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Creating Articles that Impact Readers, Search Rankings and Profitability

Has Search engines inflicted a mortal wound on article marketing as a link building tactic? The world of SEO is changing significantly and by many accounts, article marketing is on the road to extinction...soon to be added to the long list of other “black hat” techniques that people who are serious about making money online want to avoid. Recent algorithm changes seem to have a significant impact on marketers relying heavily on article sites for their inbound links.

In many cases, these articles are poor quality, also stuffed full of keywords and that don’t help the reader fix the problems that they are having, or the articles don't provide a solution to what they were searching for. This negatively impacts their overall search experience and causes frustration. Search engines realize this and so should you.

This e-book will identify what’s wrong with article marketing and share a winning strategy for writing and distributing articles that will not only help your rankings, but will drive targeted traffic to your site. What you want to realize is this  article marketing for traffic and article marketing for SEO are not any longer two different strategies. After all, ranking is not the only thing we want: we want new visitors, new customers to increased our profits.

Rumors abound regarding the “new rules of SEO engagement” and reportedly, article marketing is no longer an effective SEO tactic.Search algorithm changes have negatively impacted many article directory sites and therefore websites that relied heavily on those sites for inbound links.

This is not a rumor, this is plain FACT.

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Here are compete.com ranking graphs for two very popular article directory sites:

Note the huge drop offs in traffic in February and March of 2011. This was due specifically to Panda/Farmer Algorithm change which had a significant impact on search rankings in almost every market. Not only was the article directories hit hard, but major companies like J.C. Penney and sites like Overstock.com also suffered traffic decreases.
So, the big question is WHY did this happen?

In order to answer that, you need to understand that the Search engines primary focus is on TRUST. Through all of the changes that SEO’s notice in the way that search engines rank sites, the one thing that has not changed is their focus: and the USER. they strives to provide
the absolute best user experience each and every time someone performs a query, with no exceptions. In order for your site to get indexed, the search engines needs to
trust you.

Article “Farms”, as some of the lower quality article directory sites, simply lost credibility in the eyes of the search engines. This happened for a number of reasons. First, these sites did not emphasize high quality.Articles that are stuffed with keywords to the point where they are not considered valuable to the reader. Poor quality, did a poor job of vetting new content and allowed articles that were being duplicated on tens, sometimes hundreds of other article farms.

What do these changes mean for you and your link building efforts? The good news is that article marketing as a tactic is definitely NOT dead. Your SEO strategy needs to have an article marketing component - it just needs to be refined and reader-centric. This is where the TRUST factor comes into play: help your readers solve a problem, answer their questions and inform them; then the articles will serve you better. They will not only improve your search rank, but they will drive targeted traffic to your website...visitors who are hungry for more content and who are interested in your products and services. And after all, isn’t that the end goal of SEO in the first place?

Creating powerful, “reader-centric” content begins by getting in the heads of your readers. That leads us to our first step to article marketing success:
Step #1 - Have a Brainstorm on Compelling Article Topics

All well read articles have one thing in common - they are written about topics that readers are genuinely interested in. Whether it is “how to make money from home” or “tips on losing unwanted belly fat” your article topics should demonstrate that you understand your target market’s deep needs and desires.

Now, keep in mind that while “how to make money from home” or “tips on losing unwanted belly fat” might be great topics for your articles, they do not represent the readers desires. In order to get deep, you need to uncover the reason WHY someone wants to make money from home, or WHY they want to lose unwanted belly fat.

Secret Weapon: Sakichi Toyoda and The 5 Why’s Methodology

A great tool exposing your readers deep desires was developed by Sakichi Toyoda - considered to be the father of the Japanese industrial revolution and the founder of Toyota Industries. And yes, this was the original company which eventually led to Toyota Motor Corp.
Toyoda used the 5 Why’s method to determine the root cause of defects or problems within manufacturing operations. We will take these methods to keep the article topics focused on the readers desires and not on “symptoms” of those desires. After all, you want to get to know your audience and answer questions like:

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● What problems is the reader trying to solve?
● What could be frustrating them about the topic?
● What are their biggest concerns or right now?

Now keep in mind, you may have to ask “why?” four or five times to uncover the readers deep motivations - it might only take 3 or 4 but the method is what is important. This method uncovers the emotional reasoning that drives people’s behaviour. Emotion stimulates action.

Here’s an example:

Why are the subject of short, fast exercise routines that interest to you?

A: Because I am frustrated with how difficult it’s been to find time to workout.

Why would you want to incorporate a workout into an already busy schedule?

A: Because I want to be thin and healthy.

Why is losing weight such a Big Deal?

A: Because I will have more energy and won’t be so tired all of the time.

Why do you want to feel more awake and having higher energy levels is that important.

A: I would be able to play longer with my kids, have more quality time with my wife and live a longer life.

 You can see the power of this process...by asking the question “WHY?” four or five times, we were then able to see the emotional reason why this person would search for “short, fast workouts”.  At the essence, they simply want to improve their quality of life and his time with family.

