I just came across an article in the 100% Organic column of Search Engine Land. It discussed why article directories were no longer a good method of generating back links. Some limited research was done to find out the rankings on Alexa and other such sites and to determine typical search strings on popular article directories. There was also a discussion about duplicate content when it comes to article submission. This data caused the author of the article to believe that it was no longer worth it (in most cases) to promote using article directories.
I disagree.
What seems to be missing in this article is the knowledge that article directories are also a jumping off point. I agree that only a little comes from the directories themselves. However, they are a supermarket of articles that draw crowds of bloggers, newsletter publishers and website owners.
These people (who oftentimes have sites that do have high PR and excellent traffic) are usually highly targeted. It is here – after others pick up your articles from the directories and reprint them – that you get the benefits.
Your articles end up on sites that are targeted to your specific market. Those people click on your link back to your site and purchase products and/or services from you. About 1/3 of my leads come from those who say they’ve read one of my articles on a site other than mine. That’s not something I’m willing to give up.
So while you might not get much from the directories themselves, you will almost certainly benefit from the after effects of submitting quality articles.
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I couldn’t agree with you more, and I also read Michael Gray’s article on Search Engine Land with similar reservations.
It’s true some article directories are adding no follow as well as other security features. This is because they realize their biggest problems, namely article spinning and one click submitters that more often than not mess with their formatting.
The real misconception about duplicate content is how little article spinning does to combat it. Yet people spin articles over and over then submit multiple copies to the article directories. And while duplicates of the same article spread out over the web will not incur penalties, having multiple copies on the same directory will exact the search engines’ wrath on the innocent article directory itself.
So I believe adding no follow is to deter those who spin articles for the sake of back linking only.
On the other hand, your take on gaining back links from other sites who draw content from these directories, says something else to those who spin articles . . .
Good content generates good results!
Spun articles usually aren’t very good in quality, and so the odds of being picked up by these other highly ranked sites are remote at best.
Article marketing is not for the lazy and needs to be handled professionally and with an eye toward teaching people to follow you and your recommendations.
Those like yourself who use it properly will see the good results.
I couldn’t agree more. The invention of article blasting software has put a huge damper on an otherwise exceptional method of marketing. Even if the search engines completely discount article directories one day (and I don’t think that will happen) the other benefits of article marketing will still make this a strong method.
Hi Karon,
What a great counterpoint to Michael’s piece. I was originally a little put off given my love of article engines and I’m glad Matt McGee pointed over here.
I totally agree that these sites, when provided with good content, can be good points of referral. And, interestingly the more authoritative sites show up as referrers more frequently.
So, consistent with Ken, I agree that article marketing is not for the lazy. It takes good content to get a reader all the way through to the link at the bottom.
If taken seriously and treated as valuable little nuggets of information articles can be a powerful tool to attract new visitors at the Inquiry stage of the customer engagement cycle.
Thanks for contributing, Will.
I’m pretty blown away by the quality of traffic you receive from distributed articles, Karon.
I’m curious how you’d contrast this strategy with guest blogging. Any words of advice when to put a piece of content on the directories versus writing an exclusive article or blog post?
The first thing is that I never use automated article blaster software for distribution. I have a person who manually submits my articles and those of my clients to a hand-selected list of directories that have a decent PR, that allow HTML in the bio section and that offer a control panel so I can make edits if/when needed. If the directory doesn’t meet these requirements, I won’t use them.
While guest blogging and article distribution are similar, blogging has a much more limited readership than article directories. Only people who read blogs will generally ever see a guest blog post. This may very well change in the future. In fact, guest blogging may have a similar fate as article distribution now faces 😉 As it stands today, ezine publishers, website owners, bloggers, and others come to article directories to find quality articles. Instead of only being posted on blogs, the articles from directories are commonly also posted in ezines, newsletters, print publications, website pages and more.
I don’t choose. If it’s a genuine article, I always distribute it to my list of directories. If it’s just a short blog post, I won’t… but every article goes out to the masses.