Article Marketing - A White Paper
Rating  ( 2 Votes)
By Guna
Posted on : 8/25/2009
1059 
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A case study on Article Marketing and its effectiveness in SEO
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Ever since I had visited the SEO Chat Forum, I was disturbed by the discussions there by the senior boarders. The senior members there continuously posted on how useless article submissions and it was approved by several fellow members creating an illusion that Article marketing is dead. I doubt if anyone new to SEO who had visited the forums will ever think of article submission as an option to promote their website. It not only was annoying but also made us(article marketing companies) look like fooling clients and ripping them off. I decided to do a complete research on the effectiveness of article marketing.
1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this white paper was to expose the effectiveness of article marketing as a SEO strategy. The study is aimed at the direct and indirect benefits of article marketing.
1.2 Scope
The scope of the study is not limited to article directories alone but to find out the seo effect of the articles syndicated to related blogs and websites through the article directories. Many of us do not consider the syndication part which I believe is more rewarding than publishing the article directory itself.
1.3 Method
We used pure white hat techniques in submitting the articles. No automation tools were used and the submission was done manually according to the submission guidelines.
1.4 Assumptions
We assume that the articles are written for readers and not for search engines. They are assumed to be unique, well researched and wrote with good English.While calculating the ROI. It is safe to assume that the cost of an article to be written and submitted to the top 10 directories will cost $14. This cost includes any follow up on ezinearticles.com and getting it approved there before submitting to other directories.
1.5 Limitations
It is practically impossible to find out all the places where the article(s) are syndicated and the statistics of every published article. The actual figures are much more higher than the numbers I have provided. I have considered the article links which are indexed by search engines.
1.6 Background
Submitinme.com is the first Indian Company to offer manual Article Submission services in 2005 and we serve over 1000 clients offering article marketing services. We have several clients for whom we write and submit more than 100 articles a month consistently for years. Our existing clients are very happy with the article submissions, but repeated false alarms on Article marketing have had a bad effect on new clients. Even some of the SEO's have started talking ill of the article submissions. This study is conducted by submitinme.com to publish the importance of article submissions in website promotion.
2 Findings
2.1 Ezinearticles.com
To start with, ezinearticles.com is the industry leader and they offer very detailed statistics. We decided to check the statistics of a client for whom we had submitted 200 articles. All the articles were unique and approved by ezinearticles. The articles were on different subjects submitted under various pen names. Here is the statistics
Article(s) Views: 387,845
Profile Views: 4,055
Articles Published: 3,225
URL Clicks: 56,486
Emailed: 31
Comments: 13
Votes: 122
Subscribers: 2
Live Articles: 199
The Author Name and Pen Names are not shown for privacy reasons.
The above figures above indicate the entire statistics of the 200 articles at at ezinearticles.com. Due to the non availability of detailed statistics at other article directories we decided to track a popular art
Let us take this sample article http://ezinearticles.com/?All-You-Need-to-Know-about-Hair-Follicle-Drug-Testing&id=239008
This article had
96978 views
17578 url clicks at ezinearticles.com.
Here is the year on year statistics for the sample article. Although this article was submitted in 2006, the statistics are available from 2007 only
2007
2008
2009
2.2 Other Article Directories with statistics
( Click on the urls to see the listed article. Since the urls are very lengthy I have linked the articles from the Article directory)
http://searchwarp.com
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.article-hut.com
http://www.amazines.com
http://www.articlerich.com
http://www.articlesphere.com
http://www.acmearticles.com
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.articlecrash.com
http://www.bigarticle.com
http://www.articleslash.net
http://www.o-ip.net
http://www.globoarticles.info
2.3 Other Article Directories without statistics
http://www.articlelistnetwork.com
http://www.mammotharticles.com
http://www.easyarticles.com
http://www.article99.com
http://www.a1articles.com
http://www.easyabout.com
http://www.search-article.co.uk
2.4 Blogs and websites with back links
http://healthdrugtesting.blogspot.com
http://cellulite.the-digest.com
http://cokedrugtest.com
http://www.howtoadvice.com
http://www.kokkada.com
http://www.anetonline.org
http://www.ws-yemen.org
2.4 Blogs and websites without back links
http://drugtestingatoz.com
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.chasteknife.com
http://www.cosnano.com
http://erythemagroup.com
http://www.spriteweblistings.com
http://www.few-good-sites.com
http://wikipedio.blogspot.com
http://zigire.com/
2.5 Google Search for Article title (Unique sites with the article)
http://ezinearticles.com
http://www.meditests.com
http://searchwarp.com
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://drugtestingatoz.com
http://www.o-ip.net
http://www.chasteknife.com
http://healthdrugtesting.blogspot.com
http://www.drugtestfact.com
http://dr-tests.com
http://cellulite.the-digest.com
http://www.articlesphere.com
http://mobi.article99.com
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.articlelistnetwork.com
http://www.cosnano.com
http://www.articleslash.net
