Writing and distributing articles - the best plan?

[mryang]

Hi everyone,

I have recently been writing a series of articles pertaining to the content of various aspects of my site. When I origionally did this I was far too 'self promotional' and this resulted in 99% of the articles being rejected by directories and articles sites.

Now that I have managed to get a few published I want to know the best way to go about distributing the articles - it seems that nearly every article directory offers to distribute the submitted article to "150 other article sites for $12" or something along those lines... question is - is this worth it or just a con, and moreover does the use of articles actually make a big difference over the long haul... i.e. if I write say 1 or 2 unique articles every day over 6 months will I see the benefits?

Whats the most cost effective way to get the articles out to the largest number of websites and therefore the most links back to my site.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by mryang

if I write say 1 or 2 unique articles every day over 6 months will I see the benefits?

I definitely have. I've seen an increase in traffic and SERP results for my keywords.

[Hometutor]

You'll see it sooner than that

use Google Alerts so you can see which ezine directories are getting spidered the fastest

Rick

[cz]

Is there an "upside" to doing this as compared to blogging the articles and linking back to your site?

Or, to simply add them as content in an "articles" section of your website?

[Hometutor]

Do them both

Distributing to ezine directories could get your articles picked up by other sites which require content

Rick

[aidan6969]

You should publish your articles on your own site first so that Google recognizes them as YOUR content and not someone elses if you want to maximize their value.

What I've found is that some of the articles we've submitted to online magazines appear ahead of the same article appearing on our own site - and our site is well ranked.

You don't want to have your site looking like a republisher of articles for your own work.

I've actually stopped submitting articles and concentrated on using what we have to increase our own SEO with unique content.

Cheers,
Aidan

[morestar]

Originally Posted by aidan6969

You should publish your articles on your own site first so that Google recognizes them as YOUR content and not someone elses if you want to maximize their value.

I don't know about that...a link from another website owner is better than a link from yourself no?
Links from approved articles on article sites are better thank your own no?

In my view, if a site has approved your article and approved the link, then your site is worthy of that link.

[Hometutor]

No he's right

I had forgotten to mention that piece of advice. You want original content on your own site before you duplicate the content on someone else's site

Rick

[morestar]

Originally Posted by Hometutor

No he's right

I had forgotten to mention that piece of advice. You want original content on your own site before you duplicate the content on someone else's site

Rick

I totally disagree with this right now.

I don't even think the two need to go hand-in-hand...

If I get a thousand links to my site from a thousand other sites, it's much better than getting links to my site from my own site.

We're not talking about writing articles on our site - the OP asked:

"Whats the most cost effective way to get the articles out to the largest number of websites and therefore the most links back to my site."

[puamana]

After you have published the original (or an expanded version) on your own site, submitting to an article directory, or to an interested blog would be the best way, I would think.
puamana

[zeo]

Don't overdo article submissions or link building - keep it looking natural to search engines. I don't see how submitting to 100 sites at a time will look natural.

__________________
Websites That Work | Ask Centauria

[LRHand]

I would suggest you put the articles on your own site with a clear Creative Commons licence, inviting people to reprint them on their website as long as they include an "About the Author" section with link to your site.

Distribute it to a couple of article sites and then see how it goes.

I publish articles on a variety of subjects on my English Magazine site for ESL learners, and the article site I use is EzineArticles.

[kelliott07]

Do not republish an article to an article directory that you have on your primary site. If your going to do this publish the original article then rewrite the article and start publishing it to article directories. If you publish the article to your site and article directories it will ping your site for submitting duplicate content. May not be a big ping, but a ping no the less. WHAT EVER YOU PUT ON ARTICLE DIRECTORIES HAVE IT BE ORIGINAL FROM YOUR PRIMARY SITE. That will be the best bang for the buck..

I want to add if your looking for someone to publish your articles I offer this service. Check out my reviews http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1425459

[Hometutor]

Originally Posted by morestar

I totally disagree with this right now.

I don't even think the two need to go hand-in-hand...

If I get a thousand links to my site from a thousand other sites, it's much better than getting links to my site from my own site.

We're not talking about writing articles on our site - the OP asked:

"Whats the most cost effective way to get the articles out to the largest number of websites and therefore the most links back to my site."

Why would you want to promote someone else's email list and someone else's site before your own?

Links back to your site is only one reason for giving other sites original content. Build your own mailing list first with your content, then give it to other sites

Rick

[morestar]

That sounds like a great idea, of course! get traffic to your own site from your great articles...i actually even feel guilty when I submit to other sites first but when it comes to getting inbound links from other sites article writing is a great way to go about it and the results become quite clear (in my cases) over a short period of time.

