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What Is Article Marketing (And The HIDDEN Cost That All Content Creators Must Face) by Richard Phillips
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What Is Article Marketing (And The HIDDEN Cost That All Content Creators Must Face) |
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Education
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What is article marketing? Is it really a "free" traffic strategy, or is there a hidden cost that most don't acknowledge? What about content marketing for SEO? Is it still effective in 2012, or has it grown increasingly difficult as the online marketing landscape has evolved? In this article we are going to take a quick and easy look at understanding what article marketing "IS" exactly, and examine some of the common questions, and challenges we face today as well. Curious to know more? Continue reading as we take a closer look below! What is article marketing? Good question. In the popular parlance, article marketing refers to the process of creating content for offsite directories, rather than using that content for your own blog or website instead. What is the advantage of submitting articles to someone else's site... rather than my own? Another good question! (and one that is asked with increasing frequency these days as well) The answer is, it depends a bit on what your ultimate goal is, and how developed your existing site is. For me, the reason I still like to submit content to offsite article directories first, is that you can leverage the millions of readers these sites get on a regular basis and get YOUR content in front of these potential clients, customers or subscribers right away. This is especially effective in the higher volume categories or niches, where an article may quite literally be exposed to 10 or 20 thousand new readers over the course of a few hours, whereas on your own site, it may take days, weeks or even months to generate enough search engine trust to get a fraction of that viewership... on the very same content. Is article marketing still 100% free? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say NO, it's not. It may be free to write the articles and you shouldn't be charged by any legitimate directory to publish them either. However, your time IS money, and there is an opportunity cost associated with every traffic generation strategy as well. So while there may not be a hard cost associated with article marketing per se, and it IS in fact a great way for budget conscious marketers to get their message out, if you factor in the time it takes to create the content, you are certainly incurring a cost for doing it. (especially when you consider that if you were paying for that traffic you may be able to use that time for more profit producing activities as well) What about article marketing for SEO or back links? Is that still an effective strategy? No, it's not. As a matter of fact, today....in 2012, I never write articles with an expectation of them showing up highly in the actual search engine results at a later date. Quite simply, I want the traffic that will emanate from the directory itself, and I also hope that my content will generate social shares as well, giving me an opportunity to get exposure on Facebook or Twitter, or even one of the less talked about but very valuable social media channels like Stumble-upon. The simple truth is, the search engines are not giving nearly the same weight to articles that "live" on content directories as they did even a few years ago, and while this may change in the near future... it's NOT something that I am counting on, nor should you. The key takeaway? Creating content for syndication purposes remains a key component to my own online marketing strategy, and I've used it to generate millions of readers and subscribers over the last 3 or 4 years alone. That said, it's NOT magic, and it's really not free. Like any other "guerrilla marketing" strategy, it's about being creative, committed and consistent. If you are willing to do those 3 things, you CAN (and will) succeed with article marketing, and it's a great place to begin for folks who need instant traffic, but don't have a big budget to blow to get it! dissertation writing
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