SEO Tutorial Part 11 – Article Directory Submissions
Submitting articles related to your site’s content to article directories is another great way to build your backlinks. Most article directories allow you to include links to your site in the resource box. This box just gives readers the details on how they can get more information relating to the topic of the article. Carefully choose the anchor text in the resource box in order to see an increase in search engine rankings for these keywords and keyphrases.
In addition to building backlinks, you’ll also likely get traffic from the articles you submit to popular article directories. Some of your articles may even be re-published on other sites, generating even more traffic and possibly more backlinks. In theory, the better the article, the more likely it will be re-published on other sites. This should lead to more backlinks to your site (which the search engines see and reward you for) and more traffic from the links you include in your resource box.
If you are writing articles for SEO purposes, it’s crucial to spend the time selecting a good anchor text strategy for your resource box. In fact, I spend more time on this than anything else.
Once you’ve determined your article marketing strategy, you’ll need to actually write the article or outsource this task. Make sure that your article’s title pulls readers in … something like “3 tips on how to make money online with affiliate marketing” would do fairly well. People love easy-to-read content, so breaking down your article into specific bullet points will encourage more traffic.
Of course, if you choose to use this type of article title, you will need to identify the three tips you’re going to cover. The good news is that doing this will help you to quickly structure and write out your article. Articles published to article directories should be between 200-750 words. Most article writing experts recommend starting out with an introduction to help draw the reader in to the article before they continue with the main points of the article.
If you’re having trouble getting down to the business of actually writing the article, consider the following tips. First, don’t put too much thought into it – try to write naturally, as if you’re writing the way you’d talk about your target subject. Don’t get bogged down on whether you should be using a colon or a semicolon in a particular sentence – just get the words down on paper and you can come back and edit them later. If writing still isn’t coming easily to you, search for articles on similar subjects to see how they’re structured and what kind of voice they use. Don’t plagiarize – use them only to get a feel for how your own articles can be written.
The final element of your article is the resource box. The resource box is your chance to introduce yourself and convince the reader to visit your website. Different article directories differ on whether you’re allowed to use anchor text links in your article text, but almost all of them will allow you to put a link to your website in the resource box – so you can see what a powerful tool this section is.
Since most article directories will allow you to use anchor text in your resource box, you should take advantage of that instead of just listing your URL. Adding in anchor text is crucial for SEO so make sure to select a good keyphrase for this. I also suggest listing your URL as well, just in case the HTML link doesn’t work. In addition to an anchor text link + the URL, you should try to make your resource box interesting, to encourage readers to click through to your site.
Here’s an example of a good resource box with anchor text for the keyphrase ‘make thousands of dollars online’.
“Want to learn how I ‘make thousands of dollars online’, every month, working only a few hours each week? Check out my FREE report at www.howtomakemoneyonline.com!”
Including the anchor text with a link back to your webpage will boost the rankings of the page for the keyphrase ‘make thousands of dollars online’ in the search engines. Just make sure the anchor text you use is something people are searching for in the search engines.
Once you have all your article elements ready, it’s time to submit them to the directories. Google seems to give the most weight to articles posted on
EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and SearchWarp.com, so make these directories the primary focus of your article marketing campaign. It’s easy to sign up for a free account at each of these sites, and you’ll find more complete results on entering and submitting articles on each webpage.
Additional Articles in the Search Engine Optimization Tutorial Series:
SEO Module 1 – SEO Introduction & Keyword Research (Watch Online Video)
-Part 1: What is SEO?
-Part 2: Keyword Research
-Part 3: What is LSI?
-Part 4: What are Long-Tail Keywords?
SEO Module 2 – On-Site Optimization (Watch Online Video)
-Part 5: On-Site vs Off-Site
-Part 6: On-Site Optimization Details
-Part 7: What are Meta Tags?
-Part 8: What is Anchor Text?
