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Add Guest Blogging to Your Article Marketing Strategy and Watch Your Traffic Soar – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Donna Anderson in Featured

There’s been a lot of talk lately that article marketing has gone the way of the Do-Do bird, especially since the Google Panda update. As I see it though, the value of article marketing hasn’t diminished at all, the process itself has just evolved. Add guest blogging to your article marketing strategy and bring it back to life.

Most webmasters don’t realize it but guest blogging is another type of article marketing, one which produces much better results if done properly. After all, what’s a blog post? It’s just another article, only it’s published on a blog. And what’s a blog? A blog is another place to publish said article – just like an article directory but with better quality traffic.

How Does Guest Blogging Help Your Traffic?

Submitting articles to online directories is fine if you’re only after the link juice. But directories are not destination websites. The only time someone reads your article when it’s posted on a directory is if they come across the link while conducting a search. That’s all well and good if you have the number one spot, but if there are other articles that outrank yours on the index, the chances of someone reading your article are reduced.

An established blog, on the other hand, is a destination website, which means there are people who visit that blog directly, and repeatedly, to see what new information has been posted. Your guest blog post will be seen by all of those regular visitors, whether they were searching for that information or not.

Essentially, when you publish an article on a directory, your traffic is hit-and-miss. If it’s a hot topic and/or you rank well, you’ll get readers. But when your guest post is published you have a ready made audience arriving every day, ready to read the latest news.

How To Make Guest Blogging A Vital Part Of Your Article Marketing Strategy

Obviously, since you’re not just haphazardly submitting dozens of articles, it takes a little more effort to include guest blogging in your article marketing strategy. Here are some tips to make it well worth your while:

Choose Carefully: It’s important to choose your blogs carefully or you’ll just be wasting your time. You certainly don’t want your guest blog posts to be published on any questionable blogs. But even more important, you want to choose blogs that attract relevant traffic.

For example, it wouldn’t make any sense for you to submit a guest post on dog training tips to a blog about SEO practices. First of all, they probably wouldn’t accept it. But even if they did, none of their followers would read your post because that’s not the kind of information they’re looking for.

While traffic numbers shouldn’t be your main concern, the quality of the traffic coming into that blog is important. Look for activity in the comments section but also take a look at the SEO that’s been done. Are they pulling in targeted traffic that will be beneficial for you or are they using Justin Bieber and Britney Spears to drag in readers from all corners of the Web?

Don’t Worry About Traffic: Comment activity is usually a good sign but quantity doesn’t necessarily equal quality. A lot of blogs have lower traffic or activity levels but the traffic they do receive is highly targeted. Never underestimate the power of SEO.

Read the Blog: Now that you’ve narrowed your search, read the blog. Get a feel for the type of content they use, how they address their audience, and the type of information the audience is looking for. Is there a certain topic they talk about more than others, etc.

Read the Comments: Before I submit a guest blog post I always cruise the comments section. Sometimes you can pick up a really great idea from the regular readers of that blog. At the very least you’ll learn what they like to talk about.

Make Your Article Relevant: This is the hard part. Your first inclination will be to write an article just like you’d write for one of the directories, an article that gently leads people to click on your link. In some cases, that will be fine. But most bloggers won’t appreciate your self-promotion.

Concentrate instead on writing an article that showcases your expertise as it relates to that particular blog.

Write a Great Resource Box: Your resource box on your standard directory articles may seldom, if ever, be read. The reader arrived at your article looking for an answer to a specific question. If you answered it in your article, he’s satisfied and he’ll click away. If you didn’t answer it, he’s not satisfied, and he’ll click away in anger.

However, your resource box in your guest blog post will get a lot more attention, especially if you’ve written a good quality, informative, relevant post. Make sure you include these 4 things in your resource box:

1. Your name – Use your real name to establish credibility and authority
2. Your website URL – If you have the opportunity to include more than one link, make one of the URL and the other an anchor text link. Some readers still feel safer clicking on an actual URL.
3. Your USP – Tell the readers why they should click on your link. What is it that makes you special?
4. Your Call to Action – Tell the reader exactly what you want them to do. Click Here isn’t enough. You have to tell them what they’ll get if they do – Click Here to read my article about XYZ Now!

Think Outside the Box: There are thousands of guest blogging opportunities out there so it’s important to learn to think outside the box. It’s not necessary to look for blogs in your exact same niche. In fact, the whole point of guest blogging is to increase your visibility, so branching off into a related niche isn’t a bad idea.

For example, maybe you normally blog about vegetarian recipes and you come across someone looking for a guest blogger on their Baby Care blog. What a great opportunity for you to attract new parents who might be interested in a vegetarian diet for their babies. Write a guest blog post about homemade vegetarian baby food and you’ll attract a whole new audience.

