Isn't Article Marketing Just one Giant Leak & Energy Suck???

[Linda Buquet]

OK I've been trying to hold my tongue on this for months.

I hate to rain on everyone's article marketing parade BUT...

1st I realize if you are new and have no money to market, this is one way and it's better than nothing. I also realize it can get you some traffic and know that you can sometimes get really high placement in the search engines for certain key phrases, so I get all that...

I've admitted numerous times I have never been involved in article marketing, so maybe I'm really missing the boat.

However I'd like to ask some of our more experienced marketers this. Don't you think
article marketing is (or can be depending on the site) one big giant leak?

Really look at this page I just picked at random from Ezine Articles, one of the most popular.
Affiliate Marketing Tips - One of the Biggest Mistakes You Can Make

Imagine being a surfer, you search for "Affiliate Marketing Mistakes" and see this article in Google so you click over to read it. What do you SEE?

29 COUNT EM - 29 different highly targeted KW rich Google Adsense ads that are going to pull the visitor right off the site and away from your article. (I thought there was a limit to how many banks of Adsense ads you could have on a page? EZ has 6 banks per page!)

PLUS there are also at least 30 links to other related keyword rich articles that could pull people away from yours before they ever click your one little link.

So what are the chances that the ONE link in your bio is going to get a click when there are 60 other well written KW links that will take the visitor off your article page?

What I see when I look at this model is the owner of the directory making Big money off these pages and the writer maybe getting a couple clicks if they are lucky.

Again for newbies I see it as a viable part of the mix, if you can't do anything else, but for pros - is it worth doing with all these leaks???

OK go ahead and start throwing the tomatoes!

 

[Edwin]

The only upside from article marketing is in my opinion one or a couple of backlinks to your money page from a submitted article that will help push your page up in the SERP's.

You can for low competition phrases get good results without much effort, in combination with some other parasite hosting techniques.

But i won't regard ezinearticles like directories as way to obtain powerful backlinks, authority backlinks.

P.S. - I don't consider myself a PRO

This is just my take on it as Google can easily filter out these type of links and assign less authority/weight for these type of links then a actual website that is not the same as a public article dump.

 

[Niche48]

I am all for keeping my really good content on my sites but i will not knock article marketing either
I get Linda's point about the gazillion other links on EZ site, mainly above the fold and your humble signature goes below the fold

The power of article marketing though is the backlinks I think
I have written articles that have been taken up by several other webmasters with websites on different c class servers with a range of PRs.

I think that's where the benefit is, in the backlinks

Obviously if you are adding your affiliate links to your signature, EZ does not allow this but other sites do, then it seems an exercise taking up time that could be better spent.

By the way thanks Linda, really interesting and thought provoking post.

Looking forward to other marketers' views

 

[Rob_TID]

Ezine articles has a handy little feature that lets you keep count of how many people have clicked on the link to your site.

And I am sure you will agree, getting a visitor from that article is pretty targetted.

So let's say a PPC click will cost me 75 cents.

And I know I can get on average, a lousy 10 clicks from an article (usually they average 20 over a few months).

Then if I can get an article written and submitted for less than $7.50, I will be better off using article marketing.

It's a no-brainer.

And that's only ezinearticles - if you submit using a submission service, it's much better.

HOWEVER

I have a couple of site that get reasonable traffic where the majority of link building has been with articles. And these sites get top 10 rankings on almost any local keyword I attack.

Again, it is well worth the effort for basic seo, if you can source cheap articles.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Now I'm really confused though.

"PPC click will cost me 75 cents"

Considering for PPC you should have a landing page with no other links or very few why would you send someone here? They have over 60 appealing links to choose from that make everyone but you money. You only have one out of the 60 links on that page. Seems like you'd be paying for clicks most of the time that end up putting Adsense $ into the Ezine Article owners coffer. No?

 

[Rob_TID]

Sorry, I explained that really badly.

I mean, if I build a site or page and then get traffic to it by writing articles for ezinearticles, I can expect at least 10 direct visitors (to click from the article to my site) for every article I submit. (Usually closer to 20).

 

[Edwin]

Most of the clicks coming from those articles are probably webmasters, unless your target demographics are webmasters then in overall the traffic from those articles is not targeted.

PPC traffic would hold more value.

