the days when you should be paying a $2 per hour VA (virtual assistant) to write as many short blog posts as possible and blast them across the internet.
Guest posting is actually quickly becoming the newest form of article marketing. Because guest posting relates specifically to adding content to another person’s blog, expect to have to conform to any guidelines that they might have. Quality is an issue. But guest posting is also a great way to gain high value links that look natural, while also increasing traffic and exposure for your brand.
To find guest posting opportunities, search for blogs in your space plus the term “guest posting.” You can also consider using services like MyBlogGuest.com, which connects writers and website owners in specific niches looking for new opportunities.
on
I have been wondering about how effective Article Marketing is in the current Panda/Penguin environment.
Most of the paid networks are dead, but I find that the links I get from Unique Article Wizard, (even though from unique articles which do appear in Google searches) seem relatively ineffective in boosting my pages positions and site ranking. Indeed my non unique articles posted ages ago on Ezine Articles and Isnare appear to be more effective in this regard.
What does seem to work is adding lots of content to my site. I had hoped to do this using UAW plugins for receiving guest content. The problem has been that the quality of articles received has been dire.
I will try MyGuestBlog. This should work much better since I get to selectively make an offer for the higher quality articles I prefer while I can also write articles and potentially get high PR links back to my site.
Since it is free, I have nothing to lose and much to gain. How effective it proves
will depend, I guess, on how many people sign up i.e. the size of the user base will determine if this becomes an exceptionally good way to get links.
Also, post Penguin, linking out has ‘suddenly’ become a good idea. Thanks for the information.
on
Thanks for the info. I have had a heck of a time finding any advice about article directories post penguin.
on
I have seen a lot of blogs using guest bloggers, and I always click through to the guest bloggers site, so I know it works! Thanks for the link to MyBlogGuest. I will bookmark it for later, as I’m trying to develop my own quality content right now.
I have also seen more and more comments and focus on Squidoo. I’ve seen some very good posts there, but I’ve also seen some duds. I guess being selective is the key to success. I do love reading that quality is the way to go! Thanks!
on
I think that guest blogging and Squidoo is the best way to go at the moment. There are a few niches where article marketing still makes sense, although as you said, gone are the days when you could spam articles to every directory on the internet in order to promote your blog or product.
Google seems to love Squidoo at the moment, so I now spend the time I used to write articles with on creating useful Lenses. As usual though, content is king. I fear we may be seeing terrible, affiliate link ridden, bloated Squidoo lenses fairly soon, and Squidoo will eventually fare the same fate as article directories.
I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of MyBlogGuest until now, thanks for the tip! It looks like a useful site and I will be sure to utilise it as soon as possible. Hopefully it will reduce the amount of time I spend hunting down other blogs in my niche.
on
There is no way article marketing will ever become irrelevant. some years ago I wrote a few articles at an article directory and even to this day they are still being used by webmasters on their website with my links etc. in tact. The change however is now in terms of the quality of the content. They are looking for content that is of a much higher quality.
on
Agreed allswl, good content will survive!
on
Good Post and very informative, article marketing still works if you use good quality content and are a little selective over your directories.
on
Of course content is the most important part of a website, but design is important too! If you want to keep your user fanbase you have to have both of these locked down TIGHT. There’s no point in making a lot of tags and not keeping your users!
on
There’s no real value in gaining rankings in the search engines if the actual visitors you attract bounce due to amateurish poor quality content. If I am looking for some good blogs or forums focused on web development, and I come to a site and see posts such as “What Does HTML Stand For?” or “How To Use An FTP Client”, I’m outta there.
on
I am new to article marketing and am starting to use it now but seeing that it has been taken over by guest posting than I think i better turn to the last one. MyblogGuest.com seems to be a good choice according to your description.
on
The consensus seems to be that My Blog Guest has the most users and is therefore the best.
on
Thank you for sharing the link 😀 Yep, traditional article marketing is over. What you can do is set up a number of succesful blogs with quality content, or write for sites like Squidoo and Hubpages, which have the best reputation and as long as you are adjusted to their guidelines, you can do well.
on
I don’t think article marketing would ever be dead because the Internet is all about content. Even video blogs need content so article marketing will never become irrelevant. Perhaps, the suggestion that guest posting is the next phase to article marketing is the way to go to get backlinks that would be recognized by Google.
on
Good post, article marketing still works if you use good quality content and are a little selective over your directories. Though I have to agree that building relationships with other websites and guest posting is the better method.
on
I agree with you completely. I rode the wave of article marketing when it was hot, but all good things must come to an end. My articles on other sites aren’t doing much for me these days. I haven’t really gotten into guest posting on blogs yet either. I’ve been working too hard on my own sites.
Above all else, providing quality information on your own site is still the best method. Organic SEO results turn into repeat visitors, email list sign-ups and continuous business.
on
If what you’re saying is “good content (on or off-page) will attract quality links” then I agree with you wholeheartedly!