I'm now giving away this guide free of charge for everyone on marketing forums, which was previously only available to my personal coaching clients through their own private online membership area.
Please feel free to leave any comments below if you found this guide useful or wish to add any more information.
Why Write Articles?
Articles are a way of getting your name out there as an expert in your field. By giving away content you become in the readers eyes an expert in your field.
Articles are also an important part of any
SEO campaign as you are putting out relevant content with your links back to your website / web pages.
Relevant content is what Google likes to see, more and more they are tweaking their rankings towards getting links from relevant websites rather than unrelated sites.
For example a fishing site linked to a dolphin website does not rank as well as a fishing blog linking to a flyfishing website.
Links within content are of a much greater importance for
SEO than relevancy and articles cover this base as well.
Just links on their own without content around them can in some cases be a bad idea, since Google has implemented a 'paid linking' detection algorithm to penalize any links that look like they were paid by the webmaster to be put there.
No-one knows exactly how this works as Google (and other search engines) keep their algorithms secret.
But what we do know is that links within content-rich pages give a higher ranking than a link from a link directory which is now becoming close to useless in terms of getting useful links back to your website.
Also - Free Content For Webmasters
Articles are also republishable as long as all the information is left intact within the article - this means that webmasters can take your article and put it on their own website.
This gets you extra links back to your website, so it is important that you make the content that you produce as good as possible.
The Anatomy of An Article
The basic article has the following elements:
- Title - this is what is shown on the page and within search results, and it is important to create a title that will compell someone to click it.
- Article - this is where you write an informative article without any self-promotion.
- Resource Box - this is where you promote your website / services / product with a short piece of text with links within it.
- Summary / Description - this is a synopsis of your article for showing in the search results on the article website
- Keywords - some directories require a list of keywords related to your article, for use within the meta keywords tag
Here is an example of the search results and article as displayed on an article directory:
Variations do occur in style but this is the usual layout of all the elements of an article, for instance the resource box may be within a box with a different background colour.
Article Directories
Article directories are where you will submit your articles. For a lot of the bigger article directories, you will have to register to submit articles.
One other element you must select when submitting to article directories is the category that your article will be listed within.
Please try to be as close to the relevant category for your topic as possible, as this helps with people browsing article directories looking for content to put on their websites.
Spin it to Win it?
Now there is another problem that comes into play with submitting articles to directories.
When you have one article that you have written that is copied to multiple directories this is called duplicate content, and can water down the effectiveness of your article marketing campaign.
This is where you can use what is commonly called 'spinning' to create unique versions of your article, up to an acceptable level of uniqueness for the search engines to consider it 'unique'.
The common syntax is called
jetspinner syntax and looks like this:
The {best|greatest|most fabulous} way of spinning is to {compose|write} an {article|blog post} using {a spinning tool|spinning software}.
The output of this could be any of the words within the
{ and
} symbols (separated by the pipe character:
| )
So creating an article using this syntax, we create a seed article that we use to create different unique versions to submit to different article directories.
Now, you should know that some of the article submission services / software support spinning, so you will be able to take advantage of using this method of getting more bang for buck with your article. It should be noted that using this takes double the time to create a spinned article but the results are much better compared with just submitting an article without doing spinning.
One thing that you should be aware of when spinning your articles is that you must achieve a high level of uniqueness (80%+)
Submission Methods
There are 4 different ways of getting your articles submitted - here is a list of them:
- Manual submission - so you submit each article to each directory manually.
- Paid Human Submission - so you pay another person / company to submit your articles manually for you.
- Online Automated Submission System - pay monthly for a service that submits articles automatically to directories.
- Desktop Software Based Submission - so you pay one-time for desktop software that submits your articles for you to all the directories.
There is benefits and drawbacks to each of these.
Manual Submission
This is where you manually submit each article to the directories.
The drawbacks of this is that it can be time consuming, but the benefits are that you can tweak all of the settings for each article directory to your
own liking (such as picking a good sub-category etc.)
You will have to keep a spreadsheet of each article directory login, and which article has been submitted to that article directory.
Where To Submit Your Articles (for manual submission)
Ezinearticles is the number one article directory with the higest pagerank and alexa ranking out of all directories.
EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints
If you want to take the same article and submit it to a load of directories, submit it here first and wait for it to be approved (can take up to 7 days) because they check the web for duplicate content.
Here is a list of the other high-traffic article directory websites that you can submit your article to:
I can provide a longer list if you require - but i recommend just sticking to the big ones - if you want to submit to any more directories i highly recommend using submission software or a service.
Manual Submission Service
This service (Fast Submit Articles) has a premium service which submits to the big directories plus
other directories for $25 - they also can write the articles for you for an additional $5 - a bargain
when you think about it:
Article Submission Service: Register
But this can become expensive quickly, if you want 10 articles written and distributed per month
this will cost $270 (around £180) but if you have the budget for your site set and can allow
for this then it can be an option.
As for other options, there is literally 100's of other companies providing similar services, if you
Search in google for
manual article submission service you will find a lot of different packages
avaliable from many different providers.
