The first thing a lot of people probably think, thanks to the Google Farmer / Panda update is that article marketing has lost its value. Some of it has, if you solely depend on search traffic to bring visitors to your articles in hopes that they will continue to click through to your website.

But one thing that a lot of article marketers have missed is the community factor on some of these sites. Not all article directories are simply a repository of articles and nothing more. Some article networks have their own social community where members can interact through comments, forums, and question & answer areas. Members can also follow other members whose articles they like, and will be notified when that member has published a new article.

How to Maintain a Strong Article Marketing Campaign

So what are the key ways to make sure your article marketing content stands out?

1. Create 100% unique, engaging content.

The days of unoriginal, short and spun content are likely numbered. Google has said that they are going to single out the low quality content in favor of the best content, which means article networks that want back into Google’s good graces will start doing the same.

GoArticles, unaffected by the update, had started doing this months ago. EzineArticles has upped the word count of their articles to 450+. eHow (also unaffected) moved away from letting anyone sign up to write articles to having writers go through a stricter registration. More networks are going to follow suit. You will want to make sure your content and writing skills are up to par, generating only the best content for your niche in these networks.

2. Interact with the article marketing community.

Find people interested in your niche or industry through the forums, question and answer area, and by searching for related articles to find other authors on the topic. Follow them, interact with them, and rate their articles within the network – they will be sure to take notice, and possibly return the favor.

3. Promote your articles.

Search engines are not the only source of traffic. Social media, blog commenting, and forums (to name a few) can help you drive an audience to your articles when used properly to promote them. Just find targeted fans, blogs, and communities to engage with and share your content with in order to succeed.

Article Marketing Communities

Some great examples of article directories that have built in communities include:

• HubPages – Allows members to follow each other and interact through comments, forums, and questions & answers.
• Squidoo – Allows members to follow each other and interact through comments, groups and forums.
• eHow – Allows members to follow each other and interact through comments and groups.
• Self Growth – Allows members to add each other to their networks and interact through comments and discussion boards.

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head. Essentially, if you are going for article marketing for community building, you will need to look for the article directories that offer more options within their network for members to connect with each other.

But What About Traffic?

It may be still soon to tell the long term effects of the Google update to these sites’ traffic data, but here is what we know so far. First, here is the unique visitor graph and data for the last six months through February for the above mentioned networks.

Traffic Data from Compete.com

Then, if you go to Alexa, you will find Pageviews percentage changes are as follows.

• HubPages – down 5.2% in the last month.
• Squidoo – down 7% in the last month.
• eHow – up 6.4% in the last month (unaffected by the Panda update).
• Self Growth – down 0.6% in the last month (unaffected by the Panda update).

So needless to say, these sites are still getting traffic within their own community, even if the search traffic has dropped off a little. And if you want a piece of that action, you will need to start creating great content and interacting with their communities!

What is Your New Article Marketing Strategy?

Has your article marketing strategy changed since the Google update? Please share your observations, from changes in traffic to rankings, and where you focus your article marketing efforts now.

Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines is a Web Strategist and author of the Vertical Measure’s Guide Blogging for Business.

+Kristi Hines

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2. How To Fill the Farmer (Panda) Update Void
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Pretty much any industry can benefit from a well written article published on an online resource. Experts have always said that links from Library resource sites might just be the best links out there. While hard to get published on those sites, there are other places to get noticed and I’ve detailed some tips to getting noticed below. Best of all, most of the sites you end up finding to publish your article on are doing their own publicity, talking/e-mailing/IM’ing/commenting/tweeting about their new posts, and doing their own link building to your post: for free. If you have a blog and aren’t doing at least automated publicity, you really should–but that’s another subject for another post.

Do your research: find blogs with increased page rank, high Technorati scores, high Alexa scores, and subscribers. Search your keywords and see which ones show up, compare the results. The more you research, the better your results. Google’s Blogsearch is helpful when looking for a place to get published. Think about the types of blogs your demographic would frequent. Think also about journals, .org sites in your industry, and tip websites in your industry.

Network: connect and correspond with blog writers, website owners, authors, industry professionals, through friends and family. Utilize sites like Twitter and their search function, Facebook, LinkedIn, and many other social networking sites. E-mail your contacts. Ask your connections to have a featured blog on their site, doesn’t hurt to ask just once right? Be willing to host a guest post as well on your own blog, and if not don’t get in the habit of asking others for favors, especially if they’re free.

Write: discuss a topic you have researched and are comfortable discussing. Determine whether or not you want your article to be witty, satirical, pessimistic, challenging, confrontational, informational, or a blend. The more practice you get at writing the better your articles will be. If you are struggling just remember: there is no harm in hiring a professional writer. After a few edits and revisions you are sure to come to an agreement on the outcome with the writer, but no doubt guidance will be needed as they are often not experts in every industry. Optimize your final draft with links to your site, utilizing separate keywords and URLs, and adding authority links.

Build links: utilize your social networks and friends to build links to your well written post, and publicize your piece after it’s been published.

Don’t forget to keep a list of all the contacts you build, and even after you have successfully published an article keep in contact with them. Check out the successes of one writer. You just might get published on CNN in the future too. The key thing to remember is: every little bit helps. Even if your first few tries are flops, don’t fret! There is always a professional offering advanced article marketing services….

