Tweet

What you’re about to read in this article is a result of testing, tracking, failure and a absolute ton of article writing. The strategies can be applied to pretty much any niche or industry by anyone with an ounce of creativity and will-power.

For the last year or so, I have been trying to figure out the secret to article marketing to drive thousands of targeted visitors to my web pages and set up a new life in Hawaii sipping cocktails on the beach. Whilst I failed dismally with the Hawaii dream as I’m currently writing this from sunny Woking, I’m glad to say that the traffic part of my objective has been at least partially satisfied.

The truth is that conventional means of article marketing (submitting to directories such as http://www.ezinearticles.com and http://www.goarticles.com to name a few) usually gives a pretty poor return on investment. Around 5 years ago, when the whole “bum marketing” craze took off, it was quite possible to do some basic keyword research, write a large volume of optimised articles and drive a significant amount of traffic to your landing page.

Now, it seems the whole world and its dog are intent on submitting articles to the point where this form of marketing is becoming pretty ineffective without spending time building backlinks and boosting the articles for a higher listing in the search engines. This, as I’m sure you’ll agree, isn’t a very efficient, scaleable or interesting method to drive traffic!

I started looking elsewhere to find a content for profit model that worked. Here’s what I’ve discovered:

1. There are hundreds of ezines out there in pretty much any niche that will publish your content

Ezines (online magazines) often have a subscriber base of more than a thousand readers going all the way up to hundreds of thousands of readers. A simple Google search will uncover ezines in your niche that you can contact and ask for publication. Alternatively, the http://www.directoryofezines.com, run by Charlie Page, has a huge list of ezines updated on a regular basis.

2. Many high profile “authority” sites accept guest content on a one-off or regular basis

I call it “guest blogging supercharged” because often these high profile sites will drive hundreds of targeted visitors when your article is published.

To find these sites, use the SEOQuake Firefox extension to sort Google search results in order of PageRank from high to low. It’s also worth checking that the Alexa rating is less than 100,000 for maximum exposure. A typical query might be:

Your niche + “write for us” or Your niche + “guest post”. Adding this: “&num=100” to the end of the Google search URL will instantly show 100 listings in the results as opposed to the standard 10.

The traffic potential with this is extremely high, not to mention the high profile backlinks your site is collecting and the positive effects this has on rankings.

3. The duplicate content penalty is a myth

You don’t run any risk of being penalised for submitting duplicate content across multiple web sites. That means you can submit the same article to many different sites should you choose to do so. Take time to hear it from a Google engineer himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSoXutuj0g

4. Converting your content to E-books and adding them to directories and document sharing sites is worthwhile

As article marketers we should make our content work harder and give us the best return of investment for our time. Creating an e-book or a small PDF that references your squeeze page or blog is a good strategy for traffic.

Here are some great sites to submit to:- http://www.changethis.com, http://www.ebookjunke.com, http://www.getfreeebooks.com, http://www.thefreesite.com, http://www.ebook88.com, http://www.docstoc.com

5. Article Marketing goes well with Video Marketing

This is another instance of repurposing your content for maximum exposure. Creating a small presentation in PowerPoint or OpenOffice with the key points from your article and give a voiceover using Camtasia or Camstudio (free). You can use http://www.tubemogul.com to distribute to the videos you create to a large number of video sharing platforms out there.

6. Write hugely valuable posts to create a “buzz” effect

As the old saying goes – what goes around comes around. If you give plenty in your article then you’ll stand a good chance of having the article go viral through one of the many social bookmarking sites. My favourite for viral capacity is http://www.stumbleupon.com and http://www.digg.com. The same effect can be had by Tweeting your post.

Your number one goal as an article marketer is to get your content picked up by as many publishers as possible and syndicated around the web. The difficulty of having your article published varies greatly from one editor to the next but here’s something that I’ve learned…

Article marketing is a give and take arrangement. The more you try and take, the more chance you have of alienating publishers and not getting published. Examples of taking too much include:-

* Extended author bylines
* Cloaked affiliate links inthe body (framed redirects often go unnoticed, though)
* Excessive promotion
* A high number of links in the resource box


On the other hand, the more you give, not only do your chances of getting published improve, but also the potential for viral capacity becomes even greater.

And like most things in life, it all comes down to providing value. Value that will prevail in the long run; long after the "churn and burners" have fallen by the wayside.

Calling all webmasters - here's 16 of the most powerful traffic strategies you can use to drive targeted visitors to your site: how to get traffic. Paul McCarthy is a full time internet marketer specialising in traffic generation, article marketing, joint venture brokering and SEO.

James writes: I really enjoyed this article. It is full of useful information that you can apply today to benefit your marketing strategy.

8:42:49 Wed Apr 21 2010 CDT


Pages: 1