Automated Article Submission Services (Paid)
ArticleTrader
ArticleTrader has their own article directory software that site owners install for free, they submit to 384 of these sites for a fee of $14 per article,
Monthly subscription membership options are also available to save money if you are submitting a lot of articles through them.
They won't submit to all of the big directories, although they will submit to some of them.
Here is a list of the directories they submit to:
Article Distribution - Article Directory List
Here is the link for ArticleTrader:
Article Distribution
ISnare
Isnare is one of the cheapest services out there at $2 per submission, and have their own network of sites just like ArticleTrader.
They don't submit to any of the bigger sites but it may be worth just submitting your articles through them to get on the 1000 sites that they cover.
They also have a free submission service but it isn't given priority like the paid service, so there is no guarantee on time, but at that price its a no-brainer.
Here is a list of the directories they submit to:
Isnare.com Publisher's Area
And here is the link for Isnare:
Free Articles Submit Directory and Distribution Website - Isnare.com
Distribute Your Aritcles
Distribute Your Articles sends your articles to all of the top directories.
With their premium account at $49.99 per month you can use article spinning (as mentioned above)
Check them out here:
Distribute Your Articles. Article Marketing Done Right.
Submit Your Article
Submit Your Article submits to a few of the top directories and even has its own article spinning solution but it is not based on the spinner syntax above.
This might be a good option if you want some simple 1-2-3 spinning without using the spinner syntax - from $47 per month (although they now have two different levels of pricing with different features now)
http://bit.ly/ask2C0
Desktop-Based Software
Desktop-based software will usually need more user intervention than article submission services - you also have to keep your machine running while the submission process is ongoing.
Here are two of the biggest desktop submission software:
Internet Marketing Wishlist
This software submits to 374 directories, 210 of them auto-submit (so you don't have to do anything - just leave it to it)
Its currently on sale for $167 - it doesn't support spun articles.
Here is the link:
http://metabinltd.bryxen7.hop.clickbank.net/
Mass Article Control
This is two pieces of separate software but can be bought together for $77 one-off payment.
Mass Article Creator allows you to easily create spun articles for creating unique versions of your articles.
Mass Article Submitter submits your articles to the top 10 Directories, and also accepts the spun article format.
You can purchase the software separately as well if you only want one of the tools.
Here is the link:
Mass Article Control | Article Marketing Domination | Get Free Traffic Now
What? Create an Article In 5 Minutes?
Yes, There is software that allows you to create articles within 5-10 minutes each (as long as you are familiar with the subject you are writing about!)
This software has only been released today as i am writing this, its called Instant Article Factory - i've tested it and it is pretty amazing. I created
an article in about 8 minutes, not bad for my first try! The output article is really good, they have a 30-day trial so i would test it out - its only $45
for an entire year (works out around £30/year)
Here is the link:
Instant Article Factory - Write Quality Articles In 5 Minutes!
The types of article templates you get by default is pretty amazing:
3 Reasons You Should
3 Things To Avoid
5 Reasons You Should
5 Things To Avoid
7 Reasons You Should
How To ... In 3 Steps
How To ... In 5 Steps
How To ... In 7 Steps
Product Review
Product Review II
Pros And Cons
Pros And Cons II
The 5 Golden Rules Of
Top 3 Tips
Top 3 Tips II
Top 5 Tips
Top 7 Tips
The resultant article is usually between 350 and 450 words.
As a bonus, you can create your own templates plus other users can share their own templates between members!
I urge you to check this out if you don't have the time to write articles, here is the link again:
Instant Article Factory - Write Quality Articles In 5 Minutes!
Writing Articles By Hand
When writing articles, its best to understand and write within a framework.
Your title should be the Why of the Article - why should i find this interesting.
Then the Intro (opening paragraph/sentence) Should be a brief what.
Then extend the Why of the article, why should we be interested, why would you want to learn this information (whats the benefit, whats in it for me?)
Ok, then you go onto the what, what is it - the details, specifics of the article.
Then you want to go onto the How of the article, how do you do it, what is the process.
Now, once this is done its on to your resource box.
The resource box is to promote your own product or service. This is seen as the what if..
What if you could try our product out it would benefit you in some way which is linked to the article.
The summary should be a rewording of the why/what - just summarize what you are talking about within the article with a benefit. The title and summary are the advertisements for your ad, its whats shown on the search engines and the article directory results/listings pages.
Some other tips when writing articles:
- To use bullet points to summarize concepts within your article topic - this makes it easier to read.
- Use short paragraphs, as it makes it easy to read on a computer screen
- Try to write over 450 words because that is the minimum word count for most article directories
- Use some of the copywriting tips on the Sales Letter page, as these can apply to writing articles as well
- Do your keyword research to find topics that get traffic and use those keywords within your article.
Article Marketing Strategy
It must be stressed that submitting articles is a long-term strategy and must be done in a consistent manner to be effective.
6 Articles per month should be considered a minimum and 10 is a good number to submit to article directories each month to continue to get good rankings.
After 9 Months is the usual timeframe where the traffic for article marketing begins to take off on a new website, although on an existing site this can be considerably less.
The more directories you submit to, the better the result - but to submit to 10 of the biggest directories is better than submitting to 100 small directories with less traffic/authority.
The Ultimate Guide To Article Marketing (FREE!)
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