Article marketing has been one of the most popular means of promoting online businesses. Many affiliates have been adamant about promoting websites and online projects with article marketing for a long time. Many people have started to question the effectiveness of article marketing a promotional technique for affiliates.
The use of article marketing is a popular promotional tool for affiliates in the gambling industry in particular. One common practice is to use spin articles over and over again and submit them to other directories. This isn’t an effective marketing or SEO tool. However, there are plenty of other ways gaming affiliates can implement article marketing
So does article marketing still work?
The Truth About Article Marketing
What benefit does article marketing really provide? Affiliates have used article marketing for two purposes: improving SEO effectiveness and driving relevant traffic to their websites.
Many people believe that article marketing creates trusted, keyword rich links that have tremendous benefit for SEO. Matt Cutts has stated that article marketing is not an effective SEO strategy.
Here is his rationale:
1. Low quality backlinks. The sites that republish articles from article directories tend not to be the highest quality. They often have low pagerank and few followers. Matt says it makes more sense to build links through popular websites that create original content people want.
2. Duplicate content issues. Another problem with republished articles is that there is a lot of duplicate content. One of the things Google isn’t a fan of is lots of duplicate content. Although sites that republish articles are not penalized themselves, the content they reprint is often placed in the supplemental index. Links from pages in the supplemental index don’t really don’t provide much benefit to affiliates.
3. Articles often poorly written. Many articles submitted to article directories are just hashed together for quick backlinks. Many affiliates write the bare minimum number of words to get their article included. Oftentimes affiliates are a little too heavy with keywords and write articles that are awkward for people to read. They also offer little in the way of original content. Google and other search engines tend to pick up on this and don’t give backlinks from these kinds of articles the same quality affiliates think they deserve.
4.Untrusted Articles. Gambling affiliates in particular may have a hard time getting their articles listed in the directories. Even though their content may be relevant and their site trustworthy, some directories may be nervous about allowing a gambling related article in the directory. This can be mitigated by finding a topic they are more likely to approve and making sure the article is very well written. Spinning articles is always a bad idea, but it is even worse for gaming affiliates.
Is Matt Cutts Right?
As one of the leading voices within Google, Matt Cutts words should be taken to heart. His perspective also makes a lot of sense. Some affiliates disagree with his perspective.
The real issue seems to be that article marketing doesn’t always work. Many articles are poor quality, as are the sites that republish them. That does not mean that quality links cannot be obtained through article directories or the sites that republish them.
You can still get a lot out of article marketing. Your strategy must depend on writing high quality, unique articles that other bloggers are going to want to borrow. Article marketing still allows you to take your content viral and produce numerous backlinks.
Matt Cutts has the right to his opinion. Frankly, his opinion is always worth taking into consideration. That does not mean you need to give up what could be one of the best ways to promote your website or affiliate program.