Tapping into this motivation will strike a chord with your readers and ensure that your article topics resonate with your readers. how do you measure this? Start With these, social signals. Facebook, Google+ Twitter, LinkedIn and many other social sites Youtube are playing a much larger role in your search rankings.  Likes, shares, tweets, +1’s and other mentions all play a role in helping determine the AUTHORITY AND CREDIBILITY of your article. Your article was so powerful that readers felt COMPELLED to share it with their friends and followers. And, they will want to link to your content also. The Articles with more incoming links will pass that “link juice” on to your site AND the articles themselves rank better for those keywords.  So, you might have both your primary domain and one of your articles rank well for a specific keyword.

Why have we focused so much time on choosing topics?  Because it’s not good enough to hit the target here...you want to make sure you hit the BULLSEYE.  When your article topics do this, you will truly begin to see a return-on-investment of your time and your article marketing spend.

Now lets turn to our second Step: Effective Keyword Strategy's

 Step #2 - A Smart and Balanced Keyword Approach

We’ve established that a customer-centric article marketing is a winning strategy but lets take a step back and discuss how to incorporate your keywords.  If you are writing engaging content you will not ever have to worry about whether or not your articles will be flagged for keyword stuffing or for violating keyword density percentages.  Keywords are important though:  search engines need them to help understand what your article is about.  This is where an understanding of Semantic Analysis becomes important.


First, this is not LSI.  We will not wade into the LSI argument, (quite the hot topic among the mindshare)  we just want to help you understand semantic word relations so that you can construct articles that properly frame intent and help search engines rank you higher.
Secondly, we are talking about much more than synonyms here.  While the use of synonyms is valuable, it’s much more effective to develop semantic themes in your articles.  Here is an example of a semantic theme built around one of the favorite subject, FISHING:

● Fishing Equipment
● Saltwater Fishing
● Freshwater Fishing
● Angling

Now we want to get much deeper for the terms that would naturally
get included in articles with the above keywords
● Rods
● Reels
● Topwater Lures
● Live Bait
● Hooks
● Boats

Of course, articles would also include other keywords that would not be directly related to your primary keyword but would be considered a SUPPORTING word or phrase:
● Reports
● Charts or Maps
● Guides or Charters
● Reviews
● Tips
● Sales/Coupons

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By understanding the relationship of words, then you will create articles with a better semantic. The Search engines can easy “read” these articles and will have a much better understanding of how well to rank them. More so for keyword searches that have multiple contexts just like:
1. “Apple”
a. a technology products manufacturer
b. a fruit
c. a “Big” city on the east coast
2. “Patriot”
a. a person who supports their country
b. a surface-to-air missile system
c. a popular  professional football team
3. “Rush”
a. a swift movement
b. a popular talk radio host based in the U.S.
c. a Canadian rock band 70-80’s era

So, as you can see, by building a strong semantic theme in your articles you help the search engines determine that your article is a review of the Apple Ipad 2 and NOT an apple pie recipe.  You also incorporate many synonyms and related words without keyword stuffing and help ensure that the readers that find your content relevant and valuable (think social signals and sharing).

Step #3 - Focus ‘Top and Bottom’ on the Reader

Your article could be the most well written piece of content on an article directory but unless you have a strong title and resource box it could just fail.If You don't have a powerful title then readers won’t feel compelled to read the article.With a Good resource box this will increases your percentage of readers that click through onto your site. lets start with what you need to know and how to optimize your titles.

Title Optimization
Think about the last time you skimmed a website looking for information... more specifically, think about the last time you skimmed a site like Squidoo or GOArticles.  Did any specific article title jump right out to you?  Think the same way about your email inbox : Do you find yourself skimming your inbox and using the subject line to decide whether or not to delete or read an email?
Of course you do.
We all do - this is why it’s so important that you include strong Benefits Statements when you craft your titles. This all helps as well.  keyword rich benefit, keyword rich a specific - one that expressly benefits the user and doesn’t require them to think too much.  Here are a few examples:

● 5  Easy Methods That Help Sales People Close up to 78% More Business Now
● The Easy System for Saving up to 47% on New Vehicle Purchases
● How to Win Friends and Influence People (one of my favorites)


Don’t be afraid of longer titles and try front loading the keywords and using a colon or hyphen to separate them from the benefits section of the title.

Resource Box Optimization

Arguably the most important component of any good article, the resource box’s entire purpose is to engage the reader and get them to click through to your website.  As with your article title and body, you want the focus to be on your reader.
Without a big sales push, you want to promise a strong benefit to your reader and offer them an incentive to click through to your site.  Tie in the incentive to the problem that the article addresses - you know that the motivation levels of the reader are still pretty high if they are still reading the article.  Motivation, incentive and a clear call-to-action will help ensure high click-through-rates.  If your CTR is low, test the format of your resource box again and again until you see conversion increase.Commonly tested are:
Incentives
● CTA link text
● Benefits Statement

A great example of a resource box being used on an article directory

Conclusion

Article marketing can and should be an integral part of a balanced, diverse linkbuilding campaign. Search engines will continue to refine their ranking formulas to identify and penalize directories that refuse to focus on quality content.  Sites that rely heavily on these directories for their inbound links will suffer.
By keeping every aspect of your link-building strategy focused on quality content you will ensure that the links you build pass the “quality control” test and provide not only on the SEO benefit but will also drive traffic to your site. Optimize that content with great article titles and resource boxes and you are on your way to crafting articles that will serve you well for many years.

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