Google's latest algorithm updates have hit article marketing
really hard - but have they killed article marketing?

                                   






Is Article Marketing Truly Dead? 
Copyright © 2011 Titus Hoskins

Google's recent "Panda" algorithm update seems to have hit some
popular article directories really hard. Among them are two directories
which I use on a regular basis... Ezinearticles and Buzzle.

This is just another indication that article marketing is less effective 
than it was just a few years ago. In addition, last year's Google
"Mayday" update also hit long-tail searches extremely hard, often 
de-ranking many articles which typically pop up in Google SERPS.

Since Google is the source of 60% to 80% of the quality search traffic
on the web, this drastically affects how much targeted traffic you
receive from your articles.

This is truly worrisome because...

Years ago, I discovered a very effective marketing tactic which surprised
me at first. Traffic coming from an article directory like Ezinearticles
converted into a sale more often than traffic just coming directly from
Google.

This is the whole "Pre-sell" process which truly works. You use your
article to pre-sell a particular service or product. The objective of 
the article is to put the reader and potential customer in the right 
mind-set so that they are more likely to buy once they reach your site.

Actually, many times there is nothing subtle about these articles such as:

How To Find The Best Laptop Deals

How To Use Dell Laptop Coupons To Get The Best Price

Five Things To Check Before Buying A Gaming Laptop


Articles like these put the reader in the right frame of mind to buy your 
product. And these articles have always been a very effective part of my 
marketing funnels which starts with searchers using the search engines, 
usually Google, then flowing through these articles on the major directories 
and finally landing up on my website where they are further tempted or 
encouraged to buy a product, which in my case are strictly affiliate products. 

This encouragement usually involves a large discount or coupon on the
product being promoted. Everyone wins... especially the customer who
gets a special deal.

Besides the discounts or deals, I believe another reason these marketing 
funnels are so effective has to do with a psychological factor... people 
want to feel smart, doing a search in Google, finding an informative and 
entertaining article on the product in question and then using that article 
to find a spectacular deal will make people feel smart and satisfied.

We are all still only hunters and gatherers. Not that far from the plains
of Africa.

Well, let's not get too carried away, but these articles and article marketing
have worked for me, but now Google has thrown a monkey wrench into the whole
process. In the recent updates, many of these articles are no longer listed
high for lucrative keywords. No rankings, no traffic, no readers, no customers,
no sales.

But this is just one aspect of article marketing, I also use my articles to 
build my top rankings in Google for my own sites. In this case, traffic comes
directly from Google. 

Writing articles and placing your backlinks in the resource still works but
much, much, much less than it did in the past. Especially now that Google
is lowering the rank of these article listings in their SERPS, your site
rankings which depend upon these article backlinks are also lowered. In addition,
many sites use the "no-follow" tags so your backlinks lose their effectiveness.

This is a double whammy which makes article marketing less effective.

However, that's not what is really killing article marketing. In the past,
most webmasters picked up your articles and placed them on their sites 
- this is happening less and less. With the whole issue of duplicate content
raised by Google in recent updates... webmasters are deciding to ONLY
place unique content on their sites, just to be on the safe side of any
more updates from the big G.

End result - less exposure for your articles.

Plus, more and more people simply scrap or steal your article and place their own
links in the resource box. Others will simply take your article and "spin it"
using a software program which will spit out a different version of your article,
usually in a jumbled nonsense form.

This has happened to me on countless occasions and that's just the ones
which I have found. Most times these rip-off artists change the title of your
article so that it is hard to track.

Lastly, competition among article writers has greatly increased. We now have
millions of writers competing for the same attention and the same keywords,
all this competition makes article marketing less effective and much more harder
to do.


So is article marketing truly dead?

Yes and No.

Despite certain recent lowerings in the latest Google update, your articles in 
the major authority article directories like Ezinearticles and Buzzle, will always
rank well in the search engines  - especially with it comes to long-tail phrases
and less competitive keywords.

However, the old forms of article marketing have really become less effective as more
and more competition comes online. Plus, Google's recent updates have lowered
the rankings of many article directories which have affected your articles. 
In addition, article scraping and spinning have made articles in general less 
effective on the web. 

Perhaps, the only saving grace, you can write unique articles which you submit
to sites. Instead of placing your article on countless sites where your backlinks 
are usually corrupted anyway, you place your unique article on a related site which
is highly ranked for the keywords you're targeting.

Keep in mind, many article directories will also take unique articles and they 
will only appear on their site, Buzzle comes readily to mind. Other directories, 
like  Article Alley, gives you a choice to distribute your article or keep it unique, 
so too does Promotion World.

Going forward, if Google keeps penalizing sites for duplicate content or for
not having unique content... then article marketing as we once knew it, is indeed
dead. However, it may still play a leading role in creating unique content for
keyword related sites who accept your article, along with those all important
backlinks.

If you think of it as a high powered sniper rifle, instead of a shotgun,
article marketing can still hit its target.

------

Now more than ever, this is my most important "article marketing tool" or
program. Pays for itself, many times over. Discover how by grabbing the
free report here: : Submit Your Article.




...

The author is a full time online affiliate marketer who operates numerous 
niche sites. Titus Hoskins Copyright 2011 - Do Not Copy! 



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