“It’s a Content & Big G game”. A cryptic phrase for beginners, but stick with me here…
For a long time now article marketing has been a great way to build traffic to websites.
How does article marketing work?
Like this: Website owners or webmasters simply single out words and phrases related to a specific website or topic, write articles containing these words and phrases, add back links to the website being promoted, and then submit the articles to tons of article directory sites.
These are the sites which will take your articles and publish them on the web – while providing readers an opportunity to use your content and spread your expertise…
Rinse and repeat. Over and over – watching web traffic and search engine page rank climb. What could be more simple and effective!
Then… came the Panda slap.
“Panda” is the name given to Google’s latest major algorithm change – and it packed quite a Big Bear Punch. (For those of you who don’t know – Google uses secret mathematical algorithms to determine where websites appear on its pages when someone searches for a specific word or phrase).
The intent coupled with the major change (according to Big G) was to help searchers more easily find what they are looking for: high quality content related to a search term. Unfortunately in the end, article directories (and quite a number of websites) took a big punch in the gut when the change was rolled out.
I’m not going to go deep into article marketing here. Most of us already know how important this tactic has been for online marketers.
But what you may not know is that the major article players have tightened up submission requirements for article submissions big time. Sorry to say that a lot of articles which would have been published before are simply are not going to get published NOW.
Many of you (my readers and subscribers) are absolute beginners in creating online content, and maybe you have only just started working on methods to promote your website.
You either don’t know what SEO is all about (yet!), why it is so important – or you don’t know how to implement it.
Should you even bother to use article marketing as a promotional tool? Is it worth the effort?
I think so. It just won’t be easy anymore.
If you have the time, and if you can write exceptional articles with great content, here are 5 article directories you should be setting your sights on:
My suggestion is to visit each site and carefully read their submission requirements. I repeat: it will not be easy to get your articles published in these directories.
But let us not forget that if they do get published you’ve just promoted your website to thousands of people for FREE!
In the meantime remember: it’s a Content & Big G game.
Google is always changing its algorithm. Always. That’s just the way it is.