Does article marketing really work?
One of the burning questions I had as a newbie on line marketer was how on earth do you get traffic to your site without having to pay for it? and I would ask this question at every opportunity.
The one answer I would often get was summarised in just two words: “Article Marketing” . or “Write articles” or ”Submit Your Articles“ Ok that one’s three words!
At the time this reply not only didn’t really answer my question, it made the plot even thicker! Since I didn’t understand how it worked.
Even after I found out what article marketing was, and started using it, I wasn’t really sure if it was that effective…. Why?
Well, I wrote two articles and submitted to one article directory. They were approved and published. So “where’s my traffic! “ I thought. 
Little did I know that article marketing is not just about writing a couple of articles. There’s more to it that just that and the only way you can get any result, is by doing it the right way.
About two years ago I was at an internet marketing seminar and at the coffee break I got talking to some people, telling them about my numerous website that I had created and how I managed to do this while still working full time.
Some people seemed very impressed but one guy asked suspiciously “Yeah but are you big? Can we Google your name?” My response was “sure you can Google my name. I am huge on Google!”
Just as a by-play, those who know me know that in the outer shell I am not a big girl! But I do dream big and have a big personality. And I don’t just say that myself, It’s been implied by others too. :)
Anyway, joking aside, this guy was obviously referring to the internet marketing scene and the question was whether I had made a name for myself on Google.
At the time, I knew I was on Google, but not for my internet marketing efforts. You see, I worked as a department administrator and PA to the head of a research group in a famous, world class University and every time we advertised a vacancy, whether it was for a research position or a PhD studentship, my name was in the advert as the first point of contact. I also had my own little web-page on the department staff list and because the University website was highly optimized and was frequently updated, it ranked very highly on Google – as a result my name was all over Google pages but for all the wrong reasons in this case!
So what’s the point of this story and what does it have to do with Article Marketing which is the title of this post? I’ll tell you if read on…..
Up until then I’d been engaged in learning, researching, and at the same time applying different strategies to my online efforts. Testing different methods, building so called SEO friendly websites, even engaging in some low level joint ventures, which actually produced reasonably good results for a short time and as far as selling stuff was concerned.
I was writing and submitting articles as well but only on now- and- then basis not consistently. I was beginning to think article marketing was dead!
Well, that was until I started putting my Article Marketing on steroids! I decided to take advantage of the fact that I like writing and started putting that in to good use, started writing articles again but this time on regular basis. Four or five articles each month, three or four blog posts each week for a few months.
I also joined “Submit Your Articles” which is a service that makes article submission a breeze! It even allows you to spin your articles to avoid duplicate content and then it submits them to many directories so it really saves you a ton of time.
And guess what!
I looked up my name on Google the other day to see if my article marketing endeavours had produced any results and what I saw was staggeringly different from last year.
Out of 146000 results, I dominated the first page with my name next to my article titles. The only result which wasn’t related to my article marketing efforts was the first entry which was my out-dated university web page. And if that wasn’t enough, I was on the second page too. How about that? I needed proof and I got it.
- This is just part of page one on Google
Traffic to my site also increased as a result of getting my article marketing act together.
This was the reassurance I needed that article marketing is still very much alive and kicking and it works really well. It may be a little slow, but as the saying goes: “good things come to those who wait!” All you need really is a little patience and some persistence and it will eventually pay off.
One thing I’d like to mention here about Submit Your Articles service is that it makes you job a lot easier as far as submission goes. I don’t consider writing articles hard work since I enjoy writing. But submitting to thousands of sites? that really is hard work, takes up a lot of you time and is really unnecessary to spend so much time to submit when you can have it done for you.
As one of my cousins always says “hard work never killed anyone but why take the risk?!” 
I take my leave now. I have articles to write and submit!
If you like this article, please leave a comment, email it to your friends, RT on twitter or share it on facebook. Subscribe to my RSS and be notified of future posts. Thank you for your support