Generate Traffic, Leads and Sales With Video
If you want to build a profitable online business you need to generate lots of traffic to your website then convert that traffic into buyers. There are many ways to attract website visitors however writing articles is one of the most effective methods.
Before you sit down to write an article there are 2 important things you must satisfy to make it effective.
1. Readers
If a person values the content you write they’ll want to pass it on to their friends by linking to it or using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
2. Search engines
If you include the right keywords in your content people will find your articles in the search engines. This is free traffic that flows continuously to your website.
How to Write Effective Articles to Generate Website Traffic
Since the year 2000 I’ve been using article marketing for traffic generation by getting lots of backlinks and gaining high search engine rankings. Since the Google Farmer Update article marketing has evolved but not died.
The old way of article marketing
In the early days of article marketing you could simply submit your article to a number of article directories and many website owners and ezine publishers would republish your article. This would generate lots of traffic and backlinks back to your site because the search engines would reward you with high rankings. After the Google Farmer Update sites containing duplicate or low quality content got downgraded. For instance Ezinearticles (one of the top article directories on the Web) lost a lot of its traffic because many of their articles contained thin content.
The new way of article marketing
In my last article I discussed the top 7 ways how to get referrals fast. Perhaps your current system for generating referrals is not working well enough to pay the bills. Many times small business owners get busy with new clients then cut down or forget to promote their products or services. Suddenly they have no work after completing the project they’ve been working on leading to anxiety and frustration. Solo entrepreneurs and business owners can’t afford a marketing team so they have to promote their business themselves. One of the ways to get more referrals is to evaluate what is already working then ramp it up.
Example
Article marketing has become one of the top ways to get new referrals for my web design business. When I stop writing and publishing articles the amount of business I receive declines. In order to get more referrals I simply ramp up my article marketing efforts.
What is article marketing?
What’s the point of creating content if only a few people read it?
How do you maximize your audience?
How can you distribute content quickly and easily?
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in article marketing is writing one article and simply placing it on your blog or website. This may be fine if you already have a popular blog and a lot of loyal people who visit it. Most blogs don’t attract much traffic therefore your article won’t be read by many people.
What’s the point of creating great content if only a few people read it?
Content distribution: How do you maximize your audience?
If you want your content to consistently get good rankings in the search engines you need to be aware of the constant changes Google makes to their ranking formulas. The Google Farmer update affected a lot of websites containing thin content. This is content that was copied or scraped from other sites and used on their own site. Websites containing original unique content weren’t affected much.
Let’s look at how Google ranks web pages
Google is constantly improving their algorithm so people will receive the most targeted information based on the keywords they enter into the search box. Many times the results have little relevance and you conclude it was a waste of your valuable time. The reason you receive low quality content is because many marketers try to game the system by writing one article then driving 100s of links to it to gain high rankings. A well written article with no links may not even rank even though it would be the best content for the reader.
Recently Google upgraded their algorithm causing many article directories to lose their credibility. Read Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality
How does this affect you?
Beware If you’ve been using software to create and submit 1000s of articles from the same article. Low quality content will be penalized (your rankings will disappear or be lowered).
Beware if you’ve been scraping or copying content from other sites and using it as your own. Google will reward content that is unique, original and well written.
What can you do about it?
Make it a habit to write your own articles on a consistent basis then add them to your own website or blog first. If you want to publish them elsewhere rewrite the article so you’ll produce another unique one with it’s own title and resource box.
Top 7 Alternatives To Article Directory Submission
If you’re using article marketing to market your website you’re probably concerned about duplicate content. This is content that is copied, scraped or paraphrased from another article (either your own or someone else) then published on article directories, websites, newsletters, etc.. Some of the top article directories don’t accept content that is not unique or original (where you are not the original author).
How Does Google View Duplicate Content
Google upgraded their algorithim recently to detect “content spam.” This refers to content that has been scraped or copied from other sites to use on your own site rather than creating original content. Many times websites containing low quality content ranks higher than sites containing high quality unique content. Searches get frustrated when the top search engine results display spammy web pages. Google wants to downgrade “content spam” and only display relevant web pages.
What is webspam?
According to Google:
“Webspam is junk you see in search results when websites try to cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines”
Source
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html
Google ranks sites containing original, unique content ahead of sites containing scraped or copied content.
How does this impact you?
Many websites owners continue to use article spinners to increase the number of backlinks and gain high search engine rankings. This produces low quality content for the search engines. It may work well in the short term but the chances are Google may penalize (lower your rankings) your site in the long term resulting in lost traffic and sales. Invest your time and effort into creating high quality content.
Long term benefits of creating high quality content
When I was in my 20s I sold products door-to-door for several years across the United States. In the beginning I was only making a few sales each day because I would simply tell the customer about the product then ask them to buy it. Well, this didn’t work very well because the person didn’t know me from a bar of soap, no trust was established and most folks didn’t like salesmen.
How to pre-sell your customers