SEO Module 3 – Off-Site Optimization (Watch Online Video)
-Part 9: Off-Site Optimization
-Part 10: Directory Submissions
-Part 11: Article Submissions
-Part 12: Press Release Submissions
-Part 13: Forum & Blog Commenting
-Part 14: Social Bookmarking
-SEO Tutorial Conclusion
Article directory submissions is a good and simple way to get backlinks. I’ve been doing it for a while and it’s a good leverage to have. It’s not that hard, but it’s hard work.
The hard part is manually submitting them to different article directories and typing up 300-600 words.
Of course there are mass article directories submission programs where it can submit to 300-400 directories with simple clickings.
Of course, submitting to the top article directories like ezinearticle, goarticle, articlealley and others is a major plus. Not only you get backlinks, you’ll also get some quality traffic.
Articles have been a great way to build links for a while now and I still believe in them. What’s really great about article links is the articles themselves. If you take advantage of using keywords in your article as well as anchor text you will get the most out of article syndication links.
Article marketing is one of the most underated ways to get backlinks and traffic at the same time. I a m surprised at the traffic I get from articles I posted a long time ago.
Health tarot answer questionss last blog post..Boyfriend relationship tarot reading
Ezine is a gold mine! It only take one or two posts to become an expert and Google allows ranks them well. There is also the bonus if your article gets picked up. Article submission is a win-win-win and well worth the time.
Re: Gewdton
Manually Submitting the articles to the popular directories like Ezinearticle, goarticles and articledashboard are more worth than submitting them automatically to hundreds of article directories. Automated submissions make the articles get listed in irrelavant categories. Moreover, automated submission is not possible in Ezinearticles.
And the example resource box content mentioned in this post is wonderful
Could not agree more. Articles are a way of getting attention and traffic to your site. Just make sure you’re writing your article about things you know. Somany articles are just jump up extended ads, that don’t make it to the final cut.
Article sumbissions are a very good way for your site to get its “feet wet”. I find it to be a very good source of traffic. For example, when I look at my analytics, I find that individuals who enter my site through an article that I’ve submitted, they tend to stay longer and thus become possible customers. Having said that, if the article isn’t any good then all you are really achieving is a backlink in which case there are more efficient ways of doing so.
article marketing is a good branding strategie to get quality backlinks and targeted traffic from other websites.
Writing articles can be fun and very lucrative in bringing targeted website visitors and producing sales. But often ideas run dry. When this happens – looking through the newspapers for the past few days, more often than not there are ideas that spring to mind. Taking a trip into town to shop browse can also be inspiring for new ideas. Or just a walk in the fresh air can do wonders for creative inspiration.
Excellent post! I would add that when you article marketing you should also focus on deep linking – link to other relevant articles on your site and not just the main URL.
Andres last blog post..Niche Strategies For Effective Internet Marketing
The hard part is manually submitting the article to different article directories and typing up 300-600 words..its need hard work ithink..
rohadi@tukang nggames last blog post..Kontes SEO Aristia Wida Rukmi
I think you should submit to the more popular ones not everyone you find. Manualy submiting articles to the best sites will work better than auto submissions any time. Like the idea of keyword research for articles so not only do you get links you also get traffic from them.
Etfs last blog post..Bond etf.
I still believe article submission has a grate value to create back links, but general directory submission has got it’s value down in the eyes of search engines, especially for google.
SEO expert karachis last blog post..SEO Expert in Karachi Pakistan
Great post. We have used this to build out our links a bit. It is getting harder though because the search engines are getting smarter about what directories are “junk” directories that are nothing more than link farms. I have noticed that they are giving us less and less credit for links in quality articles through some of these directories.
A very detailed overview of article directory submissions. I have been submitting articles for quite some time now and have got some great results. Although I agree with some of the comments that Google is starting to ignore the majority of the low quality article sites. You are much better off focusing on well written articles and only submitting them to the quality sites.
Great post. Writting your own articles and submitting them manually is the best bet, but when you have precious little time you have no other option but to pay someone else to do it.