Article Marketing - still valid if done right?
-
Much of the work I do tends to be on a lot of small to medium sized company websites, the kind of businesses that do not have thousands of pounds to spend or the budgets to create reems of quality content.
That said, neither do the competition so one approach that has worked well in the past has been article marketing.
The approach would usually be to develop some relevant content for the site itself, even if that is just a range of service type landing pages or answers to relevant customer problems and then build links from the article marketing sites (primarily ezinearticles.com).
An average approach would be to write articles that are relevant to the individual services, for instance, problems that can be solved by the service and then to link these articles back to the service pages with the desired keywords in the anchor text.
Another approach has been to develop an article with the client that solves a common customer problem for their own site and then to write a few summarised versions of the article for the article marketing sites. Again, with the intention of gathering traffic, giving a basic answer and linking back to the main article with the main keywords we wish to rank this page for.
For smaller sites serving a fairly tight geographic area this approach, combined with submission to some quality directories (local and niche) has been a strong combo historically.
I know there is a lot of junk on the article marketing sites and there could be negative affects from posting loads of pointless articles but using them properly, to broaden the net, provide answers (albeit summarised) and generate links - is this still a valid approach post the Google Farmers update?
It may be interesting to see how the article sites like ezine have to tighten up the editorial process now and if the content becomes better across the board, it may possibly strengthen this approach over time.
Do any of you still use article marketing as part of your SEO campaigns? If so, what are your strategies and where do you use?
Would love to hear your thoughts folks.
Marcus
-
Hey, that's exactly my approach and it always forms part of a larger picture but good quality articles can help get traffic to and rank a new site so it factors in still for me. Cheers! Marcus
-
I don't have a particularly aggressive article marketing campaign, but I have thrown up (excuse the pun) a couple high quality articles which either addressed a common question or solved a common problem. I haven't a clue what they do specifically for SEO, though I imagine they still help a little bit because those of my competitors that do invest heavily in article marketing are still ranking quite high. I do know, however, that the articles themselves do get read and, astonishingly, people read those articles and then contact me about the same issue. I had exactly that happened last week; someone read my article on ezinearticles and then contacted me about it.
Thus, I think there's still some benefit to it, but you should do it in as much of a white hat manner as possible. I don't think there's much value in dozens and dozens of low quality articles, but I do think there's value in having a handful of decent articles up. Also, for what it's worth, it's my impression that this article sites are indexed almost immediately, and so their outbound links (i.e., your site) will be indexed almost immediately.
-
It's actually a good question. I think there is a good chance that Google has capped the ability of sites like Ezine to rank, but not shut off their ability to pass link juice. They might not have though as much link juice to pass as they had previously.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
On-Page Grader: F, Backlink still work?
For some reason, i can't optimize the page, and on-page Grader is F, whether the backlink with anchor text still work? Any thing i can do in such situation?
Link Building | | skyten0 -
Blog articles on website vs submitting to article submission sites
I had some articles created for a client. The site is on WordPress. I'm wondering if it is best to add the articles to the blog page of the website or if it is better to submit the articles to ezine articles. Or can I submit the same article to both places? Is there a strategy that should be followed generally speaking when creating content for the blog vs article submission sites? The goal is to increase the ranking for target keywords. I realize that the answers could take a lot of different directions. But generally speaking I would like to know, If I have an article where is the best place to add it to achieve better rankings for target keywords? Thanks for the help.
Link Building | | rwaynick111 -
How have they done that? DA20 site in p2 for very competitive search term
Not sure whether to actually name the term and site in question, but basically it is a very big term for a popular type of home furniture. Since the algo change, there is a site thats appeared in p2, right behind the market leader in google uk. The site has a domain authority of 20, and only 84 links - none of which even have the anchor text in question, and infact well over 90% have the same anchor text which is related but different to the search term. The search term appears on the home page 3 times - once in a 120 character+ keyword stuffed home link title, once in a 100 character+ keyword stuffed h1 tag that isnt even visible on the home page and one in a paragraph that is visible.
Link Building | | FDFPres
The site is badly made and buggy, but its outranking John Lewis, Dunelm Mill etc - very big players in the UK market. How on earth does that work? They are doing so much google tells you not to and winning big rank!? What is Google doing?0 -
Blog commenting still ok for 2013?
im trying to rank for some keywords but more importantly increase my Domain Authority its only a 15 and my Page Authority is 28 I need to increase those what would be a good way to start doing that. I do rank well for some keywords just not all Any ideas to help me build links and become a more relevant source. We have TONS of content compared to our competitors site name is www.greensidelawncare.com
Link Building | | gslc0 -
If I write an article that contains a link back to my site, should I post in only one place or can I post it several times?
If I write an article that contains a link back to my site, should I post in only one place or can I post it several times?
Link Building | | dad7more0 -
Beaten to death but still have to ask, low comp area spammy directory links
I have a client that wants to rank for low comp local keywords (i.e. service + suburban area). Would several well written blog posts on relevant blogs be more effective than 100's of low level spammy directory links? I just want to give him an initial base of a few links, aside from submitting to the local search engines such as those in whitespark citation finder..... please keep in mind this would be a low competition area where on-page would probably rank in the middle of the 2nd page.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Is submitting articles to Ezine and other article website helpful to an SEO campaign?
I have been searching around to figure out if submitting articles to ezine, article base, etc. would produce quality incoming links for my website. Would ezine and article base provide quality incoming links? Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | giantpro0 -
I have a really good article, now what?
Hi guys, New guy to SEO and new site, need some help. I've got a really good article (Deal Guide: How to Pay $50/mo (or nothing) for Unlimited Everything on AT&T), a few days old and it's already going viral on StumbleUpon and is getting shared on Facebook and Tweeted. My question is, now what? What can I do to boost it's value? I feel like I should be doing something to further push my article and build recognition for my new website. Should I run a Facebook sponsored story and further increase "likes" and shares? Blog/Forum commenting? I've done a little bit of this but there's so many iPhone 4s articles out there, that I don't know where to start. Should I be hitting the high PR pages? How can I find out if comments are follow/no-follow? Any other ideas?
Link Building | | 10JQKAs0