http://www.mammotharticles.com
http://cokedrugtest.com/
2.6 Yahoo Search for Article title ( Unique sites with the article and not in google results)
http://www.howtoadvice.com
http://www.easyarticles.com
http://www.article99.com
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.kokkada.com
http://www.globoarticles.info
http://erythemagroup.com
http://www.spriteweblistings.com
http://www.acmearticles.com
http://www.a1articles.com
http://www.article-hut.com
http://www.anetonline.org
http://www.easyabout.com
http://agencemaxpro.com
http://aaronmannes.com
http://www.search-article.co.uk
http://www.bahai-firesides.org
http://stradimarius.ca
http://hair-drug-test-accuracy.lejouyr.tv
http://folical-hair-drug-test.ipooikl.tv
http://what-can-a-hair-folical-drug-test.zuesrtop.tv
http://www.searcharticles.in
http://www.ezarticlelist.com
http://www.few-good-sites.com
http://www.bigarticle.com
http://heroin-hair-follicle-drug-test.e3ictest.us
2.7 Bing Search for Article title ( Unique sites with the article and not in google, yahoo results)
http://answers.yahoo.com
http://www.tips.com
http://norml.drugsense.org
http://articles.getacoder.com
http://www.wellsphere.com
http://crackreality.com
http://www.scribd.com
http://www.articlecrash.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://wikipedio.blogspot.com
http://www.articlerich.com
http://www.ws-yemen.org
http://www.articlemailbox.com
http://zigire.com
http://articles.whmsoft.com
3 Discussion
3.1 Ezinearticles.com
This study shows that Ezinearticles is the industry leader, way ahead of any other article directory with 387845 views and still counting for the 199 published articles. The articles at ezinearticles.com receive an average of 15000 visits a month with 2500 clicks per month to the website(s). At an average cost of click at 35-50 cents the ROI is massive. ezinearticles.com accounts to $1300-1500 worth of clicks every month and a total of about $8000 from the 199 articles. This is exclusive of a considerable number of clicks made from the profiles. Adding to that the articles are syndicated to more than 3500 places with links which accounts for the authority back links and seo advantage not to mention the clicks from the syndicated sites.
3.2 Other Article Directories
It is not possible to get an accurate statistics for the sample article as most of the directories do not have a statistics feature. From the article directories which have provided the statistics, the sampel article has 1750 views. The article page in some of these article directories have gained a PR. There is a total of 22 directories which have published the articles which are
- from different ip address
- do follow
- Crawled and indexed by Google/Yahoo/Bing
- have links back to website
- Syndicate content to website and blogs through RSS
3.2 Syndicated blogs and Websites
There are 19 related blogs and websites where the article is published and which are
- related to the industry
- from different ip address
- do follow
- Crawled and indexed by Google/Yahoo/Bing
- Coming up in the SERP's for related searches
4 Conclusion
It is obvious from the reports that the ROI from article marketing is way ahead of any other seo or Internet marketing strategies. Potentially the $14 spent on an ezinearticles approved article (writing and submission) and secondary submission to other directories will possibly bring in more than 900% returns in a couple of years. The articles should be well researcheds and written according to guidelines of ezinearticles.com. It should be submitted first to ezinearticles, get it approved and then to other directories for maximum advantage. Ezinearticles not only is indexed in google and major search engines but also syndicate the articles to various blogs and websites through feeds which provides major SEO advantage through backlinks from related sources. Also the syndicated articles drive indirect traffic to the website and as they are in different ip addresses it is considered as a very important feature.
For the sample article taken for study there is 96978 views 17578 from ezinearticles while there is only about 2000 views from all other directories put together. (the ones which have the statistics). Considering the effort taken for the submission in the other directories still the ROI is very good as you get links from different ip addresses with considerable traffic to website.
To conclude the study, It is obvious from the reports that Article Submission, if done properly is the best SEO and Internet marketing strategy. Contrary to some of the SEO's who claim to be industry leaders and opposed to Article Marketing, this report exposes the advantage and importance of Article Marketing. It is certain that Article Marketing provides the best ROI, breaking even in a couple of months and then its a duck which lays golden eggs forever.
5 Recommendations and implementation
- Write articles for readers and do not promote your website in the article directly or indirectly
- DO a thorough research before you start writing.
- use proper English and Grammar.
- Stick to Ezinearticle.com guidelines and make sure you write a lengthy article of about 450-550 words though ezinearticles.com accept 350 word article.
- Do not use excessive keywords
- Submit manually and never use automated tools.
- Submit to Ezinearticles.com first and get it approved
- Once you get the article approved, submit to other article directories.
- Hire the best submission company with writers who have knowledge in the theme of your website and can submit the articles manually following the submission guidelines.
References
www.submitinme.com
www.ezinearticles.com
All other article directories and Google.com
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About the author:
Guna has 7+ years experience in search engine optimization and marketing. He has extensively researched and experimented several SEO strategies time to time. Currently he works as the administrator of http://www.submitinme.com
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