Search Engine Optimization – Using Article Directories Article submission has long been known as a methodology for generating traffic and even with changes in technology is still considered a valuable traffic generation tactic. Though search engine rules keep changing and Panda and Penguin updates dropped a lot of ranking sites you should still try and include article marketing in your search engine optimization strategy.
Marketers are always on the lookout for the fastest methods of submitting articles to obtain the best results, so we will look at the basics in getting started.
Article Directories
It’s a good idea to start by submitting your articles to one of the best-known article directories, namely Ezine Articles. This is a well-established site and has developed a reputation as a useful resource and provider of information. More importantly, it has a large following of readers, which means potential traffic for you.
Signing up for Ezine Articles as a writer is not complex, providing you follow their submission guidelines, and once you are approved you can start submitting your articles. They have some very specific rules as to what you can and can’t do but provided you follow these you shouldn’t have too many problems. For example, the content you submit must be unique, not just copied from another source, and you can’t fill your article with links, just one at the bottom, which you will be using to promote your money site or niche.
Once your article is accepted it’s not unusual to find you can start ranking with Google, of course, how high you rank will depend on the competitive niche of your subject matter. You can help your search engine optimization process along by building additional links to your article which will help give it a boost up the search engines.
Backlinking Methods
Simplistically off-page search engine optimization is about getting a high page one Google ranking and though a number of methods are used to achieve this one of the most valuable is the link building process. Basically Google sees quality links to your site as meaning your site has value and rewards you by increasing your page rank.
A very simple method of adding backlinks to your article is to submit your author RSS feed and submit it to RSS directories. There are several types of software applications that can do this or you can do it manually. Start off with 10 feeds at first and build up to moreover a consistent period of time. You should keep a notepad or excel spreadsheet record of each directory that you have submitted your feed to so that you don’t duplicate the process.
Another useful tip is to ping your articles with one of the many free ping sites online.
You can also do social bookmarking on your article. Again this can be done with software or manually depending on your budget and time constraints. You might be surprised as to how a well-written article can benefit from being submitted to for example Digg or StumbleUpon for links and traffic.
Mention your article on your Twitter feed or Facebook, all good methods for getting your article noticed and backlinked.
In Summary
There are hundreds of article directories on the internet that you can post your article too, some having a lot more value than others. Just do a search for article directories and find those that are most popular to submit your articles too. This is a very quick way to get your site indexed and backlinked which all contribute toward your search engine optimization strategy
