When it comes to article marketing on the Internet, there are a slew of article directories out there and most of them are a big waste of your time. The truth is that you can have a very successful article marketing campaign without submitting to a lot of useless article directories void of authority.
The most effective way to brand your name and reach out to more people on the Internet is to provide engaging content, written for humans (not search engines), published on your own WordPress blog.
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Yes, you do need to optimize your content, but the SEO part of the equation is not what converts traffic. Focus on content that people actually enjoy reading and link back to, then optimize with good keywords – always in that order. With optimization, don’t just bold words you think might be good keywords. Take the time to research keywords/search terms utilizing a keyword search tool (Keywords – The First Tool in Your SEO Tool Kit).
Google XML Sitemap and XML-RPC on WordPress
If you install a Google XML Sitemap on your WordPress blog, the major search engines will be notified whenever you publish an article or update your site with fresh content. WordPress also comes with a default Update Service that pings proprietary indexes each time you publish an article.
With the Google XML Sitemap and WordPress XML-RPC Update Service, your SEO blog posts reach more web users at a much faster rate than the traditional search engine spider crawling and indexing route. Hence the reason why WordPress is the best way to article market on the Internet.
Marketing Plugs and Contact Information
When you are finished flushing out a great blog post, don’t forget to add your sales pitch or marketing plug. Every post should provide options for site visitors to contact you. Some like to fill out an online contact form as the first point of contact. Others prefer to pick up the phone and call you. Either way, you need to ASK for the contact just as you would ASK for the sale! Most web users won’t waste their time hunting for contact information on your website, so make it easily available on every post and page.
Submitting to Article Directories
Once your WordPress blog has achieved authority for the posts you write and are showing up in the index, you may decide to branch out to a few “worthy” article directories such as Associated Content, ActiveRain (Real Estate), EzineArticles or Articlebase. You only want to market your articles on authority sites such as these, otherwise you are pretty much wasting your time.
When submitting posts to article directories, it isn’t necessary that you scrub or spin your content or change the titles. Article market your posts exactly as you published them on your own WordPress blog.
Once you see XML RPC activity (ping notifications) or your article has gone out through your feed, search engines will recognize the originating source of the content. If you article market prematurely, your own blog post might get seen as duplicate content and take a hit in the SERPS.
A lot of article directories encourage bloggers to publish their articles directly on them and then link out to social media. However, if you follow their lead, you’ll be giving away your blog authority and SEO.
In short, article marketing starts with your own WordPress blog. Don’t waste your valuable time submitting to useless, non-authority article directories.
Ali Khan
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