In this first part of an ongoing series we will take a look at some best practices marketers can follow when implementing article marketing campaigns. This first installment of the series will focus on selecting the proper websites on which to post your articles.
As most marketers are aware, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial aspect of any Internet Marketing campaign. Developing a healthy set of backlinks gives your site more credibility with the various search engines, resulting in higher search engines result page (SERP) placement. While all marketers chase after the coveted top position on these SERPs, most are satisfied with page one results. One of the most effective ways to help generate the requisite backlinks for these results is through the use of article marketing. In this first in an ongoing series on article marketing tips, we will examine some best practices that marketers should follow when writing content and posting articles for the purposes of SEO.
Choose your sites wisely - There many dozens of sites on the internet whose sole purpose is to host articles. These sites make their money off advertisements place alongside the posted articles, and marketers are able to leverage the sites to help achieve their goals. The relationship is typically a mutually beneficial one, but it does depend upon certain factors being satisfied. Many of these sites are part of a network of article trading. This means that they make the articles available to other websites and blogs (if you give them permission). This sharing causes traffic to the article and causes the search engine crawlers to take notice.
The SEO value of the links on these pages depends upon them being indexed by search engines. If you post an article to a site, but that article is never visited, there will not be any SEO value to your links. Some marketers prefer to choose sites that do this legwork for them. It can be an easy and convenient way to generate traffic and get your article indexed. However, this method is not without risk. Many times these articles will be distributed to sites, which will then strip your links out and simply pass off your content as their own. It is for this reason that it is typically not advised to allow the article sites to redistribute your articles.
Instead, there are some ways that you can put this process into your own hands. First and foremost, the articles should be well written, with relevant and keyword rich content. If the articles are genuinely informative, entertaining or otherwise useful to your intended audience, they will find the article and create the necessary traffic for you. Second, there are third party tools and websites that will help you generate organic traffic to your article. Using social bookmarking websites like Digg and Reddit, you can mark your article, place it in an appropriate category and assign it relevant keywords.
Users of these services who may be seeking similar content will be able to find them through these sites if they are correctly labeled and placed in an appropriate category. The traffic generated by these links will certainly help your article get crawled by the search engines, but if it is picked up by other, legitimate sites with high-traffic of their own, the SEO value can grow at an exponential rate.
Tim Kennedy writes on behalf of inSegment, Boston's leader in search engine marketing, online marketing and the home of Boston SEO.