Article Marketing is a very effective way to promote your company, brands, and products and services, and one we haven’t talked about in a while. Essentially anything resembling a press release can be sent to many distribution outlets online (our favorite PR Log, which like many other platforms is a free service/website). An interesting article or story could find itself literally anywhere after submission to this website and other similar ones, as your release will be shared with hundreds of outlets, and can be picked up by news services, newspapers, online new aggregators, anyone. After your submission to press release distribution sites, consider posting on one of the popular article directories. Once again, our favorite at Hat Trick Associates is Ezine Articles.

What is the benefit of these distribution services? Well, as noted the hope is that the article or story will be shared all over, and that potential customers or clients will find it online and read it. But there is another benefit. Every time the release is shared online, the backlinks contained within the article that direct back to your website are GREAT for SEO purposes. But there are some rules you should follow when adding these valuable backlinks in your submission, or in the Author’s box that follows the article. Here are some good tips for including links in your releases:

  • 2 Self-Serving and 2 Non Self-Serving Links Maximum – A self-serving link is any link that you have a vested interest in promoting. A non self-serving link is a link that you do not have a vested interested in promoting but adds value to the article, such as unbiased facts or data about the topic.
  • Less Means More When Including Links – When referring to rule #1, note that it isn’t necessary to include 2 self-serving links in every article. Including links that are unrelated to the topic usually makes the article appear spammy.
  • Keep Links Below the Fold – “Below the fold” refers to the way a newspaper is folded across the middle to cut front page stories in half. In this case, links must be kept out of the first 3 paragraphs of text (the area above “the fold”) to keep your readers’ attention. Otherwise the same “spammy” problem just noted comes back into play.
  • Try to Limit Self-Serving Links to the Resource Box – Only 1 self-serving link is allowed in the body of most articles submitted to the major distributors. Including more than this will get your article rejected!