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This is probably one of the hottest topics when it comes to article marketing. Should you submit your articles to your own site first or to the article directories first? I have some very strong opinions on this subject that I’m not afraid to share with people. I have no doubt that the stoning will commence immediately upon completion of the reading of this little gem. Don’t worry. I’m hiding out in my bunker and safe from any bodily harm. So let’s begin.

My answer to this question is, it depends. There, I copped out on this one. Actually, not really. Truth is, I have found that it DOES depend depending on what it is you want to accomplish, what type of article you’re writing and what niche you’re writing for, not to mention what kind of site you have and how long it’s been around. Lots of variables here. I’m going to cover the main ones.

Let’s start with your site, and this is purely logical. If you have a brand new site that’s PR 0 and you’re competing in a niche with millions of sites already on line, what do you think the odds of anybody seeing your article are? Would you say slim to none? Now, what are the odds of somebody seeing that article if you submit it to an article directory with a PR 7? Wouldn’t you say your chances are better for getting that article read if you submit it to the directory first?

Now, what if the article is something that’s time sensitive? You’re writing about a recent news item and you want to get that article out there right away. Most article directories have a review process that can take anywhere from a few days to a week or more. A time sensitive article is almost worthless if you’re going to submit it to a directory first and wait until it gets approved before you put it on your site. In this case, you absolutely should put it on your site first.

Some niches just perform better on directories. For whatever reason, any time you look up a keyword phrase for that niche, the top results are almost always from article directories. In this case, you probably want to submit your article to the directory first if you’re looking for immediate traffic.

There are those who say that if you submit to the directories first that you give up ownership of your article. This is absolute hogwash. An article you wrote, as long as it has YOUR signature at the bottom and YOUR site in the resource box, is YOUR article. I have never heard such nonsense before in my life.

Yes, there are times when you want to put an article on your site FIRST. But there are time when an article directory is the better choice.

Let the stoning begin.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick of not getting your articles read? Fed up with resource boxes that don’t get the job done? Want to write articles that will turn you into a killer article marketer? Get my book on article writing and marketing located at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html – This is my own book written from over 30 years of writing experience.

Article marketers, pay attention. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what you can and can’t do and what is and isn’t true when it comes to article marketing. So, in an effort to clear up some of that confusion, I’m going to answer three of the most commonly asked questions that I get in regard to this subject. Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ll not be so confused. But I won’t hold my breath.

First question I get asked, and probably the most frequently asked is this. “Can I put my article on my own site and other sites? Isn’t that duplicate content?” Okay, this duplicate content myth has been going on long enough. I don’t know who started it, but whoever did should get the biggest award for fantasy thinking since somebody came up with the idea that Santa Claus is real. So let me put this one to bed right now. Google has officially come out and said that there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty if you have your article on your site and another site. Think about it. If duplicate content penalties existed, article directories wouldn’t be in business. Okay? End of discussion.

Second question I get asked a lot is this one. “Should I submit my article to my site first or an article directory first?” A lot of people won’t agree with this one (I get plenty of arguments) but there is no evidence that suggests that it matters. Either way, your article is going to get indexed at both places. Some people argue about “ownership.” This is hogwash. YOU wrote the article. YOU own it. It doesn’t matter where you submit it first. Your name is on it…it’s YOURS. I have articles that I’ve submitted to article directories first that get thousands of views a month. Hasn’t hurt me one bit that I didn’t submit it to my site first. Bottom line…it doesn’t matter.

Finally, I get asked this question. “What’s the best way of getting people to read my articles?” There is no best way. It depends on your niche. Some great ways are the following:

Send an email to your list about your article.

Tweet about it at Twitter.

Bookmark it at social bookmarking sites like Digg.

Go to a related forum and have a link in your signature to your articles.

There are plenty of ways to get traffic to your articles. No one way is better than another.

Anyway, those are the three questions I most often get asked. Hopefully, the answers I gave will clear up any confusion that YOU might have had.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of article marketing, pay per click, forum participation and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

Article marketing is a fine art and can’t be perfected overnight. One of the things that new article marketers struggle with is knowing what to do after they’ve written their first article and want to get people to their blog, through their resource box, to read more articles on the subject. Where do you go? What’s next? Well, this article is going to give you some suggestions that I am sure will help a lot.

When you’ve written an article, on any subject, there are several directions you can go with the followup. The first direction, and probably the easiest, is to follow it with a similar article. For example, let’s say you wrote an article called “3 Causes Of Allergies.” What you can do is, in your resource box, say something like, “Want to find out more causes of allergies? Visit my blog…” and so on. Then, when readers get to your blog, they are greeted with more articles going over the causes of allergies. You’ve remained consistent with your though and writing process.

Another direction you can take is one that I call the “solution model” where you write an article on the causes of the problem and then in the resource box, you say something like, “Want to find out some killer cures for allergies? Visit my blog…” and so on. In this model, you transition from talking about the causes of the problem to talking about the cures for the problem. This is very effective for targeting prospects who are specifically looking for those cures.

Finally, there is what I call the “offshoot model.” In this model, you take the conversation in a totally different direction. Instead of following the article on allergy causes with an article on either more causes or cures, you go in a totally different direction and maybe talk about allergy statistics. Show people how prevalent allergies are. Show the different allergies that normally occur during different times of the year. This way, you can very subtly lead somebody to a cure for their problem without them even realizing they’re being sold to.

Each model can be effective depending on how well written the next articles in the series are. So the next time you do an article marketing series, think about using a model that you don’t normally use.

You might be surprised by the results.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of article marketing, pay per click, forum participation and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

An interesting discussion came up on the Warrior Forum today. Somebody was looking at how many articles I had written for EzineArticles and were wondering how I was able to make so much money off of so relatively few articles. Well, the answer to that question is quite complex but I’ll try to simplify it somewhat. So, just how many articles IS enough to begin to make a nice income online?

Probably the biggest factor to this answer is the niche that you’re writing for. Some niches don’t have a very big demand, so the number of actual views that you get from your articles is going to be limited right from the start. Then you have some niches where the demand is there but the competition is so overwhelming that getting a fair share of the pie is going to be hard to do. I try to look for niches that have a high demand and not so much competition, or as I call it, good Keyword Efficiency Index (KEI). Anything over 100 is considered a good KEI.

Another factor is the quality of the article itself. If an author is writing good quality articles, more people will ultimately check out his web page, as opposed to a writer who just throws a lot of junk together and calls it an article. What they don’t realize is that after the first paragraph, most readers will be gone. So if you write mostly good quality articles, those articles are going to make you more money. It’s that simple.

And then there’s your resource box. If your resource box does its job and gets people to your site, provided that the article itself gets them that far, then you don’t need as many articles as somebody who writes resource boxes that don’t do the job. Think about it. If you have 1,000 articles out there and your CTR is 30%, that means you get 300 visitors for every 1,000 article views. But what if your CTR is only 10%? You’d need to write 3,000 articles to get the same number of visitors to your site.

So as you can see, there is no easy answer to this question. The above factors, niche, quality of article and resource box, all contribute to how many articles you need to write to start seeing some decent money coming in.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of article marketing, pay per click, forum participation and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.