A few years ago, in our pursuit of an inexpensive (free) Internet marketing strategy, we decided to try article marketing and in August of 2005 I published my first article. Since then I have written over 40 articles. There have been some articles that brought in a lot of traffic to our websites, others that helped us rank organically, a couple that got picked up in print publications, another that led to an interview, and others that didn’t do much at all.
There are some that would say that article marketing is no longer a valid Internet marketing strategy. I strongly disagree. I say that the new social media environment strengthens article marketing’s ability to drive traffic and increase awareness of a company’s presence.
First, I would like to show you an example of 2 articles that I wrote that have allowed us to rank organically on the first page of Google for our keywords.
As some of our readers may already know, our day jobs are in telecom. Two of the products that we offer are toll free virtual PBX phone systems for small business and 800 call capture systems for the real estate industry. In 2005 I wrote and article called “Toll Free Virtual PBX Systems Level The Playing Field For Small Businesses”. Today when you search Google for toll free virtual pbx, you will find that article ranking around 3rd in the search results.
Also in 2005, I wrote an article called “The Dirty Little Secret About Real Estate 800 Call Capture Systems”. Today if you search Google for the keyword 800 call capture you will find that article ranking 1st in the organic search results and also a second time in a lower position. (Another one of my articles is also shown, “Maximize Your 800 Call Capture Lead Generation”, with ”The Dirty Little Secret…” result.)
So yes, I am a believer in article marketing. I also believe that even with so many new ways to market on the Internet emerging (blogging, social networking, video marketing, etc.) that article marketing is still just as viable of an Internet marketing strategy as it was 3 years ago.
Article Marketing’s Place In A Web 2.0 World
The whole concept of Web 2.0, as I see it, is the sharing of information. Break it down into its most simplistic and basic parts and it is the ability for the everyday users of the Internet (us) to share what we know … what others know … what we like … what we want to know … and of course what we don’t like.
Article marketing fits within all of those concepts :
Sharing what we know: The basis of article marketing, as Chris Knight of EzineArticles.com so eloquently puts it, is give and take. Your article is your give. You are sharing what you know with others freely so that you might take a moment of their time and serve them up a link back to your site. And as long as what you are giving them is valuable and truly helpful information, this relationship works out quite nicely. If what you are giving them is crap, well then … not so much.
Sharing what others know and what we like: Social bookmarking is built on these concepts. We read something that someone else knows and has written about. We like it and share it with everyone we know.
Sharing what we want to know: This can be seen in what is getting talked about. The information that gets shared the most is obviously the kind of stuff that people want to know more about. You can’t get a better pulse on your niche than by looking at what content they are sharing with their friends. Hint: Find out what it is and write an article about it.
Sharing what we don’t want or like: Obviously the stuff that is not getting talked about and shared is not of interest. Or if it is being talked about in a negative way, then of course it is a clear signal that it is something that we don’t want as well. Keeping clear of article topics that no one really cares about is obviously a smart move. However, so is writing articles that echo the negative feelings on topics that people have spoken about.
Blogs Do Not Run The World … Yet
Another reason that article marketing is still viable? There are over 6 1/2 billion people on Earth. Probably about 70 million of those people are subscribed to an RSS feed. I am in no way saying that blogging is not an important and emerging Internet marketing strategy. Obviously, here I am speaking to you through my blog and most likely through an RSS feed. What I am saying though is that there are still a very large number of people that have not yet adopted RSS, have no idea what a blog is, are looking for information, and are comforatble with the article format.
Thirdly, webmasters and publishers are looking for content. People that produce newsletters very rarely come up with all their own content. These people go to article directories looking for quality content that will provide their readers with helpful information.
So if you are already writing content for a blog, hold some of it back. Use that content for an article instead and reach those 5.8 billion people that are not yet getting content through RSS. Or, if you have some shorter blog posts that you have more to say about expand them and submit them to an article directory.
There are authors out there that are more successful, and I should say prolific, than I. I have only written 40-some articles while other authors have written hundreds or even thousands. So if from my limited number of articles I have been able to:
get our sites ranked organically for our keywords
expand our marketing reach by being picked up by online publishers and offline printed publications
drive free traffic back to our sites
establish myslef as an expert author
do interviews as an expert in our niche market
and be able to say that article marketing has been successful for us
…then imagine what could be done with 100’s or 1000’s of quality articles. Show me another FREE form of Internet marketing strategy that can do all that and I might consider giving up my article marketing.
