How to Measure the Value of Your Article Marketing Campaign – Writing-Articles
How to Measure the Value of Your Article Marketing Campaign
It's not enough to scatter your articles across the internet - you've got to measure what you're doing so you can be sure that you're getting value from your effort.Here are some of my preliminary thoughts on what's measurable in regards to article marketing, (and what you measure should depend on your predefined article marketing goals, but you knew that already):Number of new of links to your siteThis is a big one of course, and just about the easiest to measure with a simple "link:" search in the major engines.Since I submitted "Build Links and Your Brand: Article Marketing Delivers" to 8 directories on January 26th Google has logged 24 instances of my article (I did have a little help from search engine expert Andy Beal's mention in his blog), MSN search shows 59 instances and Yahoo has me down for 10.Now, all those mentions aren't links... just instances of my article title.Google currently shows no links to my main blog site. Yahoo and MSN both show 14 to http://articlemarketing.blogspot.com.I'm also currently ranked 3rd in Yahoo for the term article marketing - woo hoo! Not bad for only 3 days. We'll see how long I stay there - things may change dramatically after an update. I'm currently nowhere to be found in MSN. Ditto for Google, except the post from Andy's blog about my article marketing blog that puts me at 4th for "article marketing."To give some idea of scale, here are the number of millions of results for article marketing per engine: 12 million in Yahoo; 17 million in MSN; 27 million in Google. I don't think Article Marketing is a phrase that currently generates much competition.Article submission sites like EzineArticles get the freshbot treatment because of their regularly updated content and I think that speeds indexing.Article submitted 1-26-05, searches conducted 1-29-05.Number of readers/impressionsTo borrow a bit from the world of online advertising you can measure impressions, that is, the estimated number of readers/site visitors who had the opportunity to at least read your article title and, let's hope, associate it with your business name.To get an idea of how many impressions your article may have gotten talk with those who republish your article. If you submit to EzineArticles you can see how many writers and editors have viewed your article's page.It's great to have your impressions high, but it's better to have them targeted to your audience (and by audience I mean customers... here are my thoughts on client as audience). The more care you give your content creation process the more your content will appeal to your target audience.Which brings us to...Placement in previously identified key industry mediaIf at the beginning of your article marketing campaign you identify key industry publications you'd like to be published in... and you get published or don't get published, that's something you can measure.This is more of a branding initiative than a linking initiative, though it can certainly generate at least one solid link. And once your article's been published and your editor says "go" you can submit it to your article submission directories of choice. And then measure links.Lead generation through reader inquiriesThis is a fun one. There are specific industries and products that are likely to sell well through article marketing... namely information products. If your primary goal for article marketing is sales though you should construct your article campaign in a particular way. Many of the same rules still apply, but the strategy needs to be a little different. Let me know if you have questions about creating sales generating articles. And you still have to follow responsible article writing guidelines.Email addresses gathered for newsletter signup/downloads/free serviceYeah you're being published in someone else's email newsletter but that doesn't mean you can't try to drive signups to your own newsletter! We had this happen when I worked at WebProNews, where we published all free content. One author's article marketing strategy focused on driving subscribers to her newsletter. I think, but I'm not sure, that it was Dianna Huff, who specializes in B2B article marketing. As an aside, be sure to check out her site.Pageviews to info pages on your siteIf you link out of your article to more info pages on your site you can measure for an increase in traffic on those pages. Have some kind of call to action on these pages though. Don't just boost page views for the sake of having higher page views. Get them to do something on that page, such as give you an email address or visit your products or services page.Requests from editors for articlesIf it's your goal to have more involvement with your target market then be sure to accept all requests from editors for new articles. In fact, cultivate any relationship with an editor you can. This is one fantastic way of staying in front of your target audience and getting new ideas for articles.How can you increase this likelihood? Contact editors from publications within your target market. In addition, include a mention in your author bio that you'd like to work with editors to help them have happier, more engaged readers.Audience involvement/questionsThis is another fun one, and something I tried to promote during my time at WPN. The level of reader feedback I received led to my creation of the "Ask the Expert" section of WPN (now untended) as well as my proposal for the WebProWorld forums, now with over 50,000 members. (To be fair iEntry had rolled out forums before - they were just scattered across all our publications rather than targetted on the flagship. WebProWorld was definitely a home run.)So if you'd like to establish more of a relationship with the online audience in your publications contact their editor and see if you can field audience questions.What else is measurable?
Those are a few of my thoughts for article marketing measurables. Did I miss any? Let me know your measurable ideas and if I use them in an upcoming article I'll throw you a link with your link text of choice.Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send article marketing questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free article marketing brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key industry media identification. Garrett French is a search engine marketing copy writer for Websourced and conducts branding and link building research on his article marketing blog. If you wish to publish this article, please retain all links.
