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.
Free Ebook Offer: The Story of America: Discovery – Article 3 – Book-Reviews
Free Ebook Offer: The Story of America: Discovery - Article 3
Quite a lot happened in Europe between 1002AD, when the Vikings hurriedly packed their longships and retreated back to the colder climes of Greenland, and 1492AD, when the Spanish caravels, with Columbus so confident at the helm, accidentally stumbled across the forgotten continent.The period, collectively known as the Renaissance, saw a general revival of interest in intellectual thought. Science was studied, with fresh experiments conducted and new conclusions drawn, laws were introduced to control the growing populations and to create more stable societies, medicines were used to cure illness and prolong life, astonomers peered farther into the unknown universe, while geographers mapped and plotted the earth.All of these advances were aided by the invention of the movable type and a working printing press, which for the first time made books and maps easy to produce and allowed knowledge to be readily available to all.While Spain united to drive out the Moors and the other major European countries generally moved closer to becoming nation states, so the merchants also started to trade with far-off places and in particular with the other main hubbub of civilization, namely the East (principally China, India and Persia).This trade brought all sorts of attractive items into daily use and it wasn't long before Europe started to thrive on this vital commerce, though events were suddenly brought to a premature halt by the rise of the Muslems in the Middle East who moved to blockade the profitable trade routes.When Constantinople, the established base of the Christian Byzantium Empire, finally fell to the forces of the Ottaman Turks in 1453, the trade virtually dried up. The merchants were doomed and a continent that had become more or less dependant on this trade suddenly felt the need to find an alternative route to regain access to this lucrative market.At that time Portugal was the leading maritime nation in Europe, holding vital access to the Atlantic Ocean, the unknown frontier and as a few believed the real key to access the eastern markets. As they started to explore into this ocean they first found tiny chains of islands - Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands - but they then turned their ships southwards to chart the continent of Africa. The Atlantic was still too big, too unknown, and they decided to play it safe and stick to the coastline. Their plan was to try and get around the tip of Africa and then to access Asia across the Indian Ocean. This was a safe route, making sense on the maps of the time, as to their knowledge the American continent quite simply did not exist.How things were going to change!This excerpt is taken from the third chapter of Discovery - The Story of America by Anthony Treasure. This book is already published in the UK (listed on Amazon.co.uk) and is due to be published in the US at a later date. For now it is published as an ebook and as a SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER Discovery Part One is available to download COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE. Three further titles - Discovery Part Two, Colonization Part One and Colonization Part Two are also out as ebooks and can be bought and downloaded from the website. To claim your free ebook today simply visit http://www.farawaybooks.com