Article marketing is good for obtaining some backlinks, not to attract targeted traffic.

2 cents

 

[Daniel Cassidy]

I would assume that EzineArticles probably has a special exception worked out with Google that allows them to place more ad blocks compared to the average Adsense user because of the high amounts of traffic the website gets.

You are going to get Adsense ads on pretty much any article directory you place your articles on. The other alternative would be to submit to a revenue sharing directory or just make your own article directory.

You should use your main article in a Squidoo lens or Hub Page and then create articles to submit to EzineArticles to backlink to them. This way you get the benefit of adsense revenue from Squidoo and HubPages and also traffic and backlinks from EzineArticles.

I think people have pretty much developed ad blindness to Adsense anyway just like how people don't really click on banners anymore.

 

[gradyp]

Funny you should pick one of his articles...

Linda, I don't know if you've ever "met" Steve online or not, but he's fairly successful and been doing IM for a while. In fact, just a little while ago, I was watching a YouTube video of his, and one of his comments (on another topic, really, but the point applies here too) was that if something wasn't making him money, he wouldn't be doing it.

I'll admit I'm fairly new to this whole IM, thing, but in the couple of months that I've been doing this, I have been able to get a lot of clicks to my sites. Some may be webmasters, as someone else suggested, but I think there are others as well who are finding my sites. I'm getting clicks fairly regularly on most of my articles at Ezine.

Also, you can write a group of articles to build a site around to help you promote certain products. While I'm still learning, I can see the benefit of doing this. On your own site, you can minimize the clicks away by not having the adsense or whatever on it. And by writing a few articles that point to your page, you can generate some traffic to it.

As I said, I'm fairly new, and since I do have limited funds, perhaps my perspective is skewed. I've met Steve on a couple of forums, and everything he seems to be saying is that when done correctly, article marketing does work.

Grady

 

[Niche48]

Loving this thread Linda. A real debate.

I think the point isbefore using any 'traffic generation method we all need to be aware of its possible limitations

 

[Rob_TID]

This isn't a particularly difficult debate to settle.

Do your own test.

Choose a moderately competitive keyword, throw up a page about it at hubpages.com and then write 10 articles for ezine (and others) that all point to your hubpage.

Then track the ranking of your hubpage in the serps for that keyword as well as direct traffic.

Easy.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Loving this thread Linda. A real debate.

I think the point is before using any 'traffic generation method we all need to be aware of its possible limitations

Yep that's kinda why I started it. Just to challenge the thinking a little.
Plus I wanted to see if I riled anyone up enough to throw tomatoes at me.

Just because I wouldn't do something doesn't mean you couldn't benefit or shouldn't try it.

I was looking at it purely from the leak aspect and it's obviously a multi-sided issue.

Grady, I think I just picked the top article after searching for affiliate or something.
But glad you filled me in and it is ironic I picked him, now that you tell me the situation.
Guess that didn't really support my case, huh?

 

[gradyp]

Grady, I think I just picked the top article after searching for affiliate or something.
But glad you filled me in and it is ironic I picked him, now that you tell me the situation.
Guess that didn't really support my case, huh?

Well, at least if you are going to pick an article at random, you chose one by someone who actually knew what he was talking about

Steve is one of those interesting characters. If you listen to what he says and think about it, you'll see that he knows what he's talking about. But the thing is his delivery is sometimes somewhat abrasive. So much so that people get hung up on the delivery and miss the message. He doesn't put up with a lot of BS.

Getting back closer on track... Interesting points you raise, but couldn't you also make similar arguments against PPC? Or, as someone else suggested, people are "ignoring" adsense blocks, so wouldn't that make PPC less effective?

(Personally, I think either PPC or article marketing can be effective if done correctly. Since you tossed out the article, I just thought I'd toss back PPC )

Grady

 

[jcorkern]

I write very few articles for traffic, most are for the link building purpose. When I do write for traffic, they are most likely similar to a press release in reality and may even go into what i would call the "crazy" area and be ideal for social marketing.

There is not perfect system, and it does leak into the ads if you do not hold the attention of the visitor. Write in a opposite manner from the mainstream and you increase your clicks. Sometimes leading to the idea that you could have found flaws or potential scams about the subject will cause a click on the bio, just because yours is different.