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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We have a list of 25 new article sites focused on the automotive, education, home, health & B2B markets.

Vertical Measures

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In summary, every Tuesday we pick a vertical market based on the number of votes a market receives at our Vertical Market Poll. This week we cover Ecommerce Retail Websites. We invite all of you out there to post in the comments a specific link building recommendation for the Ecommerce market (a good directory, authority website, blog, link search, etc.). If it adds value, we will approve it, give you the credit and a “do follow” link to your site. However, we will just delete stupid, irrelevant, spammy comments – only truly useful information will be allowed. 

This week’s suggestion from our staff comes in the form of a variety pack.  We will recommend some specific link building tactics and we will recommend a couple of great resources for more information as it relates to ecommerce sites.

Articles – we still believe articles can be a very effective link building method if you take your time and do it correctly.   Correctly means writing (or having someone write) unique, valuable content and submitting them to related sites on a limited basis.   Don’t blast it out to hundreds of free article directories, instead look for a few niche sites related to your business.  Here are several websites we found in less than 30 minutes covering a variety of topics:  Business Know How,  Women in Business,  All Merchants,  Fiber to Fashion, and the Art of Retail Management.  Depending on your niche, you should be able to think of an article these sites would be interested in posting, that just happen to have a couple of links back to your site.

Resources – Justilien wrote a great article on building links for online retail and e-commerce sites.   Here is a good article on tapping your suppliers for links.   Here is a list of 20 cheap ways to get links to your ecommerce site.  Lastly, Jason Boom discusses Yahoo Answers and other techniques on his blog.

OK, now lets hear from the rest of you. Place your advice for link building for the e-commerce & online retail market in the comments below. Those that are accepted will get a nice "do follow" link from us.

Make sure you sign up for our email or RSS feed so that you are alerted every time a new niche market is covered. Even if we are not focusing on your niche, you just might see a pretty creative idea that will trigger an thought for your market. 

Be sure to vote for your market today!  VOTE HERE  

[tags] ecommerce, retail stores online, ecommerce websites, online retail, vertical markets, niche, markets, link building [/tags]

Vertical Measures

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Just how successful your articles are depends on a number of factors. The articles have to be interesting, well written and contain enough helpful information to have real value to readers, but they also have to be marketed properly. All of the articles in the world won’t help you if you post them in places where they won’t be found by the right audience. A fascinating, informative article about proper surfboard maintenance isn’t going to help you if it’s lost in a general article directory or posted on a website where most readers are avid mid-west gardeners.

1) Find the right editorial calendars. Look for the editorial calendars of online publications. Most online publications provide an editorial calendar that outlines what the main topics will be several months in advance. Reviewing these can not only give you an idea of when to submit articles you already have, but give you some great ideas for future articles. For instance, www.eweekmedia.com, an IT publication, is focusing on Mobile and Wireless in early May of 2008. In April 2008, there’s a feature titled “Security Focus: Email Security Challenge.” 

Whatever your business’s niche, check the magazines and review editorial calendars and make sure you match your articles to their focus – and be sure to pay attention to their submission deadlines! Editors love to run articles that dovetail with a particular focus.

2) Find niche publications. After you’ve checked out the editorial calendars of the magazines you’re already familiar with, look for publications you aren’t familiar with. For example, if you have an ecommerce website, search for “ecommerce magazines” and you might just find this: www.world-newspapers.com/e-commerce.html.

When you search for Surfing magazines, you can find magazines that include online magazines focusing on female surfers, North Carolina surfers, New England surfing, Australian surfing, competitive surfing, long board surfing…well, you get the idea! Even a niche like surfing can be narrowed even further, so be sure you look for any potential niche magazines that you can really tailor your articles toward that will love you for sending them some high quality content.

3) Find niche article directories. There are good niche article directories out there that either supply niche businesses with quality content or can point you in the direction of respected online publications that are looking for content. Lets say your site is about human resources, here is an example of article dedicated to HR http://www.businessknowhow.com/bkhmanage.htm.

You can do basic searches for “human resource article directory” or whatever your business niche is, and you’ll turn up various directories where you can get your articles published.  Do some homework, however, to make sure that you utilize the best directories for your own articles. A few things to look for in an online article directory are:

• Read several articles in their supply of articles to check the quality. The articles should be well-written, with plenty of information and excellent grammar. If the quality isn’t consistent, then the directory doesn’t set high standards.
• Does the site indicate how many articles are actually downloaded each month? You want to compare figures from directory to directory to see how much of the traffic to the site is actually downloading articles.
• How recently has the site been updated? If there hasn’t been new content added in more than a month, then the directory may not get regular visits from publications. It also means there aren’t very many authors. The more authors, the more frequently articles are added. Publications are looking for fresh content – and fresh content means content that’s new and different every time that a visitor logs onto a directory. Look for sites that are changing every day.
• And of course you might check their pagerank, backlinks, traffic stats, etc. to judge the quality of the link juice or traffic they might send your way.

If you use these three methods of getting your articles out there, you’ll quickly see a difference in your website traffic and inbound links. Any other suggestions from our article experts out there?

[tags] article marketing, article directories, niche markets, website traffic, inbound links [/tags]

Vertical Measures

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