By Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
I was inspired to write this article by some people who are doing article marketing or whom at least THINK they are doing article marketing. I go to rentacoder.com, getafreelancer.com, and other freelance websites and I get emails for bid requests where people are looking for article writers. Some of the bids would amaze you.
Example:
“I need high quality articles of 500 words or more each written with SEO in mind. I am willing to pay $1.50 per article.”
Some go on to say they want 2.5% keyword density while another will say 6% keyword density and others have other density requirements. Bottom line is that tells me they are the ones who are dense. They read some Ebook or whatever that told them what the proper percentage is for keyword density. No one can give you an exact percentage. Those that do give out advice on that and quote a specific percentage are almost as dense as the people who believe them.
You are not going to get high quality articles written for $1.50. I run an article writing service and my prices are on the low end of the scale at $15 per article. That is extremely cheap for well-written articles. Anything less than that price is likely to be keyword-stuffed drivel that isn’t worth the time to submit anywhere.
But many people who think they understand article marketing don’t really care about quality. They want a large number of articles with that perfect keyword density they read about.
Here are 10 things you need to understand about article marketing.
Obviously there is a ton of people out there doing what they believe is article marketing who don’t have a clue.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_1kfMR11wQ[/youtube]
1. If you target the American Market for your products and services, then having someone who doesn’t understand how to sell products to Americans and who doesn’t write like an American write your article is just totally worthless.
2. Everything on the Internet is pretty much permanent. If you are hiring a ghostwriter then your name is going on these articles with links to your company website. When readers read these poorly written articles that are just stuffed with keywords and look like a boob wrote them, they are going to think you are the boob that wrote them and your company’s image suffers.
3. Having articles written and submitting them to directories is not what article marketing is about. This is where most people’s understanding of article marketing stops. Article Directories are there to provide quality content to webmasters who want to use articles in their websites. The tradeoff of giving a link back to the owner of that article is the price they pay for the use of the content.
4. Just submitting articles to article directories does increase your link popularity a little. But these directories are not websites that are related to your topic. Websites that might use that article are likely related to your website’s topic. So unless the articles are good enough that people want to re-post them on related websites then you are missing the whole article marketing boat.
5. Buying a bunch of cheap articles and doing mass submissions will not give you the long-term value which article marketing can and will do if done properly. A well-written article submitted to just one website can give you more link popularity and direct traffic than 100 poorly-written articles that are mass-submitted.
6. High quality articles have a snowball effect that lasts for a very long time. As more and more websites use the article as content you will see your link popularity grow. Each of them becomes a related website linking to you.
7. It takes time to see the real effects of good article marketing. The longer your article is out there, the more it is used by other webmasters and the more your link popularity grows. It happens a little at a time just like the search engines like for a websites link popularity to grow. Getting 1000 links to your website overnight can get your website punished rather than benefited.
8. If the writer of your article does not know how to sell product or make a rational point that leads a reader to WANT to click the links in the footer, then again you are missing part of the value of article marketing and are wasting your money. Article marketing can drive traffic directly to your website if they are written properly.
I’m not talking about an article that just promotes your website or product. Webmasters won’t use those and article directories won’t accept them. But if you wrote a guide to filing a patent and in the article advised they consult an attorney, then you have written an informative article that puts the idea in the reader’s head that they need a lawyer to file a patent. And the links are right there in the footer to your legal services. How convenient!
9. If the person writing the article does not really understand SEO, then you are again losing out on a major part of article marketing. There is no set percentage that your keywords should appear. They should be mentioned where possible but not in a way that detracts from the quality of the article itself. Reader first, SEO second. Some writers really know how to do this and it is second nature to them to write this way. Webmasters who might want to use it as content do care that it contains the right keywords, but they will not use an article that is written poorly and that is an obvious attempt to spam the keywords into the page.
10. Good writers who understand sales, SEO, and know how to write well deserve to be paid well. If you want quality articles that you are not ashamed to put your name on, then you have to pay for it.
Some of you out there that might read this article really don’t care what they put their names on. In that case this article isn’t written to you. Go and keep doing your thing out there. When you decide you really want to try to be successful come back and read this again. Bookmark it where you found it right now and read it in six months and see if you understand it then.
For those of you who do want real quality and want to have all of the advantages that article marketing can give you and who do care what their name gets attached to, just remember that good writers need to be paid what they are worth. I hope this article has helped you understand what article marketing is really all about.
About the Author: Chris McElroy aka NameCritic owns
ArticleContentProvider.com
and has blogs at
Blogs.pn
,
scotlandseoblog.co.uk
, &
NameCritic.Blogs.pn
Source:
isnare.com
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