I believe a month or so ago I commented on "teasers" for an article format. I have put out articles that have recieved thousands of clicks. It is a matter of controlling the reader and creating a relentless drive to learn "the rest of the story", so to speak.

There are many ways to leak that traffic right to your site and away from the adsense links that surrond most articles on directories, it just takes a little thinking to make it happen.

Articles are just like any other advertising medium, they have several ways that they can work for you online, you, as a marketer just have to figure out a few different ways that works for you, your product or service.

Hope this helps.

Jim

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good point Grady and Jim,

Jim you are SOOOO right about leading the visitor to WANT to click to your site to read the rest.

Jim said: "It is a matter of controlling the reader and creating a relentless drive to learn "the rest of the story", so to speak."

I guess to some degree when I wrote this I was thinking of all the newbie article marketing questions we get and I've read some of the articles newbies have written and they totally miss Jim's point. Most of the questions lately seem intent on just finding the right keywords. The articles aren't interesting and just look written to pack in a bunch of keywords.

So especially in those instances I think people's attention would wander before they even get to the bio link and they'd go off and click an Adsense ad that sounded more appealing.

 

[discrat]

Article Marketing can absolutely be one of the most powerful tools increasing your sites Traffic over time !! Its NOT the actual direct Traffic that you are looking for. But actually the Backlinks that you can acheive which directly will increase your Search Organic Traffic.

I am just getting started in it and from what I understand you need to push out about 3 to 5 articles a day to see the massive results.

This is quite a lot and most dont have time to do it but if you are willing to put in the time and work you will be awesomely rewarded !! I have personally witnessed this with several associates.

I plan on just doing this one thing eventually within the next few months as my only source of SEO for my Blogs along with Blog comments !! Thats for 'off page ' SEO.

Of course I will keep the the 'on page' SEO going in full force with updated and fresh, frequent content on my Blog with the use of strategic keywords !

 

[jcorkern]

discrat, if you do this you will see major improvements, but a word to the wise, do some directory submissions and build other links also, because if you are putting out quantity you will soon be getting a lot of links from a limited amount of IP addresses, and this lowers the value of the links. So you need links from other ip's to keep the value of the links from the articles.

Another tip, you may want to write a few off topic articles, so other than normal publishers will pick them up, this will also diversify IP addresses of the inbound links.


"Its NOT the actual direct Traffic that you are looking for" If you want to see the power of mulitplication, read this : http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...e-optimization-super-advantages-articles.html, so i would not include the "NOT" as an absolute statement in this case.

There are some interesting numbers there for you to chew on, you just might like the taste.

You can have your cake and eat it too. And the numbers here are for average articles, if you learn what makes people tick, you can gain thousands of visitors from one article, I speak from experience,and not a one time shot either. There are many experts out there that gain massive traffic just using well written and designed articles.

Hope this helps,

Jim

 

[FDC]

Re: Articles

I find that articles on ezine aren't really a waste. Many of my articles are picked up by google alerts. Other times my articles are picked up by independent sites, and will add my site link as I suppose a thank you.

I find it very helpful.

 

[genuwine4532]

answers

Well there are two benefits to article marketing:

1. Traffic to your sites from the readers
which from Ezine alone, I have received over 3,000 visits combined from the articles I have submitted to them.

BUT MORE IMPORTANT

2. Backlinks
While I hear what you are saying Linda and the article sites can make a lot of money, especially a very high traffic one like Ezine. The real magic of article marketing is the backlinks. Regardless of what is going on in the article site the backlinks are there and strong:

Example: 1 article + 2 links in resource box to one site (1 home page + 1 deep page) + submitted to and published on 200 article sites = 400 BACKLINKS FROM 1 ARTICLE!

Now on top of that 50 webmasters download my article and publish on their site with my backlinks retained (as per reseller rules) this means ANOTHER 100 backlinks for me!

TOTAL = 500 backlinks from just ONE article - THAT IS LINK BUILDING ON TURBO!!

 

[helen_gracio]

I think I might agree with Linda's first comment. Writing these articles seems like allot of work for unseen results. Like throwing a million business cards off the Empire State building and hoping someone will call you. I'm sure if you market effectively it can be worth it but maybe there are other concepts out there as well.