Archive for April, 2010

Article Directories are a form of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) where companies and professional writers submit articles based on a specific niche. Article directories are also sometimes called Ezines, or Online Magazines, for their depository methods – sometimes hosting hundreds or thousands of documents related to a given subject.

What is the benefit of submitting to an article directory? When search engines scan the Internet for content, it “spiders” the web pages and harvests links from each page. The crawler then searches other pages for links and indexes pages that link back and forth with each other.

Article directories use this technology by allowing website owners the ability to link back to their own site using keyword articles, which trigger search engines to rank pages higher. Article standards developed by SEO experts typically call for a word count of 400-500+ words and a keyword density of approximately 2%or 3%.

They also demand that an article be different enough from any other piece of existing web copy that it is viewed as being “unique” by the search engines. But although common SEO methods specify that duplicate content penalizes a website ranking, Google has denied it. Regardless, article directories often require unique content themselves, and use specific editorial guidelines and rules to help deter the manipulation of search results, such as keyword stuffing.

Once you have written a good article, now you need to create an Article Title, one that will grab a potential reader’s attention and get them to read your piece. But when writing your article, you need to ask yourself: Is the primary purpose of my article an attempt to sell something other than information? The answer should never be “Yes.”

First, your Article Title should never be a blatant pitch for your website, your products or services, your company, or even you. Your job as an article author is to educate, entertain, inform. Not sell!

If you’ve created good content, presented it in a logical and interesting way, and used some best practices to disseminate that content, such as one of the top article directories as ranked by traffic and PageRank – and then spreading the word to your own social networks, either manually or with the help of various WordPress Plugins or stand-alone Social Media Management System (SMMS) tools.

And you must trust that your expertise in the delivery of valuable information on your chosen topic will do the “selling” to the reader. So save the big sales pitch for your Author’s Resource Box only.

And when discussing the Resource Box, think of the Article Body as being the place where you GIVE to the reader; and the Resource Box is where you TAKE something back, hopefully some readers who are interested in utilizing your products or services. Don’t break the Golden Rule of article marketing – Thou shall not TAKE in the Article Title or Body!

Your objective is to create a relationship of credibility and trust with your online readership. And you’ll never get the opportunity to sell to your readers until they know you, like you, and trust you.

In your Article Title, you’re simply trying to sell your reader on the benefits they will receive when they take a bit of their valuable online attention and spend it by reading your article. Put your creative marketing thoughts and ideas to use by selling your reader on the benefits of the information in your article – and not your business – and you will see greater conversions and sales results in the future.