The Future Of Article Marketing - What 2011 and 2012 Reserves For Article Marketing

Before I get into the future of article marketing, let me first talk about the past history of article marketing. In fact, let me go back even further. Over the last few years, as the internet has made many people millions of dollars each, people have tried to find easier and better ways of making that money. For example, when email marketing became popular, people began to abuse email marketing, sending millions of unsolicited emails daily, raking in large fortunes doing so. Now it is practically impossible to do that, and it is even more difficult to be an honest email marketer.

Next came advertising – when pop up and then pop under ads came out, many people made fortunes advertising using them, then they became overused and their effectiveness fell apart. The same thing has happened with the pay per click programs – my opinion on those right now is that the people making the most money with ppc programs are the ones who are selling templates for web sites!

Another area of incredible profits over the years has been search engine marketing – taking different measures to get your web site into the top ten for a particular keyword. The search engines have done an incredibly effective job of eliminating junk and computer generated content from the top ten results.

Now, people online are often looking for good, original content, since they cannot computer generate it and make it pass for search engine worthy content. Enter article marketing. Many web sites are willing to take your content, personally written by you, and use it as content for their web sites. Because this was an incredibly easy way to get around the content problem, article directories popped up like crazy over the years, with their peak proliferation in 2006. Literally hundreds of article directories popped up, trying to get people to submit content to them.

The result of that has been interesting. Most of the web sites that were created for that purpose, are in my opinion, only good for creating multiple back links to your own web sites. Of course, since that is highly important, the web sites continue to grow with original content. But what has happened is that a few article directories have kind of risen to the top of the article directory chain, achieving pageranks of 6 or 7, creating an interesting place in terms of search engine optimization techniques, and an easy way to get your own url listed on a pr 6 or 7 page. Even more important than that, I think, the opportunity to have your personal content on the top ten pages of search engines, due to the page ranks of the directories to which you submit. This means that, without any optimization on your own web pages, you can achieve top ten rankings for your own content, and of course you have links back to your own web page on each of these article pages.

Now, why do I think that this is so interesting for 2011 and 2012?  Because the article directories that have page rank 6 and 7 are somewhat careful about the content on their web pages.  What this means is that the only way for someone to play in this game is to write their own great content.  That means that you are on equal ground with everyone else out there, except perhaps the person who is willing to pay a team of people to write their content – but even this content would probably not be as effective as great personally written content.  You see, writing compelling copy is a skill that is learned, and I think that most internet marketers will not be willing to go through the process of teaching that skill to paid workers.

I think that another thing that is going to be very interesting for 2011 and 2012 in article marketing is that since article writing is such a laborious task and cannot be reasonably automated, that only the hardest workers of all will be involved in it.  This means, in my opinion, that it cannot become abused, at least not with the highly ranked article directories that are responsible for most of the profits derived from article marketing.

I think that for 2011 and 2012, if you are willing to work hard and write consistently for a few hours a day, you can achieve incredible wealth through article marketing. Now, the income itself will not come directly from the article marketing – it will come in whatever field of internet marketing that you are promoting and driving traffic to in your article marketing.

So, for example, you might be a list builder – I think you can grow huge lists online in 2011 and 2012 using article marketing. Maybe you are a pay per click marketer – I think that 2011 and 2012 are going to be great years to send traffic via article marketing to your ppc web sites, and I think article marketing can generate huge returns for you their. I think that anything you do online that requires traffic can be maximized in 2011 and 2012 using article marketing.

Happy Writing!

The 3 Mistakes That People Do In Article Marketing

Here are 3 of the most common mistakes made in article marketing.

Mistake #1 is what I call marketing resistance. Some people hear that word ‘marketing’ and they just kind of pucker up. They get all tight inside. 

“I can’t market! Marketers are used car salesmen or people on the internet who say ‘Buy my new product today or your family will starve.’”

I don’t think I’ve seen anything exactly like that, but some of you are laughing out there or smiling because you’ve seen things that are close.


That’s not what I mean by marketing. Again, that definition of marketing that I titled the call with and started the call with is – Article marketing is simply getting your expertise in front of as many eyes as possible in as many consumable forms as possible.  Another way of defining marketing is seeing it as simply letting other people know what you do. That’s all it is!

Marketing is letting other people know what you do.

There are lots of ways to do that with class and integrity that can be congruent with who you are. You know the way I approach things in my programs is that not one size fits all. One of the things that I’ve been told I’m good at, and I think people are right, is that I’m pretty good at meeting people wherever they are in their business journey, in their internet journey – meeting them where they are and helping them move forward. So it’s not one size fits all.

