Article Marketing Pitfalls (don't do these things!)

For many years now, article marketing has been "the" source of backlinks for internet marketers everywhere. With little work, you can create a simple article that gives you a backlink proven to carry some weight with the search engines and (probably) enhance your search rankings.

This article has been created as the definitive resource for article marketing. Things you should do, things you should not do, the best places to submit your articles, and more. Follow these tips for top rankings.

Article Marketing Best Practices (do these things!)

Change up the titles. When submitting the same article to more than one directory, be sure to change up your title. No, this won't remove duplicate content issues, but since titles count for so much SEO weight, you might be able to rank the articles for different terms.

Keep it short. If you're submitting 1,000 word articles, why not split them up into two articles for 2x the benefits? Keep in mind, though, you do not want articles under 400 words and many article directories require that they be at least 500.

Include a powerful resource box. Too often, people post a plain, boring link back to their site at the end of the article. Believe it or not, these articles can get read quite a bit on the directories. You might be able to actually drive some traffic right from the article, IF you include a strong call to action like: "Learn how you can take advantage of this free opportunity at *your anchor text link*" rather than a resource box that just says: "anchor text".

Research your topic. Even if you already have a good familiarity with your topic, you can easily speed up the writing time by doing a search for your article topic and learning from what others have to say. Of course, you don't plagiarize or even steal ideas, but reading other articles before you write can "prime" your brain and smooth out the writing process.

Article Marketing Pitfalls (don't do these things!)

Submit to more than 5 different directories. We all know the issues with search engines and duplicate content. I have never seen a problem when I submit the same content to 4-5 different sites, but remember the tip above and change up your title from site to site.

Use the same article on your site. This is kind of like the unpardonable sin. You NEVER want to use the same article for directories that you use as actual content on your site. This makes your site simply one of many copies that might get dinged for duplicate content. You do not want that.

Promote your articles. There is actually a group of people out there who spend a great deal of time building links, not to their site, but to the directory articles that promote their site. Does that seem more-than-a-little backwards to you? If you are building links, point them to your site! Leave the articles alone.

Write useless content. Seriously, there is more than enough crappy content on the internet. Instead, write articles that truly provide information and advice. Too many people skip this step because they don't see an immediate reason to write quality (after all, quality or not, they both include backlinks). But this is too short sighted. Over the long-term, quality articles will win. They can improve your brand, get picked up more often by other sources, and generate more success for your SEO efforts.

While I strongly recommend that you craft a diversified link building toolkit (including at least 8-10 different types of links), article marketing is typically my #1 approach. Don't neglect the others, but never pass up the opportunities of article marketing.