Articles > E-Marketing, Network Marketing or Internet Marketing
by: Priya Shah
Article marketing is the latest buzzword for marketers looking
to promote their sites and products online. But how do you
measure the success of your article marketing campaign?
It probably depends on what you expect your article to achieve
for you - better branding, more sales, or more publicity.
One way to measure article performance is to check how many
times your article has been picked up and reproduced on various
sites.
To do that, just copy and paste the article title in quotes into
a search engine like Google, and you'll see how many sites it's
been reprinted on.
My article "How To Get To The Top Of The Marketing Food Chain"
shows 1061 links in Google.
http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/articles/priyashah16.htm
That means Google has indexed 1061 sites on which this article
appears.
http://www.google.com/search?&btnG=Google+Search
This gives me about 1061 quality links to each of the sites I
included in my resource box.
As you can see, this makes article marketing a very powerful way
of building quality links.
So how do you ensure that your article gets picked up and
reprinted by as many publishers as possible?
1. Pick A Topic That's Hot Or Always Fresh
For instance, my article on Neuromarketing got picked up pretty
quickly because it was a hot topic.
http://marketingslave.com/2005/06/01/neuromarketing-smart-marketing-or-jedi-mind-control-trick/
The problem with hot topics is that they also tend to cool off
quickly. So while they may get a lot of reprints over a short
time, they may get very few reprints once the craze is over.
There are some articles that are slow starters but eternally
fresh, like the one I wrote here.
To Be A Champion, Become A Child
http://www.growmymind.com/positive-attitudes/be-a-champion.htm
(591 links in Google)
These are the ones that will give you reprints over a longer
period of time. I think in the long run, these are more
valuable.
2. Target A Large Audience
Another way to get a lot of coverage is write an article for a
large target audience or one that is very active online - like
bloggers.
This article gave me 164 links back, mostly from other blogs,
even some for which I had to use a translation service :-)
http://www.blog-maniac.com/blog-burnout.htm
This shows 248 links back
http://www.blog-maniac.com/questions-business-blog.htm
316 links for this one
http://www.blog-maniac.com/spam-blogging.htm
But again, it’s the quality of links back that matters - not the
quantity.
Another large target audience is the health market. I get a lot
of links back from my health articles.
3. Craft A Catchy, Relevant Title
A catchy title ensures that your article gets the attention of
publishers - the first step to getting your article published.
Follow the basic rules of copywriting to make your article
interesting and readable.
Publishers are more likely to pick up an article if its title
includes the keywords that they (and you) want to target.
Use your main keywords in your title, preferable in the first
half (like I did in the title of this article), to ensure better
rankings for those who reprint it.
4. Offer Publishers A Monetary Incentive
Give people an incentive to publish your article. I have an
affiliate program and I allow publishers to use their affiliate
link for my ezine in the resource box.
Allow publishers to earn by publishing your article and they
will gladly reprint it.
5. Write An Article Series
Break up a long article or report into a series of articles like
I did with my "Marketing With Blogs" series here.
Marketing With Blogs - Part 1, 2, 3 and 4
http://www.blog-maniac.com/marketing-with-blogs1.htm
http://www.blog-maniac.com/marketing-with-blogs2.htm
http://www.blog-maniac.com/marketing-with-blogs3.htm
http://www.blog-maniac.com/marketing-with-blogs4.htm
These gave me 5270 links back in all. As you can see, a series
of articles can be a very powerful link-building technique.
6. Distribute Your Article Widely
Ensure that your article is distributed to the best and most
appropriate article directories and announcement lists online.
Feel free to browse through my own collection of article
directories and announcement lists
http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/write-articles/submit-articles.htm
About the author:
Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360. She writes the Marketing
Slave blog and publishes an internet marketing newsletter.
