When I first started blogging, I was all over the place. It took me all day long to complete what I thought were essential activities.
I’d write and publish one post and then spend hours finding ezines to submit it to.
I’d get so excited – after the article was accepted, I start checking my stats… I was like an impatient kid in the backseat yelling, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Am I getting any traffic yet? Huh? Huh….?
Aside from a few clicks here and there… it was nothing worth bragging about. Something had to give. I wasn’t getting results to match the amount of time I was spending on article submissions.
I could’ve spent those hours writing new content or I could’ve simply stopped working and enjoyed my family – after all the point was to make some extra money to free up my time – not totally consume every waking hour of my day.
In response to last week’s post, Richard of Jewelry Secrets commented about the need to submit to an ezine – I suggested guest posting, but because he has a website and not a blog in a narrow niche, he feels limited by what he can do. Ezines have been a useful marketing tool for him – so instead of totally discouraging him from submitting to ezines altogether, I decided to put a little more thought into it, and reflect on a few tricks I had tried that actually worked.
Instead of writing one article, I’d write two – one I’d write highlighting the benefits of a particular concept (For example: Why you should do A, B, or C), then I’d write a step-by-step article that would show people exactly how to do it.
At the end of the first article, I’d post a link to the “how to” article. I’d submit that article to the ezine and then I’d publish the second one to my own blog. When people finished reading the ezine article, if they wanted more, they’d have to click onto my blog.
Clicks to my site nearly tripled.
I don’t really have the time to submit to ezines anymore – honestly, I prefer to guest post, but to those of you who still rely on ezine article marketing and want to improve your results, you should definitely give this tip a try.
What other article marketing tips could we add here that might help?
Kiesha is the author of We Blog Better and Christian Blog: Highly Favored. She’s a technical Writer, former writing instructor, and blogging consultant for small business owners. If you’d like to know more, read her extended bio. Connect with her on Twitter, Google and subscribe to her newsletter for blogging tips & tricks.
Keisha, one thing I would add here that I have found useful in trying to do article submissions is that EzineArticles now has a WordPress plugin. It’s pretty slick and allows me to submit blog posts that I think fit “article” material directly from my blog. It means I don’t have to rewrite or create two separate pieces and I have noticed that it has increased the clicks and reading on my blogs.
Kathy Nicholls´s last [type] ..New OCR Proposed Rule Available
Hey Kathy,
Do you remember the name of the plugin? Or is it right on the EZA site?
It is a plugin that you download from the EZA site. I’ve seen no punishment from Google for using it and it is super easy. You can verify that it meets EZA requirements, select which bio you want to use with the article, and submit it all straight from your blog.
It appears that now they actually have it where you can do a search for the plugin right on the blog and download it there as well. It’s called WP EzineArticles.
Kathy Nicholls´s last [type] ..New OCR Proposed Rule Available
The plugin is called EzineArticles and it can be downloaded straight fom the plugin directory in WordPress.
Ana
Ana Traffic Generation Cafe´s last [type] ..Reciprocal Link Scams Claim Their Victims
That sounds interesting Kathy. Does Google not penalize either the submission or your blog post (or both) for duplicate content?
Brad Harmon´s last [type] ..Look What I Stumbled Upon This Week
I keep putting this off.
Note: given identical content on the article site and your blog, having a search result hit the article site is still a win for you. Because in competitive niches your article likely wouldn’t rank at all if limited to your website.
This is why I simply don’t care one whit about this so-called “duplicate content penalty.” It doesn’t exist. Google states plainly it doesn’t exist. StomperNet tests for it regularly. It doesn’t exist. Google simply returns the best result. As long as my byline is on my stuff, I’m happy no matter where it’s published.
Dave Doolin´s last [type] ..Click
Exactly brother!
Alex´s last [type] ..The Keyword Research Pro Review
Here, here, Dave.
People are so scared of duplicated content simply because they don’t understand it and don’t make an effort to learn about it.
Ana Hoffman
Ana Yournetbiz´s last [type] ..By- YouTube Video Marketing Secrets- Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic
Great suggestion. I work with a business partner who drives traffic to our sites using article marketing and I have done a bunch of article marketing myself. Of the 100+ articles we have distributed online, I don’t think this tip has crossed our mind even once. DOH!
Going to start using this technique on my next article for sure. Appreciate the advice.
Justin Popovic´s last [type] ..Are you a Spectator or an Achiever
Hi Justin!
I’d love to hear how it works out for you. Keep me posted.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
Justin, do you see good traffic results with your 100+articles. Do you send them to some sort of a squeeze page and if so what kind of results are you getting on a monthly basis.
