What Is Your Article Marketing Strategy?
I know a lot of affiliates that earn money online solely by writing optimized and targeted articles.
They’ll pick a lucrative affiliate program and then write a bunch of search engine optimized articles focused around this program.
Next they’ll distributed these articles to one or more article directories like:
- Ezine Articles;
- Article City;
- and Go Articles.
The idea is your articles will get indexed and ranked by the search engines — and since your affiliate website is included in your article’s bio box, you’ll get traffic and sales. And you also get link backs to your website which helps with search engine optimization.
I have one article in particular on Ezine Articles that is ranked 1st page on Google for a very competitive keyword — and it results in regular affiliate sales without me doing a thing.
But I submitted this article way back when not EVERYONE was submitting articles — so maybe the age factor is helping me.
A lot of affiliates will also use Squidoo to post articles because it’s easy and the website has search engine credibility — so the pages rank well — though not like they used to!
Well, I’m testing using a combination of both to promote this blog since it’s somewhat new. I’m not expecting a miracle; just a small long-term and gradual boost.
This is my article marketing strategy:
1. I wrote 5 affiliate and internet marketing articles and used Micro Niche Finder to help me optimize them for the right keywords.
2. Next I’m submitting the articles to Ezine Articles because this is the best article directory in my opinion.
3. Then I’m creating Squidoo pages for each article and adding the articles to them, but changing the copy a bit. Each Squidoo page is centered around the keywords from step 1.
4. The second to last step is I add this blog’s RSS feed to all 5 Squidoo pages because the content is relevant, the constantly updating feed keeps the Squidoo pages fresh, and the feed gives me deep link backs to this blog.
5. The last step is just pinging the various articles and Squidoo pages so the search engines know they exist.
So that’s it.
I’m only on article number 2 so I have a ways to go because I’m working on other stuff, but that’s ok.
I’m hoping the Ezine Article pages and the Squidoo pages work together for a synergistic effect.
I’ll definitely make a follow up post with stats so stay tuned.
What is your article marketing strategy? If you’re currently doing pay per click, you might want to spice things up with some optimized articles — just a thought!
Talk to you soon,
Ryan
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Tags: Article Marketing, Ezine Articles, Micro Niche Finder, Search Engine Optimization, Squidoo Marketing
I’ve done a LOT of PPC to get traffic and gradually also growing in the search engines.
This sounds like a great plan.
Thanks Thrandur — I’ve got high hopes that the 5 articles and Squidoo pages will work together to bring this blog a constant trickle of traffic.
We’ll see!
-Ryan
I think your plan is a good one. I have been using EzineArticles as a great way to get people to my site. Be careful that you don’t write an artice for your blog and then send the same article to EzineArticles. That can hurt you, I have been told.
If I am wrong, please let me know.
Hi Richard, yeah I think that falls under the duplicate content penalty.
But I don’t know if that penalty is 100% valid because I wrote an article on Ezine Articles that is first page on Google for a VERY competitive keyword…and I know for a fact that a ton of site owners have published my article on their website or blog.
So there’s lots of duplicates out there…
So maybe Google looks at the date of the content and ranks the oldest the highest?
I’m not really sure.
But yes, as a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t post exact copies of articles on both your blog and Ezine Articles, or any directory for that matter.
-Ryan
I use a similar approach to Ryan and have described it as the Google-Squidoo dance in my articles and Squidoo lenses. I think increasingly we have to think in terms of a marketing ring - with linkages amongst our various strategies. I have just started to add niche video sites to my marketing ring. So the linkage goes:
blog-lens-articles-niche video site with cross linkages. My main Squidoo lens has a PR5 so the blog and video sites gain a quality backlink just from the lens alone.
BTW I picked up Ryan’s post from a search on Google for “Squidoo marketing strategies”.
Excellent comment Ron! I agree with you completely. You create a ring of marketing “hubs” that work together to boost your affiliate marketing profits.
Cheers,
Ryan