John Cow dot Com » article marketing

Put Your Crappy Content Away, Ya Lazy Bum!

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:55:25 +0000

The times, they are a changin’. Although it hasn’t officially happened yet, there have been whispers in quite a few places for a while now that things are changing in the world of article marketing, specifically in the article directories and very specifically, with Ezine Articles. And in my personal opinion, it’s a change for the better.

Here’s what’s rumored to be happening: submission standards are about to get a whole lot higher. To put it in a nutshell, the minimum standard for articles to get approved (which, historically, has been pretty darn low) is going to be longer and better. No longer will you be able to throw together a crappy 250 word article full of spelling and grammatical errors and call it a day. Soon, that kind of sloppy work won’t get approved any more.

And what’s more…

The changes are reportedly retroactive!

Meaning if you’ve got crappy articles approved in the past, unless you update them and make them acceptable, they’ll disappear.

What do I have to say about this?

Well, I say it’s about damn time. I’ve said many times, on this blog and on the other sites I own, that putting quality content out there is the real key to succeeding in online business. And I use article marketing to promote my products, but when I mention that I’m an article marketer, people lump me in with those other bozos littering the article directories with crap content and giving the rest of us a bad name.

For my own article marketing, I’ve long held a stipulation that all the articles I use be at least 400 words long, always be completely original, and have really useful information for the reader. Keyword density should be between 2-5%, but is usually around 2.5-3.5%. Because I’ve been doing things this way for a long time, I know that, when the changes do come, I don’t have to worry about any of my old articles being taken down.

HOT TIP –> The MOST IMPORTANT thing i do however, is write the content first and then go back and keyword optimize it. If you write for a keyword the content will suck… create a title first, write a worthwhile piece of content and then go back and keyword optimize it. Your content will get both published and read!

So that’s my advice for anybody using article marketing right now – if you’re not already, make the change and start writing quality articles NOW, before the new rules come into play. Do this for two reasons; one, because quality is always better than crappy (in terms of your reputation and your bottom line), and you should have been doing it this way all this time anyway; and secondly, so that when these changes do come you’ll be ahead of the game and not one of the people left in the lurch when all of their articles get dumped.

NEW Update: Just saw a new update to the ezinearticles guidelines as we speak…

Expert Authors can now earn the ability to link-up 4-word and 5-word phrases* by submitting lengthier (over 400 words) high-quality articles.

BOTTOM LINE:

If your article is shorter than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 3 words*

If your article is longer than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 5 words*

* Important Note: Any common words, including to, is, in, on, it, and, at, by, a, an and others will now be excluded from the word count.

PS – If you are wondering why i am focusing on EzineArticles here… cause they are the grand daddy of all article directories and you NEED to be using them (IMHO).

So what’s your thoughts?

3 Link Building Techniques You Should Look Into

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:00:51 +0000

This is a Guest Post by Igor Kheifets. Igor is 21 year old Internet Marketing Expert and the author and creator of Mastermind Internet Marketing where he shares the latest strategies on Social Media Marketing, Traffic and Lead Generation, Copywriting and Productivity.

Link building is (arguably) the most important part of your site’s SEO. The quality and the quantity of your links is how Google knows if you can be trusted. By building high authority links back to your site – you instantly boost your credibility and the likelihood of ranking higher in the SERPs.

If you’re trying to build links for your site to increase your pagerank, rank higher in Google and other Search Engines then you know that every link counts. Link building is a skill on and off itself, therefore I can’t break down all the elements in a single post.

What I want to do though, is I want to raise your awareness about the three link building techniques that are thought of as “Dead,” but in fact are more “Alive” than you could have imagined.

Social Bookmarking

The majority of internet marketers never indulge themselves into this “foolish” activity. However, the fact of the matter is that it looks foolish only to the untrained eye. Social bookmaking’s entire concept is based around building high authority linkbacks for your website in a very short time.

On the other hand, people fail to realize that, and so they get disappointed and discouraged because their stories didn’t make it to the front page of Technorati, Digg and Delicious. What you need to understand is that making it to the front page is a BONUS of social bookmarking. Instead, what your real agenda should be is the 6-9 PR BACKLINKs you get by submitting your content.

