Article Marketing - Did I Do It All Wrong?
November 24, 2009 · Print This Article
I confess that when I started writing articles and submitting them to Ezine Articles I had no idea what SEO was, no real concept of how to use keywords, didn’t know the best way to put together a bio box, didn’t care about the length of the articles, and submitted only my best work. So I guess you could say I went for quality, not quantity, and many article marketers would tell you I was doing it all wrong.
I have a little story to share with you regarding one of these articles.
Last week I was wondering why I was suddenly getting more than the usual number of opt-ins to one of my newsletters when Google Alerts told me why. One of the first articles I wrote, in April 2007, was picked up and published on a website that has a page rank of 4. Here is the fallout from that article getting published this time…
- 79 new opt-ins to my newsletter, and more still coming in
- 2 immediate sales
- 10 nice comments posted about the article (warm fuzzies for me :))
- extra $ in AdSense income
This isn’t the first time this article has been republished, but these are the best results I could track. The article is 2 1/2 years old and it blows my mind that it’s still out there and kicking! I’m probably more excited about the opt-ins than anything because they are warm, targeted subscribers, not just people fishing at a Giveaway event.
So, if I was inclined to add a moral to this story, it might be “Write quality articles because you never know who might read them, how long they will circulate with your name on them, and how much money you might make from them.”
Peggy, you are absolutely right about good, quality articles. It doesn’t matter when you have written them, if they are quality, they will be seen and possibly published.
I have a few articles on EZA that I wrote over a year ago that still get lots of visibility which leads to visitors to one of my sites, which leads to opt ins. Isn’t that the purpose?
You ARE doing something right!
Have a great one!
Hi ya Ron. Yes, that’s the purpose, although I think sometimes it gets forgotten.
If I had some spare time, I’d at least go back and change my old bio boxes. This one was “about the author” and blah, blah, blah. But despite that “error”, people still clicked thru.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Peggy
Congrats, Peggy - for all you say you did wrong, you got the most common mistake RIGHT! Most article marketers make one crucial blunder - they link to a page that doesn’t have an opt-in form on it. Why get people to your site once when you might get them there over and over again?
Keep up the great work, and keep submitting articles - in my top Traffic Tips interview with Willie Crawford, he pointed out that the results from articles skyrocket after you have 100 or so published. Seems there’s a cumulative effect that has people accepting you as an expert when they’re running into your articles all over any site, and people actually start searching specifically for articles YOU wrote!
Great post Peggy! I agree about quality. I’ve also heard that it’s all about quantity over quality which I totally disagree. I’ve come across some articles at Ezine articles (and a few other directories) that stunk and after looking at the author information and seeing all their other articles it was clear that had fallen into the ‘quantity’ trap. I’d rather read articles from an author that writes FEWER quality articles than an author that writes LOTS of crap articles!
Hi Doug,
That’s an excellent point you make about having an opt-in form so you can capture the people who come to see the website. I must have learned that before I wrote my first article.
I do have over 100 articles published, but not all for the same niche. I can see where having over 100 in one niche will certainly make you an expert!
Thanks for your insights,
Peggy
Hi Tishia,
Thanks for chiming in on quality vs. quantity. I wonder if those who go the quanity route are actually seeing a big boost in their opt-in numbers or their IM income?
Thanks,
Peggy
Good for you Peggy… it’s nice to hear your story about article
marketing long time success… I want to ask you about this:
“Last week I was wondering why I was suddenly getting more than the usual number of opt-ins to one of my newsletters when Google Alerts told me why”
Do you mind sharing what or how you had that set up in Google
Alerts?
I enjoyed your 2010 post of today and just wandered on down thry
more of your posts… I’ll have to come back here more often!
Fran
Hi Fran!
Using Google Alerts is like spying on who’s talking about you. heheh
http://google.com/alerts
Simply type in your search terms. I put in all my websites. Sometimes I’ll put in a term that I’m doing a project on just to see what other people are doing with it. You can stop them at any time. You’ll get notifications in the form of emails of sites that have your search terms. Then you can click on the links they give you to read what’s up on that site. I do have my name in there too, but it’s pretty annoying because I get hits for anything with my first name and my last name, but not necessarily together.
You can get the notifications as they happen, once a day, or once a week.
Thanks for reading the blog, Fran. And do come back more often.
Peggy