BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News

Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?

Don’t exactly know what it is about starting a new year of marketing online,
but I always stop and take a hard look at all my marketing tactics and methods.
Article marketing is always at the top of my list, mainly because it is and has
always been the cornerstone of everything I do on the web.

By cornerstone I mean it is the key to basically all of my online earnings. Without
article marketing I wouldn’t be a full-time online marketer – it’s as simple as
that. No articles, no income.

Articles bring in the targeted traffic. Articles build those all important one-way
backlinks. Articles build those even more important top rankings in Google for your
chosen keywords. Articles build your online reputation and credibility in the eyes
of your visitors.

I was struggling on the web for around three years before I wrote my first article.
“10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site” which is still on around 8,000 sites
around the web.

Writing was always a passion of mine, but it was more on the creative side, although
I did work briefly as a reporter for a very small community newspaper. Looking back
on it, I believe (perhaps falsely) that I had to gain all those years of experience
before I could start writing about it.

Which was the totally wrong attitude to take. Anyone can research a favorite subject
or topic and write a short informative article on it. Most of us have been doing that since
grade school – it is the same as writing a report or an essay.

Only with article writing you actually see monetary returns almost immediately. Surfers
search for an answer in the search engines, your article pops up, they read it and then
click the link to your webpage where you have conveniently placed your affiliate links
or your own products.

A small percentage of those article readers will buy your products and you’re in business.

Over time, all those backlinks in your resource box at the end of your article will
make your keywords rise in the search engines, especially Google. Then as someone searches
in Google – your site pops up, they click thru to your webpage and a small percentage
of these visitors will buy your product or affiliate product displayed on your page.

Smart marketers will also start building a large list of prospective customers by
offering a free guide, ebook or software program to get those visitors to sign-up to your
opt-in list. These marketers can then do follow-up with all these potential customers.

That in a nutshell is an article marketing model or funnel which thousands of online
marketers and webmasters are using. And have been using for years.


But will article marketing remain effective in 2010 and the coming years?

More than likely the answer would be yes but the web is constantly changing and
there are other games worth playing. The same kind of marketing system could be
done with Videos, Blogs, Social Networks and even with Twitter. Your options are
more varied…

However, I find article marketing can be integrated into all elements. For example,
Ezinearticles lets you Tweet your articles to all your followers. I turn my best
articles into Videos and place them on YouTube which opens up a whole different
flow of traffic to my webpages and affiliate links.

Likewise, you can place your articles or links to them on FaceBook,
MySpace and the other social networks. I find getting your articles
on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon… can bring in a lot of traffic and
increase your rankings.

But the question remains – is article marketing as effective as it once was?

My own answer and personal opinion is no since it’s effectiveness has been watered
down somewhat because every “tom dick and harry plus sally” is doing it.
Everyone has discovered how writing short informative articles on the topic
of your site can be very lucrative.

When I wrote that first article five years ago, I was ‘writer #1561′ with
Ezinearticles. Now they have over 240,509 writers!

Back then, I found your article was placed on a lot more sites mostly because
there wasn’t that many articles out there and competition was much, much less
than it is now. More people writing more articles simply means your article
falls into a bigger pool of other articles.

However, the popularity of these free article directories have grown and some
of these sites have very high traffic numbers. Just look at the Alexa numbers
for the popular article directories on the web:

However, article marketing is still a very good way to get your site and name
on the web. It can still bring in traffic and help build those all important
backlinks and search engine rankings. This is one marketer who will not be giving up
article marketing any time soon.

Some of my most effective techniques for article marketing are:


- Place your targeted keyword phrase in the title, usually at the beginning.

- Make sure your article is informative and supplies the information a reader is searching
for – but always try to motivate the reader to click your links in the resource box for
further information since your main objective is to get the reader to click thru
to your site.

- Most experts say to keep your article short, around 400 – 700 words, but I have
found longer articles of 800-1500 words do really well.

- Place your targeted keywords in the anchor text of your resource box links, that’s
the underlined clickable part. Vary these keywords to avoid keyword spamming.

- For very important sites, try writing an exclusive unique article for that site alone.

- Always spell-check and proof-read your articles. Grammar has never been my strong
point so what I do for finding the correct usage of some tricky phrases or words
– I do a search in Google with “quotation marks” to find out which one has the most
links/usage… I go with the one that has the most links, even if it’s wrong, thousands
of people are making the same mistake. Many marketers do the same thing with mis-spelled
keywords.

While they can be expensive, I also like using paid article submission sites such as
Submityourarticle, ThePhantomwriters and Isnare… mainly because article marketing
has been so profitable for me, I don’t mind pouring some of those earnings
back into those sites. It saves me time and extends the reach of my articles.

Article marketing will continue to be one of your best ways to build backlinks, raise
your rankings and bring in potential customers to your site. It works for me and hundreds
of thousands of other webmasters – it should also work for you.

….

In addition, this has been a very busy week and I thought these links
would prove to be of interest/help to you:

How Google Ranks Tweets?

This is a posting on WebProNews which I found very interesting and
beneficial to read. Google looks at now only the number of followers
you have, but the quality of those followers when ranking your Tweets.

Find out other interesting stuff here:

Google Reveals Factors For Ranking Tweets

….

Jiggling The Web

Michael Campbell has a free report entitled “Jiggling The Web”
which has a rather silly name but in it he explains how you can
get your links/content into Google and the search engines within
minutes. Many professional marketers are now using these techniques
to boost traffic and make more sales.

Find out more here:

Jiggling The Web

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com