Mistake #2 is believing there’s only one way to let people know about what you do. Some people who make that mistake get very very wed to how they see it, to how they do it, to their way, to ‘the’ way.  That’s understandable. People get territorial and invested in things and that’s ok. I’ve always thought there’s lots of ways to do things, so there’s lots of ways to market your articles to get your expertise in front of people.

Mistake #3 is inconsistency in marketing your articles or getting your expertise out there.

Most people, when it comes to marketing anything, do what I call ‘marketing a la carte.’ Marketing ala carte is waiting until things get bad, you’re feeling desperate, and you just grab something from the marketing menu and do it. You throw some money at it, hoping it will work.

No, no, no, no, no.

I’ve got a pop quiz for you tonight. What’s the most important piece of a jigsaw puzzle?

Now the answers I often get when I ask that question are things like ‘the straight pieces,’ ‘the corners,’ etc etc. ‘The solid colors.’

Now all of those are good answers, but they’re not the best answer because the most important piece of a jigsaw puzzle is the box top, because there is the blueprint. To be consistent you need a blueprint. You need something that you can do over and over again with success.

Inconsistency is part of being human. Back in graduate school and days after when I was playing racquetball two or three times a week, we had a little saying among us. “Consistency is the key.” You could go along and play well for a few minutes, and then play horrible for a minute.

So consistency in marketing, especially in article marketing, is to write regularly. If you’re going to be serious about this and really use article marketing to build your business, you want to write and submit two articles – “Oh my gosh, is he going to say a month? A week? A day? What?” – a week.

Two articles a week. That gets the fresh content out there and keeps you in the flow.

Happy Writing!

Questions And Answers About Article Marketing

The following article is one of a series of articles which focus on Article Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and Internet Marketing. All of the articles are based on real experiences and research done over twenty years as a personal and business coach. They are also written in response to questions which I have been asked as well as address common challenges that people have with affiliate marketing, article marketing, internet marketing or running an online business in general. I sincerely hope that you find the following information of value. One idea, one tip, one clue can make all the difference.

Article Marketing - Your Answers To Questions On Article Marketing

Article marketing is probably the most effective list building and link building strategy in existence. Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you will submit. Inside this resource box, you could include a link to your website and specifically to your newsletter subscription form. If you submit just one article to 100 article directories, you'd immediately receive 100 back links to your website. There are thousands of article directories on the 'net today!

Now, let us say you submit, for example, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you'll get 500 back links easily! The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks. We're talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your own pages' search engine standing!

All seems terrific with article marketing, but as with everything else, there are growing concerns as to its real value.

Let's take a look at five of the most common questions which are asked about article marketing...If I submit the same article to many article directories, won't it violate a search engine's policy against duplicate content?

No, it won't. Since we're dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines would assume that the submitted content is their original work. This is the reason why a lot of article directories are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they encounter, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services.

They don't want to be known as a repository of junk content, that's why they have outlawed the posting of PLR articles as well as articles full of affiliate links.

If you always submit quality, informative content that readers are looking for, you will never have a cause for concern.

Does this mean that I could submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

You need to take care here. The search engines will assume that the higher ranking websites are the originators of the content, your web pages would be distinguished as duplicates, and this could possibly lead to the de-indexing of your website or, at least, that particular article page. You wouldn't want this to happen.

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Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing in general isn't as easy as many would have us believe. I fully understand (through my own experiences) that it is a lot easier said than done. However, you are here, right now, because you have a desire to improve your business, grow your business, and be more successful. These articles are here with the sole intention of helping you to make the whole process a lot easier.
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Can I submit as many articles as possible to as many article directories as possible?

Yes, you could! In fact, this is very much advised, to build up your link popularity and secure for your website a great page rank.

However, please bear in mind that search engines, and Google in particular, become quite wary about a website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that from the outset, you decide how many articles you can submit and at what intervals, then stick to it. Consistency is the key here.

Does article marketing really work?

Yes, definitely, article marketing does work! If your article's page views remain in low levels, ask yourself 

• Is your article title compelling or intriguing enough to want to read the whole article?
• Is the actual content of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?
• Is your article informative enough to consider recommendation?
• Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you want to share?

These are the factors that contribute to low page views. Doing some necessary editing to correct these problems will dramatically increase the number of times your article will be viewed.

Additionally, some article directories really attract a few visitors only. But the popular ones like www.ezinearticles.com , www.goarticles.com, www.articledashboard and www.isnare.com should give you hundreds of readers in a month's time.

How sure can I be that my article and resource box will be kept intact by people who will use it in their own websites or Ezines?

Unfortunately, you can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article, and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster honored your resource box. If he or she did not, you could ask them to include the resource box, or you could file a complaint with the article directory so that they themselves could act on the matter. As always, Persistence and Vigilance are the k