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If you have spent any time at all researching internet marketing
strategies then you know that writing articles can help position
you as an expert in your field, gain valuable targeted traffic
for your web site, drive leads to your products, grow your email
list, and quickly multiple your site's text links.
Once you are ready to dive into article marketing -- and you
have a few articles all lined up and ready to submit -- you can
quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of article
directories available. Sure you could simply use a search engine
to locate article directories but a recent search netted me
17,800,000 results. That's enough to make anyone give up before
they even begin! Plus that is really not a very effective way to
determine the quality of a directory and doing your own quality
check can be extremely time-consuming.
Why should you care about the quality of the directory? Just
think about it. On the internet you are very much judged (by
search engines and visitors alike) by the company you keep.
Another important reason to carefully select your article
directories is that your time is finite. It is better to
regularly submit to a core group of high-quality directories
than to throw the same handful of articles at every directory
site you can find.
Finding the best high-quality article directories that meet your
specific needs and match your specific goals can greatly
increase the power of your article marketing campaign. You need
to become a savvy article marketer to maximize your article
marketing campaign.
Great, but how do you find those high-quality directories?
When I first embarked on article marketing I went straight to
people who had been article marketing for a while and asked them
for their top recommendations. I posted the question in a couple
forums that I regularly check. I quickly assembled a list of
hundreds of sites. Now obviously this list is much more
manageable than the 17+ million I got from Google but still
rather large. First I culled through and found the sites that
were mentioned by more than one person and that list became my
starting point. I then gathered as much information as possible
to determine if they were right for me. I will share my criteria
and priorities but you need to work out your own.
Here are the 10 essential questions I ask when reviewing a site:
1. How old is the directory? Is it well established and ranked
or is it new and growing? If not then I cross it off the list.
2. Can you easily identify who owns and/or operates the
directory? Is there a way to contact that person?
3. How fast do they respond to your email contacts and/or
article posts?
4. How many authors does the site have listed? A lot of authors
and articles mean a well established site but there may be room
on a growing site for more exposure.
5. How many articles does the site have listed? Again a big site
won't get knocked off my list for this but a small site that is
growing steadily might be due for a good seo bump soon.
6. Think about the categories you are likely to need and see if
they exist. Is there a place to submit all your articles? If
this is a niche directory it may be very narrow but then might
also be to your benefit in the long run -- if at least some of
your articles fit within the niche.
7. What special options does the site offer visitors and
publishers? Do they provide RSS feeds, email alerts, forward to
a friend function and other strategies to increase the
distribution of your articles?
8. Are they responsible with the advertising clients they have
on their site? ie: No popups, flashing, or offensive ads
9. Do they provide article reports to help you see which
articles are getting viewed, rated, distributed or not?
10. How do the search engines view this site?
After visiting each directory and answering these questions it
is easy to refine your list to a handful of top sites that you
want to really concentrate your efforts upon. You can also
maintain some a list of additional sites to submit to as time
allows.
I also regularly re-evaluate my top article directory list. I
check my backlinks and the directory stats to see how my
articles are doing. Some sites move up and down my priority list
(or even off the list entirely) when I investigate how they are
performing for me.
About the author:
Learn more about Creating Your Article Marketing Campaign by visiting
http://AnswersAboutWriting.com or http://NowLearnMore.com . Sign
up for our free Article Marketing tutorial to read the full article and
many more helpful article marketing tips.
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