Friday, January 22, 2010

Article Marketing For Improving Your Website Rankings

By Michael Fleischner

Article marketing has gained a great deal momentum over the last two years. This is due to the fact that many websites, not to mention website rankings, are driven by quality content. As web site owners have learned more about search engine optimization and the value of quality content, they have gravitated towards article marketing.

For anyone who is not yet using article marketing I suggest that you start today. It costs nothing to begin and can pay huge dividends. Article marketing is here for the long term. Many people I speak to about article marketing are concerned that the space is too crowded and they are late to the game. The truth is that you don't have to be concerned that others are using article marketing because it works no matter how many people use it.

Article marketing is effective because you search engines love quality content. Moreover, you are producing content that will be ranked by search engines and including a link back to your website. Content focused around specific keywords is identified by search engines to display when users search on a particular niche or topic of interest. When your article includes links back to your website, you pass value back to your site.

When you post your article on article directory websites, your content receives additional exposure and is added to related content. As your article ages you benefit from the Google page rank assigned to your article. If you included article back to your website, the value is passed back to your website.

A common mistake that is made when website owners start their article marketing campaign, is they forget to link back to their own website. Sometimes new marketers remember to insert a link to their website but the link is designed in the wrong manner. The right way to develop in bound links is by using keyword rich link text.

If you are unaware of how to produce such a link, do a Google search on create html links. You will find dozens of websites that give you the html code you need to create links in the proper way. If you do not embed your keyword in your link text, you are wasting your precious time and effort in article marketing.

After writing your articles and including links using the proper format, the next step is to distribute them on sites that have a high Google PR and are popular for article aggregation and or distribution. I used to believe that the benefit of these article distribution sites were that they served as a resource for webmasters seeking content. The truth however is that it is the sites Google PR itself that provides the value.

Many of these online article sites do not distribute content at all. In fact, the percentage of individuals copying content and pasting it on their site correctly is fairly limited. That said, if you focus on the top sites you derive most of your value from getting your articles posted on their website.

Create your articles and design them properly. Include links to your website in the author box. You can also try including links in the flow of text but this is sometimes not allowed by article websites. Keep in mind that your links should use keywords in the anchor text. Before you submit your articles, test all of your links to make sure they work properly. Then, you are off and running.

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