Traditionally, article marketing was used by professionals to gain exposure for their business in newspapers and other, predominantly print, media. The business would provide a timely article and if the newspaper published it, they would include the business’s name and contact information. Sounds like a win/win. The newspaper got free content and the business got free publicity.
Nowadays, however, article marketing is ‘internet article marketing’. It’s still used by authors to showcase their expertise through their articles. The difference is that the goal is to drive traffic to their website where readers can review more articles and blogs to further establish the author as a subject matter expert.
What are Article Directories?
Article directories are websites that allow users to post articles on a variety of topics for free.
There are a great many online article directories you can submit your content to. How well your articles are received, especially by search engines, often depends on content. Search engines really don’t like duplicate content. If you’re going to use article marketing, your content needs to be original.
Article directories make content available to other sites to use without cost. Although you might feel you are giving away your content for free, the goal is really to increase your exposure and increase your Google ranking. If your article causes readers to link to your website, so much the better. You’ll have more opportunities to show off your expertise through your more detailed and informative blogs.
Show Off Your Expertise
Another benefit is that having an article picked up and published by others validates your expertise. Once again, readers are driven to your website to learn more.
There are bragging rights too. When you can honestly say you have published X number of articles, your credibility certainly takes a leap forward. We all know that part of successful marketing is definitely creating the trust factor.
Should You Use Article Marketing?
Should article marketing be part of your overall marketing strategy? It should definitely be considered. Certainly, article marketing is up there with social media marketing and email marketing. Each has distinct advantages and downsides. As with all marketing, there are costs associated with article marketing – the most obvious being your time. Unless you are comfortable writing and have the time, you might want to consider outsourcing the task of writing articles and publishing them.
Make It Happen Services can help you evaluate whether article marketing should be part of your strategy.