My Ultimate Article Marketing Strategy
Article marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to market yourself on the Internet. It’s a great way to build your credibility, attract prospects, generate leads, and drive traffic to your blog or website.
Leverage is what makes article marketing such an effective marketing tool. Using this technique–and the strategy I’ve outlined here–you’ll be able to leverage your content in a number of different ways. And you’ll be able to leverage your time and/or your money to achieve massive results.
This strategy will help you reap all the benefits of article marketing.
Who Are You Writing For?
The first thing to understand is who your articles are for. Article marketing has three basic audiences:
1. Readers
Your articles need to have useful, valuable content for readers in your target market.
2. Search engines
One of the benefits of articles is that they can be great fodder for search engines, if you do the proper research first.
3. Ezine publishers
Once you distribute an article in an article directory, ezine publishers can publish them in their ezines. What are they looking for?
Know Your Target Market & Research Keywords
(Audience: Readers, Search Engines)
Notice that the “audiences” above are different than your target market.
Your target market is, essentially, those group of readers that you want to locate and read your article because they’ll find the information useful and valuable.
You should already know who your target market is–if you’re a real estate agent, it might be “first-time home buyers” or “real estate investors.” I use this example to show that each article may have a specific “micro-market” within your larger “target market.” The more specific, the better.
Once you define the “micro-market” you’re targeting, then you’ll want to research keywords that are relevant to that “micro-market” to identify two or three keywords to build your article around.
WordTracker is an excellent keyword research service. It provides a free keyword research tool that gives an estimate of each keyword’s daily search volume. WordTracker also offers keyword research guides to help educate people on how to improve your use and understanding of keywords.
One thing’s for certain: you can’t know enough about keywords if you’re marketing on the Internet.
Write The Article
(Audience: Readers, Ezine publishers)
With your keywords selected, write your article, keeping in mind some basic copywriting concepts and making sure to provide information that’s useful and valuable to your target market. Does your article solve a problem? Does it answer an important question? Does it provide a new twist on an old topic?
Some type of articles to consider:
- A list of tips on a particular subject
- Compare and contrast products or services
- A “how-to” piece that outlines how to get something accomplished
What not to do:
- Hype your network marketing company
- Blatantly promote an affiliate product
- Write something that’s not of value to your target market
When writing the article, ask yourself, “Is this an article I’d be interested in reading?” Or, “Would this information be useful to me now, or would it have been useful to me when I was first learning about the subject?” Looking at the article from that perspective will give you a sense of what an Ezine publisher might be looking for.
One way to leverage your money is to hire a ghostwriter from a site like elance.com to write your articles. While the former journalist in me doesn’t highly recommend this, it is a useful strategy to know about, especially if (a) you can afford to, (b) you’re not confident about your own writing abilities, and/or (c) you’re more actively involved in other marketing efforts, but want to leverage the benefits of article marketing.
Post the Article on Your Blog or Website
(Audience: Readers, Search engines)
Once the article is completed, post it to your blog or website with the same title and same keywords. (If you don’t have a blog, you can use Squidoo or HubPages, which are free content communities.) Article directories don’t allow images or links within the body of the article, and they have certain formatting requirements. So, I’ll edit the article for my blog, maybe add an image, definitely add a little more Ben Mapp flavor, and post it here at RoadMapp Marketing.
Some marketers explicitly don’t do this because of the idea that “duplicate content” will be frowned upon by search engines.
I don’t have any experience that this is the case. I mean, if I’m the author of the article, I should be able to syndicate my content for maximum distribution. Why would that get “slapped” by Google? Newspaper columns, sitcoms, and other media use this type of syndication model to maximize readers/viewers and revenue, why shouldn’t it also work on the Internet? More importantly, if this were the case, then why would Ezine publishers use content from article directories in their ezines?
(If you have evidence that syndicating your own content in this manner results in a Google “slap,” please add a comment to this post.)
Anyway, the benefit to you of adding your article to your blog and to article directories is revealed in the next section.
Write the Resource Box
(Audience: Readers, Search engines, Ezine publishers)
From a direct-response marketing standpoint, the Resource Box is perhaps the most important part of your article. (I’ve had articles rejected — thankfully — because my Resource Box didn’t contain a link. My bad.) This is where you get to say a little bit about yourself (establish your credibility) and direct readers and search engines to the links of your choice.
And remember: part of the “deal” between Ezine publishers and the article directories is that if they choose to re-use your article, the publishers must print your Resource Box exactly as written. So you need to get this part right.
A good Resource Box will contain:
- A link to one of your lead capture pages
- A little bit of information about you
- A link to your blog or website
The key element to your Resource Box is a “call to action” to the reader to click on the link to your lead capture, or squeeze, page. That squeeze page should have some relevance to the topic of your article and the “call to action” should make the bridge between the subject of the article and what the reader will encounter on the squeeze page.