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Donna Anderson is a freelance writer specializing in SEO web content and article marketing techniques. Visit her blog at http://whitehatwriting.com for writing tips and article marketing advice and read her Squidoo lens to learn How to Write a Perfect Resource Box.

SEO Article Writing: Using Different Types of Keywords in Articles and Resource Boxes

By Steve Shaw in Featured

You’ve done your keyword research and are trying to figure out how to use your keywords in your articles.

What are you supposed to do with the words in your list in respect to your articles?

Do you just use all of your keywords in the same way, or are there different types of keywords that have different functions in your article marketing campaign?

These are great questions, and when you understand the two different types of keywords and how they work, your article marketing strategy will be transformed.

The first type of keyword phrase is one you’re probably familiar with: the two word phrase that is very popular in your niche. This type of phrase is very competitive, meaning that many people are searching for it and many website owners are also targeting it as well. So, you have high demand and high supply.

It is more difficult to rank highly for these terms since there is so much competition. These shorter competitive terms will be part of your long term strategy for increasing your website’s ranking for those particular phrases.

You would use these special two word phrases in your resource boxes. With each article that you submit, create an HTML resource box that uses one of your main keyword phrases as anchor text. Do not use the same keyword for each article–switch it up. This is very important as hyperlinking the same phrase every time can look manipulative in Google’s eyes. Vary the key phrases that you use as anchor text in your resource box.

What about using keywords in the article title and the article body?

This is where the other type of keyword phrase comes in: the long tail phrase.

The long tail keyword phrase is three to five words long. It is usually very specific and has much less competition than the shorter phrases. Because it has less competition, it is easier to rank highly for this longer phrase.

You will use your long tail keyword phrases as a jumping off point for your articles and article titles. The idea with the long tail phrase is to get your article ranking highly for that phrase. If you consistently write articles based off of your long tail keywords, then you will eventually create enough content to completely cover your niche. So, whenever someone types in a longer search term related to your topic, one of your articles will pop up high in Google.

Each one of these key phrases has a job to do:

The shorter more competitive phrases play a long term role in getting a higher ranking for your website for those particular search terms. When you use that shorter phrase as anchor text in your resource box, you are sending a message to Google about what your website is about (rather than what the article is about). You increase your website traffic by getting a higher ranking for this popular term.

The importance of that link is highlighted by the context in which it is found. For example, if you’re writing about ballroom dancing, and then linking to a website on that same topic, this sends a powerful message to Google. That link is more significant than if you wrote about fishing and then linked to a site about ballroom dancing. A link from a web page on an unrelated topic would be out of context and wouldn’t make much sense to Google.

The longer phrases are more about the article itself and driving traffic to your site through the article. When the article ranks highly for that longer, less competitive key phrase, then people click through to read the article, and then click the link in your resource box.

Now you know that not all keywords are created equal! Some are meant to serve a long term purpose, while others work more in the short term. If you know the difference between the two types of keywords and how to use them in your articles, then you are much more likely to see the results that you’re hoping for.

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For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website, go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report . Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article distribution service SubmitYOURArticle.com. Start article marketing now: submit article

Article Marketing Strategy: What Topics Should I Cover In My Articles?

By Steve Shaw in Featured

As you’re writing articles for article marketing, you may wonder what sorts of topics are appropriate for you to write about.

Can you write an article about one topic but then have a link in the resource box going to a website on a completely unrelated topic?

This is an excellent question on a topic that can dramatically impact the success of your article marketing campaign:

What topics should you cover in your articles?

You should always write articles on the general topic of your website.

For example, if your website is about dog training, then all of your articles should be on topics related to dog training.

Why in the world does it matter what your article topic is so long as you have a link going back to your website in the resource box?

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes for a minute:

If a reader is getting value from your educational article on dog training, he will likely be interested in additional information this topic. He will read your article and then think:

“This author knows his stuff about dog training. He is surely an expert in his niche. I’d like to take a look at his website to find more information on this topic.”

When you’re writing articles on your topic, that is the way that things should go.

But what would be the result if your website was about dog training, but you decided to write an article that was about how to grow heirloom tomatoes?

A reader interested in growing heirloom tomatoes would enjoy your article and then be hungry for more information on this topic. He would look to your resource box to find out more about you and your specialty. He’d also like to see your website to see if you have any additional information about growing tomatoes.

And what does he see when he looks at your resource box?

Information about dog training! What is up with that?

You had a reader on the hook just ready to be reeled into your website, but you lost him because your article was not on the topic of your website.

