A Quick and Easy Guide to Article Syndication
Thursday, January 18th, 2007Article syndication is not about writing a substandard article, paying a distribution service to spam several hundred article directories; and then driving the user to a horrible customer experience; usually a poorly designed website bombarded with Google Adsense.
A successful article syndication campaign involves writing an article that educates and informs readers about a particular topic. In other words, it has value; it’s well written with no grammatical errors, and persuades readers to take action. It also involves submitting the article to several websites and article directories such as Buzzle, Associated Conent, Ezine Articles, WebProNews, SiteProNews, Goarticles to name a few.
If the article does provide value to its readers, I can guarantee that it will get syndicated (or republished) across the web on several websites, blogs, forums and opt-in newsletters; and in some cases it will create a viral market effect that will yield great results for your web traffic.
A little history about Article Syndication
Article syndication is not only an effective marketing technique to expand the online presence of any small business; but it also contributes to the number of back links (or one way links) to your website which is essential for ranking in Google. The more websites that republish your article, the more back links your site will receive.
The evolution of article syndication has derived from a well-known online marketing strategy called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a practice where a website is optimized with keywords and published online in an effort to increase the search engine rankings.
Research
Prior to writing the article, keyword research should be the first step in any article syndication campaign. It’s good practice to add the keywords that you want to rank for throughout your article. For example, if you sell dog food online, it would be wise to sprinkle ‘dog food’ related keywords throughout your article; as well as the article title. However, it should be done carefully, keeping in mind that you are writing to a person and not a search engine. In other words, don’t over do it.
Writing the article
It would be an unwise decision to just slap together paragraphs of useless information and call it an article. You would be laughed at, mocked, stoned; and your article will get absolutely NO exposure. With all joking aside, your article needs to be well written, provide value to its readers and follow the basic rules of grammar.
The primary goal when writing the article is to take an objective approach and educate your target consumer about your industry and/or expertise. The article should not be a sales pitch, an advertisement or review of your product/service. In fact, many websites will not accept articles written promoting a specific product.
A second critical component of article syndication is the distribution of a website’s URL, commonly referred to as back link. Most article directories allow for an author resource box where links can be easily placed. Publishing a website’s address at the end of articles will allow interested readers to conveniently visit the site by clicking on that link. Here is an example of what would appear at the end of the article:
Click here more information on dog food related products and services.
Distributing the article
This is the critical component of article syndication that takes a considerable amount of time. It is good practice to manually submit your article to each directory; as most directories have banned article distribution via automated software. By using automated software, there is less control of the article and the article resource box as explained earlier. However, if you do it manually, you can vary the anchor text which will help you rank for more than just one term. Lastly, don’t bother wasting your time by distributing your article to every directory on the Internet; because there is always a new one launching every day. Instead, be picky and choose wisely about which directory you want to house your article.
The benefits of article syndication
Article syndication does more than simply reinforce your brand and expertise across the Internet. Unlike traditional marketing, it actually presents a unique opportunity to educate, inform and persuade your target consumer group in an effort to build long term, profitable relationships with them. Paid advertising usually loses impact and relevance over time. But a well written, quality article will continue to be syndicated across the web; and thus, trigger a viral marketing effect that can possibly last for months at a time. The following are additional benefits you can expect from article syndication:
- Relevant One Way links - article syndication provides one way links from websites that are categorized within an article directory according to its topic such as marketing, technology, society, education, etc.
- Viral Marketing and website traffic - most article directories allow other webmasters to reprint (hence, the term syndication) any articles from their directory. Although you probably won’t receive a ton of traffic from the directory itself; you will see a mass influx of website visitors from sites that syndicate your article.
- Mindshare and market share - a random visitor to your website is just that…a random visitor; but someone who has read an article and clicked through to your website can be considered a highly qualified visitor who has been partly sold on your value proposition. Meanwhile, even readers who do not click through have been exposed to your message which can reinforce your long term brand effectiveness. And, of course the more visitors you can convert into customers, the more market share you can sustain, or gain.
The conclusion, well not really
No need for a lengthy conclusion here. Adopting article syndication as an element in your overall marketing mix is simply a no brainer.
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