This should be brief. A short sentence or two about your credentials and why you’re someone anybody should listen to on the subject is all you need. Short. Sweet. Simple. Anything else can seem desperate. And you wouldn’t want that.
Here’s where your blog gets the benefit of the distributed article whether readers click on your links or not.
Take the main keyword of your article and link to it from a sentence that goes like this: “This article was originally published here: KEYWORD PHRASE”
Link only the “KEYWORD PHRASE” directly to the blog post of the same article.
What this does is create a backlink to your blog post, which helps your blog post rank higher in the search engine. The more backlinks you develop, the more you increase your search engine page rank. Since this backlink contains the main keyword of your article, it adds even more value to that link from the search engine’s point of view.
The key to using this method is to always use a “custom” Resource Box because the default one won’t allow you to create a unique backlink to your blog post.
Distribute the Article
(Audience: Readers, Search engines, Ezine publishers)
There are lots of article directories and it can be hard to choose which ones to use. My approach is, again, to leverage my time to get the biggest results from my actions.
I’ve seen some article marketing strategies recommend that you submit each article to five article directories. Or more. And I’ve even seen some marketers who’ve submitted articles to more than five article directories.
No doubt, that’s a great strategy and, perhaps, one to strive for. But it does take a significant amount of time to distribute, say, 10 articles to that many directories. I intend to do that myself.
For now, though, my current strategy uses two article services: EzineArticles.com to optimize my search engine presence, and Article Marketer to maximize my distribution channels.
Both of these services provide editing services before publishing your article. Their editors evaluate your article for basic grammar, sentence structure, etc., as well as adherence to their own editorial standards. So read those standards carefully to avoid rejection and continued requests to make changes.
The difference, I find, is that Google seems to really love EzineArticles.com. So, a well-written, well-keyworded article stands a great chance of being on the first page of Google for either short- or long-tail keyword phrases.
On the other hand, Article Marketer specializes in distributing articles to other article directories and to Ezine publishers. Using this service can take the tedium out of cutting-and-pasting your articles to directory after directory. After directory. You get the picture. By using Article Marketer you’ll get tons of backlinks and wide exposure.
What Can You Expect
If you’re new to an article directory, like the ones mentioned above, it can take up to 7 to 10 days for your article to be published. This is because it has to go through the directory’s editing process. Be prepared for a submission to be returned, requesting changes. Don’t fret. Writing is all about re-writing. 
TIP: Upgrade your membership on Article Marketer for a faster turnaround time. EzineArticles.com requires you to submit at least 10 articles first in order to be considered for an upgrade.
Once your articles are published, it may take some time for it to be indexed by Google and other search engines.
TIP: Be patient. 
Track the performance of your articles in the directory’s backoffice. See which articles generate more traffic and more click-throughs on your links. Use that data to improve your topic selection and linking strategies.
That’s My Ultimate Article Marketing Strategy. And it has been working quite well for me. I’m sure it will for you too.
I’m interested in your feedback to this post so please add comment with questions and/or other article marketing suggestions or techniques.
Wishing You the Best,
Ben Mapp
@roadmapp
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5 Responses to “My Ultimate Article Marketing Strategy”Speak Your Mind
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Great article, Ben!
Like you, I use article marketer and ezine articles, and starting to include a few others like AffSphere. Article marketing should be part of every online marketer’s arsenal for site promotion and affiliate promotions.
Hello, great tips you are sharing. I get that we can’t targeted all “audiences” at once. There have to be some specific targets.
Jonathan,
Well, I think it is critical to target all the “audiences” listed above (readers, search engines, ezine publishers).
You will need to write articles that readers will find useful, ezine publishers will find of interest to their readers, and that search engines will pick up.
You do this by understanding your “target market.” So, yes, I do agree that you cannot target all ‘markets’ at once. If you’re a real estate agent, for example, you may want to focus on “first-time buyers” or “people interested in refinancing”, which are different “sub markets” for the more general “people interested in real estate market.”
Once you identify the specific “market” you’re targeting, you should be able to find keywords that are relevant to that market. And, write an article that provides useful information to that market.
I think it’s important to keep in mind the difference between what I’m referring to as an “audience” and a “market.” Please note that these are just terms I’m using to distinguish these two concepts.
Hope that helps,
Ben
Great article Ben! I like the step by step explanation about how to really leverage article marketing. Very informative. Thanks
Dan
Thanks, Dan. Great to hear from you. I’m glad the post was helpful. I hope you’re able to incorporate some of these points into your efforts.
Ben