Viral Marketing Lessons

The most common way to engage in article marketing is to post an article on an article directory.  These directories will then make the content available for publication in websites whose webmasters happen to be searching for content on that particular directory.  Most article directories allow your articles to contain links to your own site only in the author’s box or resource box that the directories allow you to include.  That is a time honored and reasonably effective way to promote your site.  However, there is another approach to article syndication that you should use as well.

If you submit articles directly to sites in your business niche, you will discover that its possible to obtain even better results than if you submit only to article directories.  One additional benefit is that you will be able to exercise some control over who publishes your article.  You can select websites that recieve targeted traffic from which you might profit.  You can make sure that you have longer lasting search engine optimization (SEO) benefits by providing each website with unique content.  You can determine that each site’s content is unique by writing a different article for each site or (more efficiently) fully spinning articles in order to obtain far better results from just a little more time and effort.  Perhaps most importantly, your links back to your own website can be placed within the article with carefully crafted (and spun) anchor text.  That placement has definite SEO advantages.

In the usual method of direct distribution to websites, you would attempt to contact the individual webmasters by email, or, if you can locate a number, by phone in order to convince whomever reaches the publishing decisions at that website can be convinced of the mutual benefit of uploading your article.  If your article is high quality, and if it is not too competitive with the site that you are approaching, you will be lucky sometimes.  On many of your attempts, though, you will either be unsuccessful at reaching anyone or else they will not bother to reply.  Many other times, the response will be a simple, “No thanks!”

Another way in which you can directly distribute to individual sites is through an automated distribution system that distributes spun versions of your articles directly to niche specific sites who have expressed a positive interest in receiving free content.  That is the way that a new system operates; that system is named My Article Network, which I have described in detail elsewhere.

In this unique cooperative, webmasters can enroll their sites without any charge.  That means that you should always have a niche-related publisher awaiting your next submission. 

Whatever method of direct-to-site distribution you choose, I recommend that all article marketers make use of the benefits of expanding your syndication plan beyond only the top tier article directories.