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Despite people constantly writing it off and viewing it as spammy or ineffective, article marketing is still an effective way to increase your search engine presence, build links, and even establish yourself as an expert. Of course, the keys to an effective article marketing campaign are both quantity and quality. In other words, you need a high quantity of quality articles to get the best results.

Unfortunately, too many marketers only pay attention to the quantity part of article marketing. They think that quality doesn’t matter because they’re only after getting the back links. So what do they do? They hire writers from other countries to write their articles for pennies. And at first glance, it seems like a good idea. Why pay $25, $30, or even $50 an article if you can pay some writer to crank them out for $1 or $2 each?

The problems with going cheap with your article writing are:

• You get what you pay for—If you want to pay only a couple of bucks for an article, you’re going to get an article that’s poorly written. The cheapest writers typically aren’t native English speakers, and a lot of times, they spin or straight up copy/paste other people’s content. Is it really worth saving a few bucks?
• Your reputation can get damaged—Remember, your name is attached to these articles. Article marketing can be a good way to position yourself as an expert. But if your name is attached to poorly-written, nonsensical articles, what do you think that will do for your reputation? I know there are some article marketers who think that nobody reads the articles and that it’s just about linkbuilding, but you can’t be that careless with your brand.
• You’ll likely have a lot of articles get rejected at quality directories—The better directories have higher standards for the articles they’ll accept. So if you’re submitting articles that are written in broken English or are copied/spun versions of other content on the web, you’ll end up getting rejected at these good directories. And as a result, your articles will only end up on low-quality sites where the links won’t count for much.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stretch your marketing dollar. I get it. But you also have to realize that cutting corners and being a cheapskate will almost always come back to bite you in the butt eventually.

Almost every time the topic of article marketing comes up in SEO circles, there are people who roll their eyes and scoff at the technique. They say it’s outdated, time-consuming, and ineffective. I say they don’t know what they’re doing.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that article marketing absolutely gets results. Within just a few months of doing some article marketing for my own website (www.ericbrantner.com), I’ve seen my site jump significantly in the search rankings. For example, I’m now ranking in the top 3 for the term “freelance copywriter.” Before I started with my article marketing efforts, I was somewhere in the 100s, like on page 10 of the search results. The same thing goes for several other keywords I’m targeting.

Thanks to these article marketing efforts, my vastly improved rankings are now getting me several quality leads every week from search engine traffic. In short, business is better than ever before, and it’s due in large part to article distribution.

And I’m not the only one. I have several colleagues who I’ve witnessed use article marketing to propel their rankings.

Simply put, I know article marketing still works. I’m experiencing its benefits every day. So why are there people out there who claim otherwise? Why haven’t they been as successful as I have with article marketing?

1. No plan—Before you even start writing and distributing articles online, you need to have a plan. What exactly do you want to accomplish with article marketing? How often are you going to publish articles? Which directories are you going to target? Which keywords are you focusing on? You don’t have to get super specific in your plan, but you should have a basic outline to keep your article marketing efforts focused.

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I’m a believer in getting as much from your old content as possible. I routinely read through old blog posts I’ve written to see if they warrant a follow up post or to find ideas in the comments for a completely new post. This helps me get more mileage from every piece of content I write.

Another way to get more from your old blog posts is to spin them into new articles for article marketing purposes. I still believe article marketing is a great way to increase your search engine presence, build more backlinks, and to position yourself as an expert in your industry. But, of course, you need content to be an effective article marketer. That’s where your old blog posts come in handy.

Here are 4 simple steps to take when spinning an old blog post into a new article.

1. Find an older post that performed well—Since your articles will be targeting the same basic audience as your blog, you should try to find older posts that were popular with your readers. Look for posts that attracted a lot of comments and got a decent amount of ReTweets. This ensures you’ll write an article that readers will be interested in.
2. Create an outline based on the post—The biggest mistake you can make when spinning an old blog post is to rewrite it a line at a time. Sure, this will help you avoid duplicate content, but it will likely turn into a second-rate version of the original post. Instead of taking this approach, I recommend making an outline based on the old post. Write down the main points of the old post, add any new points you can think of, and create an outline for a new article. Try switching up the format to make sure it’s completely different from the original (for example, turn a list post into a how to article).
3. Write according to the outline, not the old post—Once you’ve created an outline, stick to it. Just go ahead and close out the old blog post altogether so you don’t feel compelled to make your new version so similar to the old post. This way, your new article will have a life of its own, even though it’s based on an old piece of content.
4. Double check to ensure there’s no duplicate copy—If you’ve followed these steps precisely, you shouldn’t have any issues with duplicate content. However, it’s better to be safe than sorry, so feel free to double check your new content with Copyscape or another duplicate content tool.

Have you ever spun an old blog post into an article for marketing? How did you do it? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

When we talk about article marketing, we usually discuss how to write compelling articles, where to publish them, how to target the right keywords, and how to build more back links. One of the most often overlooked aspects of article marketing is the author’s resource box. This is the little box that appears at the end of each article you write. It includes some information about who you are and what you do. It also represents a huge opportunity for driving traffic to your website.
So, what should you do to capitalize on the author’s resource box? Here are the basics.
• Build credibility—Because just about anybody can publish content on article directories, many people don’t place a lot of trust in these articles. That’s why you need to do everything you can to show readers that you’re trustworthy. The first thing to do is to state your name. Including a picture is a good idea as well. You should also state your credentials (i.e. what it is that makes you qualified to write on the subject). Just be careful not to go overboard here, stroking you own ego. Keep it short and professional.

• Call to action—Of course, the ultimate goal of article marketing is to promote your products and services. So, you need to give people a reason to take the next step to learning more about you and eventually becoming a customer. Think of your author resource box as a P.S. in a sales letter. This is where you want to send out a solid call to action that entices readers to act. Tie your call to action into the theme of the article, and avoid gimmicks (e.g. Don’t say “Can you really make $5000 a day? Click here to find out). To make your call to action even more irresistible, you could offer a free eBook or whitepaper to those who click-through.

• Keep it short—Your author’s resource box shouldn’t read like a novel. Ideally, it should be about 2-3 sentences long. This gives you room to state your credentials and to include a strong call to action. Anything else will take away from the call to action and create too much clutter.

What do you include in your author’s resource box? Share your tips in the replies.

Article marketing is one of the oldest tools in the internet marketing toolbox. When done properly, it’s a highly effective way to build links to your website, to increase your online authority, to control the search rankings for top keywords, and to spread your online presence. Notice I said “when done properly.” See, a lot of people believe article marketing is just about churning out as much content as possible and submitting it to the popular article directories. But it takes more than that to run an effective article marketing campaign.

Below, you’ll find tips that will help you get the most out of your article marketing. I’m not going to discuss the basics of choosing the right keywords and creating keyword-rich links as I’m assuming you already know how and why to do this.

1. Create a click-worthy headline—I’ve noticed that many article marketers get so caught up in making sure to include keywords in their titles that they lose focus of whether the headline is compelling or not. See, when your article comes up in the search engines or gets Tweeted out, the main factor that determines whether or not someone will read it is the headline. Your headline needs to capture their interest and demand they read your article.
2. Focus on providing information, not selling yourself—Sure, one of the ultimate goals of article marketing is to drive traffic to your site so that you can ideally increase your leads or sales, but that doesn’t mean the articles you write should be nothing more than a thinly-veiled sales pitch. Remember, readers are interested in “what’s in it for me?” That’s why your articles need to provide information they can benefit from. Of course, make sure the information you provide in your articles is accurate and timely. After all, it is your brand’s reputation that’s at stake here, so you’d better know what you’re talking about. (more…)