I could totally be wrong, my rankings might never be changing because of the articles I've written with links to my site but from my point of view they have so I'm going with that.

Out of ten articles I post at article sites, i write one or two on my own.

I must thank WPW and the OP for this thread because with the help of you guys and Hometutor I've finally figured out a great 'umbrella topic' for my future articles which will keep me writing till the next millennium.

[beachconnection]

i did a LOT of this at the beginning of our site <a href="http://www.beachconnection.net">Oregon
Coast Beach Connection</a> a few years ago....and it gave a decent little burst. Those articles are still circulating out there, and i get a hit or two a week to this day. Although that's piddly compared to other traffic sources now.

I got about 20 of my articles in about 20 different sites, and those in turn wound up getting my articles in maybe 100 places. Not bad...but no huge amounts of traffic.

Maybe it's different now, but back then I would do searches on things like "submit articles" and found something like 10 or 15 such sites. Each would usually ask for the same kinds of info when submitting, so i had a text file open to just copy and paste that stuff (like keywords, description, etc). That made that part much faster, though it was still a fair amount of work initially.

But once you've registered with each one, got that submission process down to a robotic thing, it goes fairly quickly.

I wouldn't suggest this forever, by any means. The benefits dissipate fairly quickly.

As to sites that promise to syndicate your stuff for money....not too sure about it. If one is truly around $12...then that's not a bad price for an experiment. If it works, then great...do it again.

[morestar]

so your suggestion would be, in the end to for the most part publish to your own site - on your blog let's say?

[mryang]

So are there any authority articles sites that tend to get a good distribution of their articles to other sites? I guess what I am saying is are there 2 or 3 articles directories that I should concentrate my submissions too? The reason I ask is that I have been using SEO Elite (excellent tool) and they tend to link to tons and tons of different articles directories and I don't want to waste too much time submitting if I am just not going to get the return on time investment.

As for duplicate content issues I'm not too worried about that as I tend to post the articles on a topic specific page related to the intended keywords and link the products that refer from those 'authority' pages...

[morestar]

I've been happy with farticle.net...the results have been really quick as well...i've signed up for google alerts and found when i submit my articles to farticle.net my articles get spidered within a day or two at the most.

[meinking22]

Originally Posted by mryang

As for duplicate content issues I'm not too worried about that as I tend to post the articles on a topic specific page related to the intended keywords and link the products that refer from those 'authority' pages...

Duplicate content is a non-issue. From the horse's mouth: YouTube - GoogleWebmasterHelp's Channel

Penalties only arise in cases of content spam. There is no duplicate content penalty.

I am definitely in the camp that believes you should publish an article on your own website first and then distribute. Some article directories do not like this method because they prefer their article submissions to be unique. In those cases, you can spin the same article for unique submission.

Remember that article submission is not a method for gaming the search engines. It is simply a good way to increase the awareness and reputation of your website while indirectly building link popularity.

[morestar]

...and quite a few article sites only want content...in the end their hope is that people will click on their ads...that is for the article sites that display ads and where you can clearly see that they're article sites made for ads...

[tripper]

so what is the best strategy, post articles first on my site before posting it to article directories?

[ronchalice]

In most cases I would agree with the suggestion to post on your own site first. However, you need to be familiar with the submission requirements of the sites you submit to. If they require ORIGINAL, UNPUBLISHED material, and you send them something you've already posted somewhere else you are in violation of their submission rules, and could also have a legal liability for misrepresenting your work.

[Loft Conversions]

My experience has been that there is little point in submitting to multiple directories. This is for two reasons: Firstly, google will put the majority of results into the supplemental index. Secondly, most people looking for articles to re-publish will only bother to look at the main article sites - why submit to hundreds when people only look at the main sites.

I think this is an area where quality wins hands down over quantity. For me personally I only submit articles to one directory and do not publish on my own site.

Hope that helps, its only my views based on what has worked fo me. Others may well find that a different approach works best for them.

[billegan]

Ezine articles seems to be by far the best site to post articles to based on a recent research project we blogged about last week

[stephen186]

In my views you should write articles on a daily basis, doesn't matter you write 1 or 5. The most important thing you should remember is the quality of the content you provide in your articles. The buyer doesn't need what is not of his use neither he will pay for it nor he will contact you again for the same. As far as improvement is concerned, you will definitely notice that after sometime.

[slimwoman]

Started blogging in 2006. Made a mistake and did not have control over accessing my blog so lost 1 1/2 years of content when host increased charges. Paid for 5 years now and am posting an average of 1 post per day. Getting good keyword positions on several products. I am interested in branching out now and submitting to article directories. You don't learn everything in one day here on the internet, that is for sure.

Danielle Parsons