Key Things About Article Marketing (Bum Marketing)
When I first got started in Internet Marketing, I ran across a lot of discussion about “article marketing.” Article Marketing is often confused with “bum marketing,” but they are not really the same thing. It all seems so obvious to me now, but I remember having a hard time getting a clear description of article marketing. So, I’d like to offer you what I consider the key ideas behind article marketing. If you want to know more about article marketing, I am going to point you to my five favorite resources at the end (which are great, but not required to become an article marketing guru).
So, what is Article Marketing?
Article marketing refers to a traffic generation method that depends on submitting informative “articles” to sites called “article directories.” These articles generally consist of an article body that has generally useful information, and an article resource box that contains links back to the author’s site. This technique is sometimes mistakenly called “Bum Marketing.” Actually, as pointed out by Josh Spaulding, Article Marketing is one of the tools that Bum Marketers use (so named since it is so easy even a bum could do it.)
Good article directories have great traffic and strong Google page rank, so publishing your information there increases the chance that people will see and read what you have to say. Additionally, article directories allow people to copy and republish their articles, provided the article is unchanged and the resource box is preserved. This means that your article with your links could end up on multiple sites with lots of exposure.
There are literally hundreds of article directories, the most famous of which is eZineArticles. (As an example, you can see one of my articles about Viral Marketing.) The fact that there are hundreds of article directories opens up the possibility of submitting your article to many directories and multiplying your exposure. (There can be downsides to this, however, as we will discuss below).
Two Sources of Traffic
The beauty of article marketing is the possibility of two complementary sources of traffic. This is a key point that is often not understood. When you initially submit your articles, if they are well written, you should expect that they will be spread and read. If you write an effective resource box, those same readers will want more information and click the links in the box.
This simple idea generates immediate traffic to your site. Eventually, as the article ages, it may fall lower in the article directory as it gets buried by newer articles on the same topic. This usually means that click-through traffic from articles will fall off as a function of time. Sometimes articles go viral and the clicks keep coming, but this is not usually the case.
Not to worry. Now your article has spread around the net with links to your site at the bottom. Google sees these (correctly) as backlinks to your site. Done properly, these backlinks can help you rank for the pages that the links are pointing to. So, while your direct click-through traffic is falling off, your organic search engine traffic will increase. Pretty cool, eh?
A word about content and keywords
There are lots of things to think about when you are writing articles for article marketing. Most importantly, you need to have a keyword strategy for the content on your site and the content in your article. It may not make sense to directly compete with your own website, for example. Rather, you may want to choose keywords for your articles that complement the content on your site.
For example, if you have a site on “blue soap,” you may want to write an article on “green soap” knowing that people interested in green soap will also be interested in blue soap. You need to think about this carefully.
Earlier, I mentioned that you could submit the same article to multiple directories. You can, and I do. But you need a strategy for that as well to balance the effectiveness of the submission against the impact of duplicate content. Google expects syndicated content to be duplicated, but there are still tradeoffs that need to be considered (beyond the scope of this brief article).
Article Marketing Resources
As promised, here are five resources that I actually use for article marketing. I have purchased these tools myself. Don’t misunderstand me: you can be successful in article marketing without any tools. These are the tools that I personally use to improve the quality and productivity of my article marketing efforts.
- Article Marketing Domination. This is an excellent eBook by article marketing guru Josh Spaulding. This eBook covers all of the details that i have glossed over above, and is a complete reference. You can do article marketing without knowing all the details, but you will get lot better results if you have all the facts. Most things in life are like this.
- Article Post Robot. A tool for submitting articles to multiple sites. It is really tedious and boring to submit the same article to 50 article directories. Article Post Robot automated this process. This is not the most elegant tool on the planet, but it works very well for me on over 50 article directories (the software supports many more).
- Instant Article Wizard Pro. IAW Pro is an amazing tool for article research. I just learned about this tool this week, and have used it a few times with incredible results. Basically it searches the web for research on your keywords and mashes the pieces together in reasonable sounding paragraphs. Cuts article writing time down by a factor of ten or more in my experience. Even if you have no intention of buying this thing, you have got to see the video.
- Micro Niche Finder. One of the most important parts of Article Marketing (not really covered well in this article) is keyword selection. I use Micro Niche Finder for all my keyword research.
- Josh Spaulding. OK — he is not a resource, actually. He is a person - a really nice one. Josh is my “go to guy” and mentor for Article Marketing, and the author of Article Marketing Domination.
