3 Days of Article Marketing Boosted Search Results by 1,000

I recently bumped up my article marketing again. This past Monday, I started submitting my articles to article directories on a regular basis. [See Article Marketing Contest particulars below.]

I hadn't done this for a while, but when I noticed that I've made more passive income from AssociatedContent since they changed their payment policies* (see memo about this below), I decided . . . hmmm, let me get back into this.

Results from 3 Days of Article Marketing

My goal is to submit one article to at least one top-rated article directory (aka article bank) a day. I started on Monday and noticed that a search of my name has generated 1,000 more results since Monday. How do I know?

Well, when I started on Monday, I did a Google search for "Yuwanda Black". It returned 25,200 results. Today, I did the same search and it returned 26,200 results. And, I noticed that my Google AdSense earnings have ticked up just tiny bit too.Now, in the big ole scheme of things, this doesn't mean much. But it does clue me in that my content is being picked up and distributed, hence my website and blog are getting valuable search engine link juice. All of this means I'm getting more blog/website traffic and making a little more money -- so this little bit of article marketing is working. So, I'm running with that!

The Top 10 Article Directories

Wondering which article diretories are the best? The following 10, as listed by Marnie from IdeaMarketers.com:

http://www.amazines.com/
http://www.articlealley.com/
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://www.articledepot.co.uk/
http://www.articlefinders.com/
http://www.certificate.net/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.freesticky.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/

FYI, Marnie, who is the brains behind IdeaMarketers.com and quite a few other sites, dispenses some interesting info on article marketing in the article, Top 10 Article Banks. She talks about duplicate content, how many directories you should submit to, generating traffic, etc. She should know, as she runs one of the Top 10 Article Banks on the net.

ARTICLE MAREKTING CONTEST: How I Can Help You Drive More Traffic to Your Blog/Website w/Free Article Marketing

I'm inviting you to join me in what I'm calling a "link juice" contest. Here's how it will work.
You commit to posting one article a day (M-F) for 30 days at any article directory you want. You then leave a post on this blog everyday with a link to the article and/or the title (eg, I submitted the article "How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog" to EzineArticles.com today).

Sometimes, article directories take couple of days or weeks to post your article, so that's why leaving the title (the exact title) is important because once it does show up, surfers will be able to find it via a title and "your name" search.

Are you up for the challenge? To start things off, today I posted Blog Marketing: 7 Ways to Make More Money by Weekend Blogging to IdeaMarketers.com. FYI, most of my posts are recycled from older blog posts that I think deserve a little new life based on the questions I get from readers.

Your turn! Where did you post today? In 30 days, I'll be asking you for updates on your site/blog traffic, so try not to miss a day. (NOTE: There are no prizes or anything; this contest is all about staying motivated. Just think of how many new readers you have to chance to get in front of). On that note . . .

I encourage all participants to actively read and link to the post of others in the contest -- if you find the article relevant to your blog/website. For more on this, read the insightful post, Don't be a Comment Whore: Attract Traffic Not Annoyance by Jennifer over at CatalystBlogger.

Note about Article Marketing Directory Guidelines and Stipulations

Time to Post: Articles post instantly at ArticleDashboard.com and IdeaMarketers.com. EzineArticles.com takes a couple of days, as does Amazine.com. ArticleAlley.com can take up to two weeks (those are the ones I've submitted to so far this week).

HTML & More: Also note that each article marketing directory has different posting guideliens (ie, use of HTML, links), which can make some of them a pain to post to. I find EzineArticles.com to be the biggest pain to post to, but it is the #1 article marketing directory on the web, so I recommend it.

Want to learn more about article marketing? Get the ebook, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Article Marketing: Results of a 30-day article marketing experiment, here.

*I'll talk about how I've made more passive income from AC since their policy change in Monday's post. Don't forget, you can get freelance writing jobs here (I've been a little lax this week, but you can always saunter over to Craigslist and Helium's Marketplace to find new gigs).

Sincerely,
Yuwanda Black, Publisher
http://inkwelleditorial.com/
http://inkwelleditorial.wordpress.com/
http://seo-article-writer.com/
http://seo-articles-for-sale.com/
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