Articles… Article Writing

Articles can, of course, be a form of web content, which is sparingly laced with specific keywords and tantalisingly paraded before the search engine bots in order to elicit some Google love. Once upon a time, this article would then be submitted to various or several article directories, get indexed and help to drive traffic to the main website via a link in the author’s bio. And it was at one time a very good method for getting free traffic, but unfortunately, article marketing has really had its day. Or has it?

Since Google slapped everyone with their Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, article marketing took a hammering and results from this method took a serious nose-dive. In some cases, it’s still falling. These updates are for a good reason and one of these reasons is to prevent people from creating useless pages full of useless information, which were basically stuffed with keywords in a feeble attempt to increase page ranking. This was a step too far for Google.

Quality Content

Order had to be restored and now the emphasis is on quality content and that means quality articles. A quality article has to be totally unique, has to be informative or enlightening, entertaining or educational. Otherwise, what’s the point?

When it was easy to write an article and submit it to numerous directories, anyone could come along and copy it, in its entirety, and use the article as content on their own website. This was a valuable form of viral marketing for the author and free content for the host, but this duplicated content soon became a hindrance for search. Can you imagine searching for say, “diabetes control” and getting half a dozen websites show up each with the same article? Not good as far as Google was concerned.

What Google Wants

Google is in the business of providing its search clients, that’s you and me and everyone else who uses their search engine, with quality search results. That’s what you would expect and that’s Google’s main goal, well apart from making obscene amounts of mullah in the process. So duplicate articles, spun and rehashed articles and all manner of variations became toxic to websites. And so the scramble for unique quality articles began in earnest. As a copywriter, this was and still is, good for me, but you guys out there should know that it’s also good for you.

If you can continuously add unique quality articles to your site then you will knock your competition for six. So look at the whole content and article thing as an investment in your online business. Now, want to get more from your articles? Of course you do, but with article directories being nuked out of existence what is the best possible way to make them work for you? Simple…

Create An Article Directory

Just put your articles on your own website via new web pages. The idea is to create an article directory of your own, which is linked to a separate web page. From this web page, which would be named something simple like “articles” or “article directory” you will create links to separate pages for each article and optimise these pages for the search engines.

Okay so nobody else can use them, but that’s the whole point. They will become like liquid gold to your website. Done properly each article could become a gateway into your website, funnelling traffic, and ultimately bringing many valuable paying customers… now, in the future and forever!

So, article marketing is not dead, it has just evolved.

For quality articles with a sprinkling of essential SEO dust, contact me today.