Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
Over the past few years, Article Marketing has been turned upside down. Over the course of this post, I’m going to give you two article marketing strategies that work today in 2012, but first, you need to learn more about the history of article marketing.
By knowing the history of article marketing, you can predict the future and avoid making stupid mistakes. For me, it all started back in 2009 when I started marketing online. I started a little blog and decided the best way to promote it was article marketing.
At the time, article marketing was the hottest online marketing strategy, especially for search engine optimization. Article directories were ranking like crazy and were a sure-fire way of driving traffic to your site, as well as gaining powerful backlinks.
First, what the heck are article directories, and how do you use them? As the name suggests, they are directories of articles. They allow users to sign up and submit their own articles to the directory. Once submitted, they’re generally reviewed and, upon approval, published on the directory domain.
Article directories are usually high Page Rank and carry a lot of authority in the eyes of Google. So, obviously, Google ranks any of their pages (i.e., articles) very well. Here’s a quick list of reasons why article directories are fantastic for link building:
- Article Directories Rank Well On Their Own
- Article Directories Are High Page Rank
- Article Directories Drive Traffic
These are the three core reasons why you should use article marketing. There are far more, but it’s easier to grasp the most important three. The first reason is that they rank very well by themselves.
This means that by submitting an article to a directory, it will probably rank in the search engines without any help. Why? Well, because article directories are so authoritative. By using simple on-page optimization and keyword targeting, your articles will rank and send referral traffic to your website.
Backlinks that send you traffic are powerful. The second reason is that article directories are high Page Rank. This just means they’re authoritative. The higher the Page Rank of an article directory, the more authority it holds, and the better links it will give you.
The third core reason is that they drive traffic. Very few backlinks actually send you direct traffic. They all will, in the form of higher search engine rankings, but hardly any send direct traffic. It’s all because article directories rank well by themselves, so people find them, read the articles, and click through to your website.
To gain a link from an article directory, you need three things:
- An Attractive Title
- A Great Article
- A Compelling Author Resource Box
In the old days, SEOs would just spam article directories with thousands of spun articles. In 2012, you need to create high-quality articles, optimize them for keywords, and submit them to the top-tier directories only.
Article marketing is ever so simple. You need to write a title, a great article, and a compelling author resource box. If you want to follow a white hat strategy that will last, you need to manually write each and every word of your articles. Or outsource them, which is the preferred option.
The author resource box is highly important. It’s where you’re allowed to write about yourself, your website, and actually link to it using whatever anchor text you choose.
With most article directories, author resource boxes are positioned directly below your article. If you want to use article marketing to drive direct traffic and not just boost your rankings, your articles better be good.
As unless people read past your articles, they won’t see your author resource box. Generally, directories allow you to incorporate two links to your website/s in each author resource box.
So, obviously, you need to write a compelling author resource box if you want anyone to click through to your website. Submitting to article directories is very straightforward. There’s nothing to it. You sign up, log in, and navigate to the ‘submit article’ page.
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On the ‘submit article’ page, you generally enter an article title, description, summary, body, and keywords. Sometimes, article directories will ask for tags, which are practically the same as keywords.
The key to good article marketing is keyword optimization and, of course, good articles. Article directories rank very well and can send you direct traffic, so you need to optimize each and every article to rank for a keyword.
Unless you’re going to seriously promote your live articles, you should choose low-competition keywords. While article directories are high Page Rank and do carry a lot of weight, they won’t rank for high-competition keywords without reinforcement, i.e., backlinks.
That’s just a little information about how and why article marketing works; now let’s look further at its history.
- The History Of Article Marketing (You Are Here)
- The History Of Article Marketing Part Two
- Effective Article Marketing Strategies
- Effective Article Marketing Tips
Comments
Emma L.
I completely agree with the points made in this article. Article marketing has been such an underrated strategy, but it’s helped me build backlinks and improve SEO rankings significantly. Great job on this post!
Alex Ramirez
I find it hard to believe that article marketing is still relevant in 2024. Can you share any recent case studies or evidence to back up the claims made here? I would love to see more proof before investing time in this strategy.
Nicole F.
This was a very informative read! However, I’m curious if these article directories still have the same impact today. Has anyone seen real results from using this method recently? I’d love to hear about your experiences.
James K.
While I appreciate the effort put into this article, I feel like some more current information could be included. SEO is an ever-evolving field, and some of these practices may be outdated by now. Would love to see a 2024 update!
Maria B.
This brings back memories of when article marketing was all the rage. David, how have you been? It’s been a while since we last caught up! Let’s grab coffee soon. Keep up the good work!
Samuel R.
I remember using article directories to build links for my business back in the day. It worked like a charm! Seeing it mentioned here brings nostalgia. It helped me rank for keywords that I struggled with before.
Karen M.
I’ve been using a tool called ArticleForge, which generates high-quality articles automatically. It’s been working wonders for me. You might want to check it out as an alternative to manual article creation.
Olivia G.
Thank you for this detailed explanation of article marketing. I never realized how much potential it still holds for SEO in 2024. I’ve learned a lot and will definitely be implementing these strategies soon!
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Sorry if I’m behind on the terminology, but the post says article directories are ‘high Page Rank and carry a lot of authority’ — is Page Rank even still a thing people track in 2024, or is this entirely outdated advice I should just skip past?
Page Rank the public number’s been dead for years. The idea behind it never really left.
In plain terms: find a site full of articles that Google already trusts, write something for it, and put a little advert for yourself at the bottom. That’s the whole strategy dressed up in three bullet points about ‘authority’ and ‘Page Rank.’ It was clever in 2009. It’s just called guest posting now.
Gail’s summary is right, and the bit that jumps out at me is how manual the post insists this has to stay — ‘manually write each and every word.’ I scripted a version of the submission and formatting side years ago for a client, title, summary, keyword fields, all templated. The actual writing I never automated, because every attempt read exactly like the spun garbage the post is warning against.
Small correction: that’s submission formatting, not article marketing itself — worth being precise since the post treats them as one skill.
From the field side of a different direct-sales business, I’d say the resistance to automating the writing itself is the right instinct, even though it’s inconvenient to hear. What the post calls a ‘compelling author resource box’ only works if the article sitting above it gave someone an actual reason to keep reading down the page, and that’s precisely the part of the process that breaks the moment you template or spin it, no matter how good your submission tooling is. Automate the plumbing all you like, the submission fields, the formatting, the tracking. The part a reader actually notices, the writing itself, has to stay handmade, or the whole author box stops converting the way this post assumes it will.