Tag Archive for 'strategy'

Duplicate content in article marketing

Published at 20 December 2009 in Blog promotion. 11 Comments

Article marketing is a great way to promote your sites: for every article you submit to an article directory, you typically get to place two or three links back to your own site(s), using anchor text of your choice. This results in link juice and referral traffic from the directory, and also any third party sites who pick up the article and republish it. However, many internet marketers are confused about the issue of duplicate content and what it means in practical terms for their submissions.

Basically, search engines are not too keen on returning listings with multiple copies of the same content, and not surprisingly, since this does not provide web searchers with a good user experience. So they tend to try and identify one copy of an article as the original, or preferred version, and devalue the rest in the listings. That doesn’t necessarily mean the other copies will not be listed at all, but just that they will appear lower down the rankings.

A common question that gets asked by article marketers is: is it OK to submit that same article to more than one directory? Personally I don’t see a problem with it – even if the versions that are identified as duplicates are suppressed in the search engine listings, there’s still a chance of getting referral traffic from the directories themselves, as well as any third-party reprints, and as long as they are not de-indexed completely by the search engines, you should still get the additional SEO benefits too.

Also, don’t forget that a large part of the article marketing strategy relies on your content being picked up and republished by website and ezine owners – so you’re going to have duplicate content “issues” anyway. And even if the worst happens and only one copy ends up in the search engine index, you haven’t lost anything. So there’s really no point in holding back – get your articles published as widely as possible to maximise the benefits that you may get from them!

The truth about article marketing

Published at 13 December 2009 in Blog promotion. 10 Comments

Article marketing is a well established and effective method for promoting a website because it’s an easy way of garnering traffic and backlinks. Here’s how it works:

  1. You write an original article on a topic you know something about
  2. You submit it to one or more article directories
  3. In return for your quality content, the directory allows you to place one or more links back to a site or sites of your choice
  4. By submitting your article, you make it available for reprint by website and ezine owners seeking fresh content
  5. Each time your article is republished, so are your links, resulting in a multiplication of backlinks over time – and we all know that this results in more traffic for your site, both via direct clicks on your links and via increased search engine rankings.

Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work!

In reality when people republish your article they often either remove your links entirely or make them nofollow, thus negating most of their value to you. Or at least that’s my experience, but I suspect I’m not alone in this. When this happens, your first thought might be to complain to the article directory and expect them to do something about it, but you will not get anywhere with this – the article directories’ terms of service almost always state that it’s your responsibility to follow up any violations of your copyright.

So what can you do? Well, you could simply stop submitting content to article directories, but this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. And remember, there’s nothing to stop other site owners from illegally using your content even if you only publish on your own site, so whilst this approach may limit your exposure it doesn’t solve the problem.

Alternatively you could be vigilant and make it your business to follow up every infringement, first demanding that the relevent site takes the content down, and if that doesn’t work, by filing a complaint with their hosting service. Before embarking on this approach, make sure you understand the cost to your business in time and lost productivity, and also the emotional and psychological cost to yourself.

Or you could do what I do and simply accept that the practice will continue, but not let that detract from the benefits that article marketing will bring regardless. This doesn’t condone the wrongful use of your content, it’s simply an acknowledgement that we don’t live in a perfect world but we carry on anyway.

Strategic commenting, part 2

Published at 2 October 2008 in Blog promotion. 59 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I outlined my strategy for strategic commenting – go ahead and read it if you haven’t already – the key for me is building relationships with other bloggers. Taking over the world one blog at a time, if you want.

But with any strategy, even a good one, there’s normally room for improvement, so while last time I spoke about my philosophy of commenting, today I’d like to mention a couple of tactical tips you can apply to maximise the benefits of your comments to your blog’s authority and traffic. They’re actually closely related – I’ll give you a little hint: neither involves nofollow links…
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Strategic commenting

Published at 9 September 2008 in Blog promotion. 15 Comments

Blogging is at least as much about building your network of relationships as it is about producing great content. Of course quality content is a necessity – without it no amount of marketing will get you very far. But it’s not sufficient by itself, not when there are literally hundreds or thousands of other blogs competing for the same audience as you.

blog commenting strategy
Image courtesy of pshutterbug

Now, one of the most common techniques for gaining exposure and building traffic is commenting on other blogs. Nothing new there – you’ve probably heard the same advice plenty of times already. But today I’d like to examine this in a little more detail, to maximise the benefits to you and your blog.

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What’s your blogging exit strategy?

Published at 3 September 2008 in Blogging. Closed

So you’ve started your blog for whatever reason. You may have been going for awhile, or only started recently. Either way, have you considered your exit strategy?

It may sound like a strange thing to think about if you’ve only just begun blogging; chances are you’re far more concerned about where your next hit is going to come from (for your site, I mean ;-) ). But the fact is, most of us are not going to be blogging until the day we die, so what are the choices for a graceful exit?

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