Interviews with Well-Known Ezine Writers #2: – John Colanzi – Writing-Articles
Interviews with Well-Known Ezine Writers #2: - John Colanzi
MS: John, you must be one of the most prolific Ezine
Writers on the Web - I see your articles nearly everyday in
the article lists and in dozens of Newsletters. How long
have you been writing Ezine Articles?JC: I first started writing ezine articles around 1999.MS: What are the main topics that you write about in your
Ezine Articles?JC: I mainly write two types of articles, (i) Marketing and
promotion, (ii) Success and motivation.MS: John, how important have Ezine articles been in
promoting your website?JC: I sometimes use paid advertising, but my main method of
promotion is writing and submitting articles.MS: John, what sort of Articles have you had most success
with? In your experience, what kind of Articles are most in
demand?JC: I get the most feedback on articles about success and
motivationMS: Some Ezine Writers promote a product or service in
their Resource Box, while others aim only to get a
subscription to their free Newsletter. What would your
advice be for getting maximum results from your Resource
Box?JC: I usually promote my newsletter and free ebook in the
resource box. Sometimes I promote a product, but mainly the
newsletter.MS: What have you found to be the most effective ways of
getting your Articles published?JC: Persistence. I've set up a weekly mailing to
publishers. Most publishers get a lot of submissions, so
getting them to notice you article will take some time.
Once they start using your articles, they are more likely
to start reading your submissions.MS: Apart from getting your Articles published in
Newsletters, are there any other ways you use your Articles
to promote your website? (such as turning them into a free
E-Book)?JC: I created my free ebook Street Smart Secrets Of Success
from a collection of my success and motivation articles:
http://www.internet-profits4u.com/streetsmart.exe. I was
also contacted by a publisher who read the free ebook to
create a free e-course for his ebook Autoresponder Gold. So
from the articles I've created my ebook and the 7 Days To A
Turbo Charged Mind email course:
johncolanzi@freeautobot.comMS: Some people are discouraged from writing Ezine articles
because it seems that everything has already been written
about. What's your view on that?JC: Every writer brings their own style to a subject. You
may read about it 100 times, but a certain writer's way of
presenting the information, may be the article that gets
you to take action.MS: Yes, that's an important point. What's the single most
important style tip for writing a good Ezine Article?JC: Write to one person. Make the ideas personal to the
reader.MS: How important have Ezine Articles been in achieving
your success in online business?JC: Every good thing that's happened to me online has been
a result of someone seeing an article.MS: And finally John, what would be your advice to someone
who wants to write Ezine Articles but has never written for
the Internet before?JC: Write the same way you would explain something to your
best friend. Write to inform, don't write a sales letter
and try to pass it off as an article.MS: Thank you John.------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------
The Secret To Promoting Sites With Articles – Writing-Articles
The Secret To Promoting Sites With Articles
Publishing articles on the Internet is a tremendous way to increase the number of inbound links to your site. As articles are assimilated into search engine indexes, they also begin to act as landing pages generating traffic for your site. Whenever possible, you should publish articles to promote your site.Article ContentThe content of your articles should be directed to the most basic elements of your product or service. Whenever possible, try to write "how to" or "introduction to" articles. Topics like these will garner the biggest interest and be picked up by other sites. Articles that cover finer points of a subject work as well, but you should expect a smaller readership.Article ToneYour articles should be packed with information, not sales pitches. When writing articles, one tends to concentrate on how to get potential readers to visit your site. This approach is a mistake. You have to think of both the readers AND webmasters that will be looking for articles.Image you are a Webmaster that needs content for your site. You go to one of the article directories looking for material to add to your site. Are you going to select articles that are sales pitches designed to take your visitors to another site? No. You are going to select articles that provide your visitors with some valuable information. Don't write sales pitches!LinksArticles are a great way to quickly build the link counts for sites. The search engines universally appear to like them, a rare event these days. So, what's the best strategy for using links in your articles?The best linking strategy for articles involves putting not more than two links in your byline. This is admittedly a personal preference, but I find more than two links looks "clunky" and many depositories won't allow any more than two.Regardless, the two links in the byline of your articles should go to two distinct pages of your site. The first might be to your home page, while the second goes to a page that is related to the subject of the article. With each new article, you should change the links to new pages. This allows you to build link popularity for both your home page and internal pages of your site. I have found Google, in particular, heavily favors sites that multiple pages with high link counts.HTML v. Text LinksWith some depositories, you have the opportunity to place html code in your bylines. This, of course, lets you avoid typing out the URLs for your site pages, but should you? I would encourage you to type out the URLS for one reason. It is important to make it as easy as possible for Webmasters to republish your article on their site. Don't make them figure out the domains of your hyperlinked text, particularly sub-domains.In ClosingI have used article campaigns to market many sites. As long as you go about it correctly, you should be able to do the same thing for your site.Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company. Visit our article section - http://www.marketingtitan.com/internet_marketing_articles - to read more internet marketing articles.