Remember, article marketing is not just about the links. The article matters. The article will be read by human readers who may then click the link in your resource box that leads back to your website. Writing on-topic articles makes the most of your article marketing efforts and increases the number of people who click the link in your resource box.

Now, let’s consider how the topic of your article affects your ranking in Google.

Every link is not the same. Google likes to see that the link in your resource box relates to what your website is about.

One of Google’s goals when looking at the links of your website is to determine what your website is about. If your article is about dog training and your website is about the same topic, then the link in your resource box affirms to Google that your website is about dog training. This is why an article on a topic that is unrelated to your website is not very helpful to Google.

Writing on-topic articles increases the significance of each link that you build.

Additionally, when you write articles on the same topic as your website, your articles can help establish you as an expert in your niche, which goes a long way in winning customer confidence and increased sales.

Writing articles on one general topic takes more focus and effort, but the result is worthwhile.

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For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website, go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report . Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article distribution service http://www.submityourarticle.com used by thousands of business owners.

The Benefts of Professional Article Services

By Eric Gruber in Featured

Professional article services can provide you with effective article marketing campaigns that can turn a failing online business into an unexpected success by giving you the time to focus on the more important aspects of your business.

This is not to suggest that you cannot write articles yourself – of course you can – but it can be time-consuming to write in a manner that attracts readers, keeps them reading and then compels them to click the links in your resource to reach your website.

Sure, you can do that yourself, but do you have the time? Probably not, since the majority that are developing their online businesses want to spend their time doing that and expanding their range of products or services. What time is left to write compelling articles and submit them? Next to none!

Article services can do that for you – not only write your articles but also submit them. However, there is always an associated cost, and you have to determine what the cost of your article services are in respect of the benefits you receive. There are two basic ways of looking at this, and while it is not possible to quantify them for individual cases, you can at least consider them with respect to yourself, individually.

1. Saving Time

It takes time to write a good article. Those that claim to teach you how to write a great winning article in 15 minutes are taking nonsense. You might write 300 words about your product, but that won’t impress anybody, and won’t be accepted by many of the important directories that require a minimum 500 word count or even more.

Also, can you write compellingly? Can you persuade a reader that your product is better than the next guys without being allowed to mention your product or even your website? That doesn’t seem very easy, does it. You won’t learn that skill quickly! How long will it take? I know people that work for an hour or more on a 500 word article just to get the spelling and grammar right!

Spelling is extremely important, and any errors in these days of spell checkers will be regarded as unacceptable and careless, but no spell check will tell you that ‘there’ should be ‘there’ or ‘to’ should be ‘too’. In spite of what you have heard, grammar also counts with a number of people. An article with no errors in its grammar will attract more visitors to the link on the resource than the same article full of schoolboy errors. That’s a fact, not an opinion!

So, how long will it take you? Figure that out against the cost of the article from a site offering professional article services. If the money spent is worth the time saved, then it makes sense. If not, then it doesn’t. Your choice, but it is a logical and economic one as all business choices should be – not based upon opinion but on facts.

2. Now for the benefits.

Until you are aware of the its benefits, you will be unable to determine the real benefit of the time you will save by using professional article services to help with your article marketing strategy. There are four main benefits:

• You can have your articles published on ezines and article directories. For each of these that accept your article you will receive a share of the PageRank of the web page on which your article is published. The Page Rank cited for the Home Page of the article directory is irrelevant – that is immaterial because the ranking points you receive are related only to the page on which your article is published, and also the other links leaving that page. However, it improves your Google PageRank score.
• Contrary to what many believe, visitors to article directories read the articles. You can get several hundred people reading your article each month if the title attracts them.
• Many people use published articles as content for their websites. This is particularly popular with those that use Adsense and other contextual advertising systems to monetize pages on their sites. To do so, they must also include your resource that publishes your website links, so you get Google PageRank points from the links back to your website from the page on which your article has been used.
• Naturally, anybody visiting that other website can click on your links and visit a page on your website. That page must lead readers to a page that relates to the topic of the article you have written, and also contain a link at least to your home page.

All things considered, when you take into account every benefit that a successful article marketing campaign can provide for you, then using professional article services might make sense rather than trying to do it yourself.

A professional article will be more likely to attract readers and keep them on the page till they click on your link. After that it is up to you, but the same service can also be used to provide the content that will them keep the visitor on that page and perhaps even purchase your products or services.

Is it worth it to you? That is for you to decide, but just as you would consider professional SEO services, advertising services and emailing services as possibilities to help you market your business, so article marketing is an aspect of advertising that good, professional article services can look after for you, leaving you to do what you do best. Make money!

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Find out how article services can promote your success on Article Services and visit Article Czar for a free gift and details of how to do it yourself.

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