This week my niche marketing efforts are all about article submission sites. I have gone through and created around 100 unique articles over the last week or so and am now ready to submit them to the different article directories.

Since the recent changes in Google’s algorithm, I am still unclear whether or not these submissions will be as effective as they have been in the past but for now it is worth completing and getting whatever benefit may come as a result. While the directories themselves may not carry the weight that they once did, they are still great sources to submit your content.

Some Concerns with Article Submissions

There is a little confusion out there in regards to article marketing. For a long time, all I heard was submit your articles to one or two article submission sites. Choose the more popular ones like ezinearticles or goarticles and push all your articles there.

As I have continued to submit articles to one or two sites it seems like I am getting less value per article. In other words, if I have an account at ezinearticles and submit 100 articles there I may only end up with 2-5 actual backlinks to my site. If I submit those same 100 articles to 100 different article submission sites, I will likely end up with around 40 – 60 new backlinks. It seems like the search engines like to see a variety of links coming from a variety of different sources and locations and will reward you accordingly.

Automated or Not – The Ultimate Question

The big question with article submission sites is: Does it make sense to automate the article submission process?

I am a huge fan of automation and use it wherever I can. There are countless sites that claim to submit your articles on an automated basis. I have used a couple of them including Unique Article Wizard. UAW used to be crazy good, but over time I have experienced a little less success with their results. This doesn’t mean that it is totally ineffective at all, but is seems like the value of the backlinks just aren’t what they used to be.

Brief Overview of UAW

Basically what you do with UAW is create 1 unique article and 2 variations on the same article. The articles need to be the same number of paragraphs in length and each paragraph needs to talk about the same concept. Basically what happens is the tool will pull random paragraphs from one of the three versions of your article to create a readable version that is unique.

At that point, the articles stay in your “queue” and will get submitted to different websites on the net that accept the UAW articles. The software defaults to submit 50 articles per day, although you can increase that number as much as you want.

It will then take your article and publish it throughout a network of blogs that are accepting UAW articles which leads to the other cool thing about UAW. If you have a website and want to have additional articles published on your site, there is a plugin that you can install and accept articles from various authors in the UAW system.

It actually is a really cool concept.

Overall, UAW is a great article submission site that will allow you to somewhat automate your article submission.

I have recently found a new article submission site that is focuses specifically on automating the process of article submission. I have not used it yet so I can’t say one way or another but will try it out and see how it works and post a review here.

List of Article Submission Sites

Another strategy for submitting articles are through websites that are set up as an article database. They are called Article Directories. There are a number of article directory sites where I regularly post content. They include:

EzineArticles
GoArticles
Amazines
ArticleDashboard.net
ArticleBlast
ArticleAlley
Buzzle
iSnare (at least 500 words)
TheFreeLibrary
ArticleCity
SearchWarp.com
ArticlesBase.com
selfGrowth.com
IdeaMarketers.com
Web-Source.net
SelfSEO.com
articlet.com
articlesfactory.com
articleco.com
e-articles.info
site-reference.com
articlecompilation.com
articlesphere.com
amazines.com
easyarticles.com
articlerich.com
fourpxarticles.com
articleresource.org
articledirectory.com
allbestarticles.com
web-source.net
articledirectory.com
everyonesarticles.com
articlerich.com

There are many, many more, but theses are just some that I use.

I typically still submit my articles to ezinearticles.com first because they are the best article directory on the internet right now. They have humans that review each of the articles and will them approve or suggest changes to be made before they go live. I always try and submit the original article here and any re-writes to the other article submission sites. They check against duplicate content, so make absolutely certain that your content if unique and that you own the rights to the content.

Ezinearticles manually publishes articles on a first come first served basis. This process takes 5-7 business days to complete the first several times. Once you are approved and submit enough content (around 20 approved articles I think), they will change your account status to a Platinum level which cuts down the time it takes to get an article approved. With the Platinum plan, you can get articles approved in about 48 hours at most.

Once the articles are approved, I then post the different versions of the article to the various article directories. Again, and this is critical – make sure that your articles are unique in content. They say to have the versions at least 30% unique, but I usually strive for 50 – 60% just to be safe.

(Side Note: Ezine articles also produces a report on a monthly basis displaying your traffic stats from their site including the top performing articles. It is great for market research and to learn what people are really interested in.)

Next Action Steps

The action steps associated with article submission sites and this post is two fold:

1. Sign up for 15 – 20 article submission sites / directories and submit some articles. Start with ezine and move down the list from there. Ezine is at the top, again because it is the best and most trusted. The others in the list are completely random and I have made no attempt rank them.
2. Sign up for a trial of Unique Article Wizard and test out submitting a couple articles  to test it out.
3. Set a schedule to regularly publish articles to ezine and the other article directories.

This whole business is process driven. Just set your goals and the steps you will take and you can accomplish anything.

To your success,

Brandon

It is no secret that content is king when it comes to having any success online and having an effective article writing software program is the foundation. In order to succeed at SEO with Niche Sites, you need to have  a system to create content on a regular basis that you can use in your marketing efforts.

There are a lot of different thoughts on which is the best way to create content for your articles. Some people prefer to write their own articles, others will outsource the content creation. Something that is gaining a little more popularity in some circles is the use of an article writing software program. As I have developed some of my niche sites, I have found the easiest way for me to quickly create new content is through the use of article writing software.

I have used a few different article writing softwares in the past, but recently I have decided on one called Instant Article Factory.

There are several key reasons that I use InstantArticleFactory for content creation on my niche sites. One of those reasons is the fact that they have over 15 different article templates that are stored in their system that you can build create your articles from. The templates are easy to fill out and create a pretty high quality article in about 5 minutes. That makes it super easy to get in and create an article from one of the templates and be ready to publish an article just a few minutes later.

One of the other great things about InstantArticleFactory is they have a built in thesaurus that will create spun versions of your article at the same time you are creating your original article. So in essence you can have a couple hundred versions of your article in the time it takes to write just one version.

Available Templates

There are basically 6 types of templates you can choose from. They are:

1. Reasons (ie: 3 Reasons You Should…)
2. Steps (ie: How To … In 7 Steps)
3. Press Release
4. Product review
5. Pros and Cons
6. Mistakes (ie: The 3 Biggest Mistakes (People Make))
7. Rules / Guidelines (ie: The 5 Golden Rules Of…)
8. Tips (ie: Top 5 Tips…)

After you choose your template, it will take you to a page that allows you to simply fill in certain sections of the page. These sections are the unique sections of the article and allow you to insert keyword rich phrases. Most of the time the flow of the article is fine, but every once in a while it just doesn’t sound quite right and you have the ability to edit. Throughout the writing of the article, you have the ability to edit and have the software spin any section of the article that you wish.

The last step in the process is to create the resource box. You are able to insert two links into the resource box linking back to your page. Next, you just hit the “create article” button and it will go to work.

Once you get the main article written , it will tell you how many words the article is and give you a sample to use. At that point, you can simply refresh your screen and it will generate a new, unique article.

Conclusion

While I don’t use the IAF software on this site for articles, it can be handy to use when you are creating content for your niche sites and for article directories. The cost is just $7 for a week trial then $77 for an entire year. It is well worth the investment and will help you pump out some quick articles with the (nearly) automated article writing software.