Article Marketing

I know your MO (that’s modus operandi for you non-crime-novel-readers).

I know what you’re after.

You want the riches of the internet without all that glad-handing and, you know . . . socializing.

That’s cool. I get it.

I’m not here to piss in your Post Toastees.

Let’s face it, life online gets easier (and WAY more profitable) when you connect with other humans, but that’s just not what you’re after and damn it, I’m going to help you.

How to Build Quality SEO Back Links Without Ever Talking to Other Humans

If you’re not actually going out and beating down digital doors to get traffic, you need to get traffic through search engines and that means getting some back links pointing your way.

Now there are two main places to do this that don’t involve human interaction. Just you and a computer screen.

1. Ezine Articles
2. Hubpages

Let’s take ‘em one at a time.

Why Ezine Articles Is Awesome for Introverts

For SEO optimized back links (that is back links that actually count toward your search engine rankings) I love Ezine articles for one reason: Google loves them.

Ezine Articles sets itself apart from the crowd by being human moderated (don’t worry, you never have to meet them). Since every article is read and approved by a real live human, Ezine sells itself on higher relevancy and article quality.

Google loves both of these things.

This level of trust by Google means that your links count toward your SE rankings pretty damn good.

Articles published on EA can grow in PageRank in no time.

Before you know it a 300 word article your wrote 2 months back is pointing a constant PageRank 4 link to your site.

(P.S. if you understood none of that last sentence, don’t freak out, just head over to the archives of this blog and start studyin’. )

How to Use Ezine Articles

Now because they’re ~~picky~~ ~~snooty~~ moderated, Ezine Articles takes longer to get your articles (links) live than say, Go Articles.

When you first sign up with EA, you have what they call Basic Member status, which translates to “we don’t trust you further than we can throw you.”

Being a Basic Member means that you can only submit 10 articles and the moderators will go over all of them with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they’re good enough to post.

This fine-toothed combing means that it can take a week or more from the time you submit your article for it to go live with your link.

I know you’re like “FUCK that’s going to take forever!” but don’t worry.

Push through this slow phase and after those first 10 articles are approved, you’ll become a Platinum Member and your stuff will go live within 24-48 hours from then on.

After that, just submit 1 article per day with 2 back links pointing to your site in the “About the Author” bio box.

Once you’ve gotten a fair amount written, you can also start going back and optimizing your articles for even better performance.

Bonus Secret: Once you’ve submitted like 5-8 solid, approved articles, just email EA and ask for an early bump up to Platinum. That’s what I did and they gave it to me (suckers!).

Why Hubpages is Awesome for Introverts

Hubpages is awesome for basically the same reason that Ezine Article is awesome: Google loves them.

But they have a leg up on EA in that it’s even easier to get your stuff published on Hubpages.

There are no moderators, just a general computerized critique that gives each hub (article) a quality score.

Now if you’re writing good content, the hub score is nothing to worry about, it will pretty much take care of itself.

If, on the other hand, your content isn’t so great and your hub score dips below 75, your links turn into “nofollow” and become totally useless in terms of SEO.

Hub Score > 75 = DoFollow SEO Links
Hub Score < 75 = NoFollow Non-SEO Links

How to Use Hubpages

When you’re building your hub (article) there are a few important things to keep in mind.

Word count is important. Try to keep it around 400 words. Any less and your score might suffer.
Design is important. Hubpages lets you design the hub your way, but it expects some best practices. Insert a pic or YouTube video here and there for some added relevance.
Leave room for ad space. Hubpages makes its money off ads in their user generated content. Make sure your hub is optimized for ad space.

Now Hubpages has one significant leg-up on EA and that is when it comes to your back links.

EA only allows link in the bio section at the bottom of each article. This makes proper anchor text problematic.

Hubpages let’s you put links anywhere, within a 2-3 link limit. This means that your back links can flow naturally through your article, which is better for everyone.

I’m Not Going to Bullshit You . . .

Building a successful online money maker is damn near impossible without some human interaction, but if anyone can do it, I know you can.

Use these tools wisely, squeeze all the potential you can out of them and your introverted, socially awkward perseverance will be rewarded with some serious link juice, free search engine traffic and hopefully a respectable online income.

You’ve got keywords, you’ve got a landing page that would make John Carlton wet his breeches (that’s right Carlton, I’m looking at you), and you’ve got an affiliate offer poised to make you rich. The only problem is that you’ve opted for article marketing and you have no articles.

Well, damn it.

What happened, this was so well thought out? You were going to make a fortune!

Well cool your jets, Elroy, because I’ve actually got an answer for you. It’s the easiest, most brain-dead simple way to write an article ever created. I mean we’re talking a monkey-touch-the-monolith kind of moment here for article creation.

Will you have to be creative? Moderately.

Talented? Not much.

Coherent? If possible.

If you can write 300 words that sound semi-intelligent, you are set. But of course most people are going to be jumping up and down right now, practically wetting themselves because they have no idea what to write. If you’re one of them, you can just sit down and shut up, mister and/or missy, because that’s the easiest part.

How do you find the shit people actually want to read about?

Forums and Google.

That’s it. Wasn’t that easy? Post is over, go home.

What? Not enough? You don’t think it’s that simple? Well, just how does being wrong feel? (I’ve always wondered.)

Go to any forum in any niche (and let’s face it, it your niche doesn’t have like 10 forums it isn’t worth being in) and you’ll find any number of people asking questions that you can turn into an article.

And any question, no matter how simple, is a chance for some exposure because you can bet that if one person is asking, there have to be others out there not brave enough to look stupid. You answer their questions in an article, submit your article to eZine Articles or wherever and then post a link to it on that forum thread as a helpful answer to the original question.

The new kid gets his helpful answer (and hopefully directed toward your list and or affiliate offer) and you get backlinks and exposure. Everyone wins.

But if the forum method doesn’t quite blow your dress up there’s always good old (omnipresent) Google. You can use their WonderWheel and Adwords keyword tools to find just about any article topic you could ever want. So I’m done with your excuses, it’s time to actually start producing some articles and backlinks.

So how do you actually write this crap?

Well, lucky for you, it isn’t that hard as I prove here and now. This is the part of the process that 90% of people fuck up. And it’s not because they can’t write.

It’s because they over-complicate the process.

Want to know the secret of writing effective articles? I’ve got it and you know what? I’m feeling generous today so I think I’ll share it with you here:

JUST WRITE THE DAMN THING!

There’s no secret formula. There’s no magic words. Just write your article the way you talk, make it at least 300 words and make it moderately intelligent / coherent. If you can do those thing you’re all set.

Write it once, read it out loud a few times to make sure it doesn’t sound like your cat pranced across your keyboard, then post that shit.

So get your ass in the chair and put some words on the page and you’re already leaps and bounds ahead of your competition.

Sounds easy, right?

IT IS.

Small Business Marketing and Web Presence Development

The Totally Introverted Guide to Building Quality SEO Back Links