More Proof Of The Power Of Article Marketing
by Mike on June 11, 2009
in Article Marketing
Yesterday I read a great post by Leo Dimilo regarding the traffic-generating power of article directories such as EzineArticles.
I’m a big fan of article marketing for a couple of reasons:
- Its free. If you’re just starting out and you’re on a tight budget there’s no better way to drive targeted traffic to your site.
- You can use your article to pre-sell the reader on whatever product or service you’re offering. By the time they click through to your main site they’ve already been warmed up.
- If you do it right some of your articles will send you traffic for YEARS.
Awhile back I shared some of my own results from an article marketing campaign I was running for one of my small niche sites. I mentioned that one of my articles had been viewed 7169 times and had generated 4115 click-throughs to my main site.
Well I just checked my stats and in the 18 months it has been live it has now been read 14729 times and generated 7753 click-throughs to my site. And that is all completely free, 100% natural search engine traffic.
Want an even more impressive example? While checking out some competitor articles in that niche I found an EZA article that has been viewed an astounding 1.7 MILLION times!
I did a little reverse engineering via Yahoo’s site explorer and found the article listed in lots of blogrolls, web site footers, and other purchased link spots. Its obvious he’s buying up links and pointing them at the article to give it a boost in the search engines.
And oh boy is it working! I’m finding that article at or near the top spot for one keyword phrase after another.
That is one marketer who obviously knows what he is doing.
I have done my fair share of article marketing and I have to agree that it works well. That CTR of almost 50% is amazing by the way!
As far as link buying goes, while Google frowns upon it, many people are doing it anyway and rocketing themselves to the top of the SERPs. The only thing they’re risking is having that article de-listed. I guess it’s better than putting your actual website on the line though.
Actually, if you look at a few of the top articles in competitive niches, you’ll find that several have very solid backlinks. Either these people own those sites, or they are buying links. For an average person who wants to play by the rules, this can be tough to compete against.
But, 1.7 million views - wow! That is some serious traffic and income.
Steven
I’m also a huge fan of article marketing and it brings me a lot of visitors. Just like the guy you referred to I’ll also do some linkbuilding to my articles but why he would do as much as you say for the sake of an article I don’t get. I would much rather have my own site rank for that term instead.
Mikael
Mikael @ Retire Early´s last blog ..The Steps Needed for an Adsense Website
Wow, those numbers are absolutely incredible! I have heard of Ezines but I thought it would be a mistake to ‘give away’ content. I guess what you’re saying is that it’s worth it to write for them, because you may get traffic for years after the fact. Plus I bet the click through traffic is high quality too. Thanks — I’m going to go check out the site after I finish reading yours.
Whats the main keyword in the article, because from a SEO point of view that should come first, or at less somewhere near the beginning.
I agree that article marketing is currently one of the best free internet marketing strategies. You can build up so many links with articles and you can usually choose your link anchor text. It does take some skill to get an article viewed 1.7 million times though.
I feel that the better way to use the time you spend on writing articles would be to guest post. This way you reach new userbase and still get some backlinks.
Stancje Wroclaw´s last blog ..Wroc?aw 10.07.2009: Mam do wynaj?cia
Wow.. I wish I was getting that type of click through from Ezine. I am embarassed to say my ctr is like 1 or 2 percent. I use EZA for backlinks versus traffic at this point.
Tycoon Blogger´s last blog ..Promote your blog with a little help from your friends
Hey Tycoon, EZA is also good for link-building purposes but I think you’re really missing out on the traffic aspect. The key to a good click-through rate is a clear call to action and bait. Maybe i’ll write up a post on it.