I’m very interested because I am thinking about doing some article marketing myself.
Thanks
Dan
I’ve only recently started submitting articles to ezines and, while very few actually follow the post to my site they get read quite a lot. According to Ezine, at least. Since I’m more interested in building up my brand then monetization right now this is a successful trade off for me.
Hey Tyler,
2 of the biggest things I’ve seen with EZA is making eye catching titles and the Call To Action at the bottom. If you aren’t getting decent click through rates, I would try doing some testing to increase it. I understand where you are coming from with the Branding, etc, but don’t you think you’d even be branding them better by telling them about your Free Whatever that they can get on your site worth $200, etc. and then use that to grab their email. Then, you are really branding them by giving them information, free pdf’s, videos, etc.
Just a thought. I get the branding part of it, but my gut tells me you could brand your brand, and still get great click throughs.
Just some thoughts.
Brandon
Kiesha, I don’t do much article marketing, but all the article marketing I do is at ezinearticles.com, where I have platinum author status.
Submissions to ezinearticles.com are all reviewed by actual humans before being published, and many are rejected. I think search engines give more weight to ezinearticles.com because of this.
John Soares´s last [type] ..Consolidating Your Online Marketing Base
Hi John!
Platinum? That’s awesome! Glad to here it’s working for you. I haven’t submitted anything to them in a while, but if I was going to market my articles anywhere, that’s where it would be.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Living with Purpose
That’s a good point – Google does give more value to links that are more difficult to get, so the article directories where anyone can submit anything are not as good as Ezine or (even harder to get into) Suite101 and such.
Kristi´s last [type] ..Strengthen Your Article Marketing With CommentLuv Links
Hey Kiesha,
I wanted to do some article marketing lately, but didn’t find anything that I like. Still maybe I’ll give it a shot with ezinearticles. I’ve spent a lot of time reading articles on that site before, so it’s like why not spend time writing in it too?
Hi Ary,
If you’re going to submit your articles – ezinearticles.com is definitely what I suggest.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
Kiesha,
I have been using article marketing for a few years, and great trick that I have found is to use the article as a two-step sales process. Articles are great for selling low-priced e-books (under $20).
You create a VERY SPECIFIC, niche article that solves the customer’s problem 95% of the way, and let them know that if they want the rest of the information, they are going to have to buy your report on that very topic.
It all comes down to researching your niche FIRST, then creating a product that the customer already wants, instead of doing it in reverse. Then, the article is just another sales vehicle for you, bringing customers to your product page.
This same technique can be done with squeeze pages. That’s what I do. It’s important that you give the customers only one choice in an article. Either click this link or don’t. If they get too many choices, they will pick none.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
Joshua Black | The Underdog Millionaire´s last [type] ..350 Worth of Small Business Consulting for FREE…
Hi Joshua,
That is a wonderful tip. Thanks for sharing it.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
Hey, I’ve inspired a post!
Thanks for bringing this up Kiesha, I am still on the fence with article marketing. That’s the funny thing about bloggers, some say it’s the best way to advertise, others say no way. It’s all over the board. I guess when it comes down to it, you have to try it, see if it works for your site or niche. Every site is different and you can never know the true outcome. I just need to get off my ass and stop putting up content on my site long enough to put up content on others, whether it be an article marketing site or a guest post.
Now the question is, how do you inspire them enough to get them to click your website link? Joshua brings up a lot of great points about not giving away everything. Leave them wanting more. This is my goal for the next couple of months. Testing the waters. Only time will tell. Isn’t this the fun part of online adventures? Something’s got to stick!
Thanks again for inspiring me! -Richard
Hey Richard,
I think article marketing is GREAT! It is really good for grabbing a page 1 listing, and then you get some Keyword juice as well with your bio information. Joshua is also right on about researching FIRST. Knowing exactly what people want. Then you just give it to them…well..maybe not plain ole’ GIVE it to them, but direct them to where you can fill their need.
Talk soon,
Brandon
Hi Richard!
As you can see inspiration goes both ways. Thanks for the inspiration to reconsider the art of article marketing.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
Hey Kiesha,
Another nice Post. I don’t do article marketing that much, instead i do guest blogging. Last week i submitted a article to ezine just for getting backlink.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great Post girl. Great work as usual.
~Dev
Dev | Technshare´s last [type] ..7 Reasons to Continue Blogging
Hey Kiesha,
(Man I always get the i and the e around the wrong way with you
)
That is great tip you share here and although I mainly use article marketing for backlinks on my niche sites and use the Ezine plugin to share my own content with Ezine, but this is certainly something to keep in mind when promoting, well anything really.
