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Articles |
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Writing Articles as Linking Strategy |
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by Mike Banks Valentine copyright
© 2003
It
is extremely effective to write articles for distribution.
This is the method that has brought more traffic and
more sales for Search
Engine Optimism than any other technique. It always
leads to ezine subscriptions, which then lead to more
sales, more and better advertising in my own list and more exposure. It is a self-feeding loop that
grows your business non-stop.
If I were to stop writing articles and submitting them
to other publishers, my advertising costs would skyrocket
in order to maintain the same exposure and visibility
for Search Engine Optimism. Having articles accepted
by large circulation ezines and published on high traffic
web sites is of far more value than having an ad appear
below the article. Subscribers of ezines may look at
those ads, but they are reading the articles far more
often than the ads!
When you write those articles, upload them on your site
to dramatically improve your search relevance due to
high value content. Content is king when it comes to
search engines and search positioning. I've written
another article on archiving
ezines for search engine ranking.
The crux of the matter is that the publishers that use
your articles will often post them on their own web
site in their own ezine archive, which then boosts your
search relevancy even further due to the link provided
in your resource box.
There is another method rarely used by website owners
that is very effective as well -- Participation in discussion
lists targeted to your peers! It is inevitable that
each web business owner will have their own ezine because
it is such a well recognized method of establishing
a relationship with web site visitors and maintaining
a relationship with customers and clients.
Your peers are always looking for content for their
ezine, sometimes they will include an article on their
website permanently if it deals directly with an issue
of interest to their visitors! I have done the same
with topics of interest to my own visitors, I have reproduced
articles submitted by my peers on my own site just because
a particualr piece so clearly deals with matters of
importance to my site visitors. I have established article
swapping with some groups of publishers where we all
agree to run articles by each of the others in a discussion
list or professional organization.
Recently each of the members of Paul Seigel's "Learning
Fountain Network" contributed both articles and
ads to each other over several weeks to be run in the
ezines of each of the members of that organization.
It leads to a great sort of cross-pollenation of ideas
and the growth of each of our lists. Of course the main
benefit included several new members for the Learning
Fountain Network when readers of those lists dicovered
the viewpoints of the members of LFN.
Instead of placing ads meant to distract and sell, I
am writing articles meant to instruct and entertain!
They are both means to an end, but the latter establishes
rapport and respect from the readers (ideally) while
the former interrupts and often annoys us with hyperbole
and sales pitch. Obviously those who purchase products
and services based on informative articles will be far
more willing customers than those that were cajoled
and convinced by crafty headlines in advertisements.
I'll go so far as to argue that good writing is far
more important to small web businesses than good advertising
is! Would you rather read 500 words of reason or one
paragraph of exagerated claims when both serve the same
end but produce vastly differing results?
These 500 words have more to say than the 50 in a carefully
crafted classified advertisement. Want to verify that
claim? Take a look at this Google
Ego Search for Mike Banks Valentine. Try doing the
same with advertising
copy!
Now comes the part that few of your competitors will
be doing - distribute
your articles for free use in others ezines, ebooks
and web sites with the requirement that they use your
resource box at the end of the article and make links
live if used online.
Don't ever include your web address without using the
http:// as that is the thing that makes links "Clickable"
from email! Make certain there is a link to your web
site in every article resource box.
By requiring that your links be made live when your
articles are published on the web, you immediately increase
your search engine link relevance each time someone
links back to your web site. I've provided a list of
places to distribute your articles in the resources
section.
There are VERY
good software programs to help you to establish
links in appropriate categories to increase your link
relevance in the search engines. But writing
and distributing articles will build your links, (that
is outside sites linking back to yours) like no other
technique.
Get Busy writing and distributing those articles. If
you don't believe that this technique works, why do
you think there are so many articles
available from other Search Engine Pros? Because
WE KNOW IT WORKS TO INCREASE OUR SEARCH POSITION!
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Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization
specialist practicing ethical small business SEO Search
Engine Placement, Optimization, Marketing http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/
Website –http://SEOptimism.com/
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