Remember that we aren’t talking about Traffic Generation. If your major focus in social bookmarking is traffic generation, then before you go about submitting your content you should also develop some major skills in Social Media marketing, Headline and Copywriting, Marketing Expertise and Storytelling. Only then you will be able to compete against some of the major players in the league of Social Media.

Article Marketing

If I were to receive a nickel every time I heard “Article Marketing is Dead” I would be a very rich man by now. I would like to remind you once more that we aren’t talking about traffic generation but rather about link building – totally different concept.

Article marketing is an awesometastic (yep, it’s a real word) way of building high PR backlinks for your website. And its effectiveness triples when you’re using some kind of article submission software. Most of the article directories (that are worth submitting to) are pagerank 5-8, which makes them an outstanding way of acquiring link juice.

Google and the search engines are in love with article directories such as EzineArticles, ArticleCity, ArticleBase and ArticleFeeder. You can easily dominate 4-6 positions on the first page of Google if you do your keyword research right. This means that a backlink from an article directory will not only become utterly valuable over time, but will also turn into a major Authority Indicator for Google.

The best way to utilize Article Marketing is to use proper article submission software. Personally, I use ArticleSubmitAuto, which is a free service that submits my articles to the Top 20 article directories. It means that for every article I write, I get twenty quality PR 5-8 backlinks back to my blog.

Forum Marketing

Besides being one of the Top Notch link building ways, forums are a great place to find business associates, form partnerships and get help. For the most part, people are very warm and generous there, which makes it an awesome place to hang out, socialize and improve your skills.

The best way to leverage forums is to build links while being genuine, honest, helpful and outgoing. In order to run a successful link building campaign you’ll have to take care of two simple things:

Create a signature file with an SEO Anchored Text linking back to your website
Be active, generous and helpful

This link building strategy is best suited for beginners. Reason being is that most forums are pagerank 2-4, which makes them useless for veterans with pagerank 5 and higher. If you’re just starting out and your site is yet to rise above PR2 – forums are a great place for you to build links.

Make it a habit to post at least 10-15 replies on Warrior Forum and Digital Point everyday and overtime you’ll notice a substantial increase in traffic and authority of your site.

And One More Thing…

Link building doesn’t produce instant results. Pagerank and Authority is a combination of quality, quantity, relevance and the age of your links as well as your content. Don’t expect instant results, in fact, don’t expect results AT ALL!

You know what they say:

“Shoot For The Moon, But Be Happy When You Land Amongst The Stars”

The Importance Of A Compelling Article Title

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:56:25 +0000

The window to your article is the title and unless you can create enough urgency in the reader to want to read your piece, then you will be battling to get them to take the ultimate action of heading down to your resource box and clicking through to your site or offer.

An exercise you can do is to go to Ezine Articles and spend some time there looking at a variety of content and paying particular attention to the titles. Monitor your impulse and make a note of the titles which create the urgency in you to want to continue reading the article. Make a list of the titles and put them in a swipe file.

Then when you are stuck for ideas for a title refer to this list. There is a simple formula to creating a strong title and it goes something like this:

1. create curiosity
2. mention a benefit
3. create excitement
4. suggest improvement

Is all this possible in one title? Yes. Here’s a couple of examples:

“10 Ways To Get Your Ex Back With Dignity”
“5 Surefire Ways To Lower Your Golf Handicap Fast”

If someone was searching either topic they would surely be tempted to read on. However, if the titles were simply:

“Guide To Getting Your Ex Back”
“Lower Your Golf Handicap”

Then ask yourself which of the two you would be more tempted to read. Definitely the first list. Why? Because they offer something unique and fast rather than general and simple.

People want fast solutions in today’s society. It’s the main reason people go online. They are looking for a solution to a problem or issue in their lives and article titles that incorporate the right triggers will get much more response than plain titles.

That’s not to say the second list of titles won’t do the job but it’s competitive online and you need to gain an edge from the very start. The idea is to stand out from everyone else and believe it or not, more than 95% of people writing online fail to stand out.

Practice this and get good at it and make sure you keep that swipe file up-to-date. Always look for titles that stand out and trigger your curiosity and then adapt them when appropriate. But make sure your content is up to scratch and matches what your title is suggesting.

So whats your thoughts?