Alex´s last [type] ..The Keyword Research Pro Review
Hi Alex,
)
No worries – you’re not the first to mispell my name (I’m sure you won’t be the last either
I forgot about the backlink juice, I’ll have to do a little more experimenting. I’m glad Richard inspired me to take another look at article marketing.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
Hey Kiesha,
I use ezine articles at the minute, and submit them via wordpress. It has brought me some traffic, but not anything to boast about. I’m finding myself spending more time writing content and not bothering to submit to ezine – probably laziness on my part lol.
I really like the tip you have discussed here. It’s so obvious that I’m sure many bloggers pass over it. I will have to try it!
Thanks,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Don’t feel bad – there’s just so much that goes into blogging that somethings just don’t get crossed off the to-do list. But I sure would like to hear how it works out for you if you decide to try this tip out.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last [type] ..Speedy Blogging Tip
I think the trick with article submission sites is to have a great call to action and make sure that you have already established your blog with a good base of posts for anyone clicking through to read.
I made the mistake of writing 10 posts on my blog then submitting those same posts to EzineArticles. Anyone who clicked through just got the same thing they’d already read. I generated a small amount of traffic, but any traffic was wasted that early in my blog.
I haven’t submitted any articles in quite a while. I tend to agree with you that guest posting is a better way to go, but I will quickly run out of good blogs in my niche. I think I’ll add article submissions to my list of things to ponder.
PS: I found my EzineArticles coffee mug they sent me.
It’s actually a pretty nice mug.
Brad Harmon´s last [type] ..Look What I Stumbled Upon This Week
Hey Brad,
Thanks for your inputs. Did you submit the 10 posts to EZA using the plugin-in, or manually?
If you did it manually, I’d say just change your links to point to something other than the same blog post.
Yeah, those EZA mugs are pretty cute, huh ?
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Take care,
Brandon
I submitted them manually. I actually never thought about changing them now that I have quite a few more posts established on my blog. Thanks for the tip Brandon.
I’m not sure the mugs are cute, but they are a good size, well-made, and have a bit of weight to them. It’s a better return than I received from some of my other marketing efforts.
Brad Harmon´s last [type] ..Look What I Stumbled Upon This Week
Hah! Yeah, absolutely right on the money about that. Yeah, I like their sturdiness also…and the extra drinkability factor due to the size.
TL,
Brandon
Great one, another idea is to do a series of articles, in the first, link to the second, in the second, link to the third, and so on.
Have the first one link to your blog or site too, if possible, within the content, say a relevant article, and on the blog make sure the other ones are linked to on that very post.
rob sellen´s last [type] ..Alterations to the theme and new adspots
Great article Keisha, and I like the tip about luring people into why they should do something, and then telling them how elsewhere. I did the reverse for an article I did on article marketing promotion at Famous Bloggers – I wrote why people should do something, then put the specific how to’s on a variety of networks. Those have been my most viewed / popular articles on each network to date!
Kristi´s last [type] ..Article Marketing Promotion with Blog Commenting
Hey Kiesha, Kristie is talking about the same post that I mentioned over on your blog. Between the two of you I think I can get this right. I’m glad that Kristie pointed out the reverse strategy because I was getting a little confused about the differences between the two techniques.
I was thinking more of the Squidoo lens example versus Ezines but no reason I can’t try both. I have dormant accounts on both that are just waiting for me to capitalize on.
Thanks!
Ileane @ BloggerLuv´s last [type] ..BloggerLuv
Kristi,
Interesting concept there…then you get some love on all your networks. I like it.
Brandon
I think what you’re relating to is a link wheel – this works wonder because instead of just giving readers (and search engines) one thing to look at you can bridge it into any number of other articles adding more value and increasing your clickthrough.
Murlu´s last [type] ..Write 10 Articles A Day- Market Yourself And Avoid Burn Out
Thanks nice post. Actually i also tried article marketing on ezine. But it didn’t give me so much visitor. So i think ezine is better to get a backlink rather than traffic. To get traffic one should use guest blogging. But your tips is really helpful for me. Oh i haven’t heard about wordpress plugin. Thanks
Article Marketing is time consuming and gives you less value in return.
Submitting articles to quality directories like squido, ezine and goarticles are good methods to get link juice to your blog.
iPhone Application Development´s last [type] ..Geohot shuts down iPhone jail breaking blog to public
Ezine is good bu they takes too long time to publish an article.