One of the main debates in the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) revolves around the type of tactics used to get results - this is the White-hat vs. Black-hat debate.
White-hatters tend to employ a more organic and genuine approach to link building, whereby links are generated through authentic, human relationships. Black-hat SEOers, however, often rely on bots and spammy tactics to derive inbound links and deceive search engine ranking algorithms.
On either side, most of the pros will tell you that one key factor in any good link building campaign is article marketing - the process (or art) of submitting original articles to online directories where they’ll reappear for others to syndicate and ultimately increase traffic back to your site.
With so much dialogue on the topic of article marketing and how it fits into the white-hat vs. black-hat debate, we’ve done our homework and have had the opportunity to put the concepts to work. We’ve learned what works best for us, and more importantly, what SEOers on either side should avoid. In this post, we’d like to share a few of those discoveries with you and let you in on part of our white-hat SEO process - getting your articles listed in directories to achieve maximum exposure.
The WHY of Article Marketing
Article marketing is ultimately a win-win for everyone involved - as the directories grow, they rank higher in search results and see increased traffic; authors gain credibility and see increased traffic, both through the directory and the syndicates who’ve picked up the article; and like authors, syndicates gain a bit of credibility and see increased traffic, too.
The key to all this increased traffic is backlinks. Most directories allow authors to nest links within their articles and since syndicates must copy submission as they are, those links show up on every site that syndicates the article. You get links, the directory gets good, free content, and syndicates get to attract readers to their site, too. Win-win.
The HOW of Article Marketing
Once you’ve got a good article ready for marketing, you must select the most appropriate bundle of sites to submit it to. As all directories cater to a different set of readers and have different review processes, you’ll need to submit your article to at least a few different directories in order to achieve maximum reach.
Additionally, article review time can vary between directories so by submitting to several directories at once, you can extend the exposure cycle of each article.
The WHAT of Article Marketing
Many directories allow authors to submit a few additional details along with their article, usually a summary and resource field. Summaries show up in search results and thus should allow users to make a quick assessment of your piece. Unsurprisingly, a tactfully written, keyword-rich summary will get you noticed more often than not.
Resource fields can really boost link-building exposure by providing authors with a space to enter contact or background information and share links to their website and other resources. This is a great way to gain a few deep-links to your client’s site. For maximum exposure, you should try to tailor these details to fit each directory that you submit to.
The WHERE of Article Marketing
Article directories exist in both all-purpose and niche formats, and can either be free or paid for services - so you’ll need to do a bit homework to figure out which directories are best for your needs. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just be covering a few of the more popular and free all-purpose forums.
EzineArticles
EzineArticles is a leader in article marketing, some of their strong points are:
High Standards - The Ezine editors take the submission process very seriously. They maintain a high editorial standard in their guidelines section, allowing only the best articles to make it through. I’ve actually had to re-submit some of my articles up to five times due to minor discrepancies that the editors caught. There is no room for black-hat marketing in this system.
Expert Status - To ensure that only the best articles get in, authors are limited to eight submissions until reviewers have approved four of their articles. The review process can take up to eight weeks, but once four articles have been accepted - you reach expert status which allows for vastly more submissions. Expert status also gets your articles displayed on the EzineArticles “High Traffic” page - a great bonus for your client and a boost to link-building.
DoFollow Links - When someone republishes your article through EzineArticles, any links that you’ve included in the article are made into “DoFollow” links to help boost your search engine rankings.
Analytics - EzineArticles helps you track where and when your article gets syndicated with a very easy and helpful monitoring processes.
GoArticles
GoArticles is one of the directories that I couldn’t quite figure out. Here’s what I mean:
The Good - Not all directories allow for HTML styling, so intended formatting can often be lost. Although GoArticles HTML implementation is somewhat limiting and difficult to work with, the fact remains that they do still allow for HTML. This makes GoArticles great for link building - stay within their HTML guidelines and you can include up to three hyperlinks in the body of the article, as well as two in the resource box.
The Bad - Along with the sloppy HTML implementation, the other downfalls of GoArticles becomes apparent post-submission, when you’re just sort of left hanging with a review process too quick for comfort, minimal analytics, and only average web exposure.
Maybe I’m just missing something, but if you’ve had any experience with GoArticles - please feel free to share your thoughts and tips in the comments!
ArticleBase
ArticleBase is my personal favorite. When I’m assigned an article to market, I save ArticleBase for last, like a dessert.
Fast, Quality Review - ArticleBase reviews and publishes articles at an amazing rate, while still maintaining high standards. While many of the free submission sites take up to eight weeks to review your article for editorial standards, ArticleBase’s review cycle is usually less than 24 hours.
HTML - ArticleBase outdoes GoArticles in this regard, allowing for much higher level HTML customization. ArticleBase allows three links in the body of the article and another three in the author section. Not many sites are this flexible.
Reach & Audience - As ArticleBase’s FAQ section is proud to announce, their site is growing rapidly. Although I submit articles to many directories, many of the ones that have been syndicated began at ArticleBase. As an added SEO bonus, content from the ArticleBase directory tends to rank pretty well in Google searches.
Analytics - Not many clients would allow you to work through the tedious and lengthy article marketing process without some sort of return on their investment. ArticleBase has great tracking metrics that help determine exposure and linkbuilding success for your client.
Preferences - Many site preferences can be saved, such as bios for each of the authors you set up. These saved preferences mean you spend less time on the busy work and more time optimizing your article.
A Few More Directory Sites We Like
Additional Tips & Tricks
Seek Efficiency - Article Marketing is a tedious process, ripe for streamlining - so be mindful of ways to become more efficient.
Maintain Good Grammar - Bad grammar and spelling errors probably won’t go unnoticed in most directory review processes - so be sure to proof read everything.
Use Keywords - Fill your articles with keywords, but do so gently. With any SEO campaign, only tactful keyword placement will improve rankings and exposure.
Categorize Correctly - Make sure your article is properly categorized. It seems simple enough, but the directory review teams are very specific about how articles are classified. Even if the rest of your submission complies with their guidelines, they might reject your submission if you choose the incorrect category.
Revise - Make small changes to the article each time you submit it to a new site. Google and other search engines do not like seeing repeated content all over the web. You can avoid this problem by altering the content for each submission.
Keep Records - Once you receive a confirmation of acceptance from each submission site, record the article title, client and link from the site in a spreadsheet, noting that it was accepted. This spreadsheet can then be passed along to clients to show when and where their articles were posted.
With all that said, we by no means know everything about article marketing, but we strive to keep up to date on the latest helpful hints - we’ve even set up a Google Alert keep us in the loop!
If you’ve got any experience in article marketing, we invite you to share any tips or tricks might have in the comment!
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