The Bottom Line on Article Marketing
Article marketing is a great way to promote your website, affiliate products or affiliate program. By writing an article that delivers value and offers a subtle mention of your affiliate product or critical keywords, you’re well on your way to getting the proper exposure for your promotion (whatever it is). Simply put, Article Marketing is a great way to promote your business online.
Regards,
Mark
May 9th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
You know mark, I have honestly never done this before. So, I am wondering if I really committed myself to a little experiment, how well it would do. I can totally see a huge potential for a massive amount of exposure. But like you said too, you have to play your cards right and there is a balancing act in the process.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I’ve used article directories before and there are some good and bad points to the whole process.
For the writer, you have the potential to have your articles seen by hundreds of people. The down side is that you’ve got very few rights to your own work. Of course it depends on which directory you work with.
For someone who runs a newsletter or website, it’s a great way of finding articles to fill in blank spots. Most of these articles are free to use, as long as you keep the author’s information with it.
They are a very valuable tool, but you’ve got to read the fine print before you jump in.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Christine,
I am glad to see that you are following Mark Mason’s publishing… What are some fine print items that people should be aware of?
May 9th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
@Christine — Totally agree. That is one of the reasons that I recommend Josh’s eBook. You are correct to point out that there are a lot of things to consider when using article marketing as a traffic strategy.
One thing that works really well in my opinion is to avoid competing directly with your website when doing article marketing. This is what I was referring to above when I talked about keyword selection strategies. Obviously it’s hard to explain all this in a short blog post.
Like Garry I’d really love to hear what you say about this. Your opinion is welcome here always.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Depends on the directory. Some sites are a hundred percent free on both ends of the deal. Writer doesn’t get any money, but the publisher has to keep the author’s name on the work. In some instances, an author is paid a bit of money (nothing to scream about), and then anyone who pays the directory for the article has the right to remove the authors name and information.
That’s why I say you’ve got to do your homework on these sites before submitting anything. Mark mentioned a site called EzineArticles.com. That is probably one of the top sites online. However, there are a lot of them out there, and like anything else, there are a lot of scams. Read the fine print in the TOS before you commit to anything.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Another thing I should mention, though this is probably one of those “duh” comments, is that you need to make sure that whatever directory you’re using has a good reputation. Just because a site “claims” to know what their doing, that doesn’t mean they do.
I had submitted a couple articles to an article directory some years back, and it was doing very well. Then the site closed down for some unknown reason and took my work with it. There was no warning, no explaination, nothing. It was just gone.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Great article. I run 2 article directories so of course I’m a big fan of article marketing. It works on large scale and long term projects is my experience.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Matt,
I can see how things work very well on your end as your site is monetized. I’d like to see if you’d provide some input on how you shaped and molded your site into being a site to where people feel compelled to invest the time into submitting their articles into you directory. How did you get the ball rolling? No one is going to invest time into submitted into a ghost town, so how did you go about marketing your site and getting say the first 100 articles added?
May 10th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
@Christine — Excellent point about TOS, and one that I am personally not very careful about. I need to pay more attention to that. Thanks for that tip.
@Garry — I have always wondered about that myself. Not sure if Matt would be willing to reveal the secret sauce. Josh Spaulding knows something about Article Directories. I will ask him.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:00 am
To me it would see that that would be the tricky part… getting started. After you got a few hundred or so in the directory and it doesn’t look like a ghost town, then I am sure people then start freely submitting content in. It’s a great business and something I actually have some interest in. Any additional insider info that Matt and or Josh would be willing to reveal would be most excellent.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Thanks for recommending “AMD” and myself, Mark. This is a very good general article on article marketing, great job with it…probably the most accurate and informative for the length.
@ Christine - I’m not sure what article directories you’re talking about, but all of those which are worth submitting to are absolutely free and you ALWAYS retain all rights to your work! The only site that MAY be worth submitting to that pays for content is AssociatedContent.com and I don’t recommend submitting there. They don’t allow a realy resource box and although articles there normally get a decent amount of traffic they don’t convert, as they don’t allow you to place your resource box at the bottom.
As far as an article directory shutting it’s doors…it’s not going to hurt you. You have full rights to your articles, so just submit elsewhere. The only way that would be an issue would be if you only submitted to that one article directory and didn’t save your copy, which wouldn’t be smart
@ Garry - You’d be surprised. I’ve created several article directories in my time. You’d be surprised how many people out there will submit to a new article directory. I normally just start a small, cheap adwords campaign and they take off. I’ve started and later sold articlesalley.com everyonesarticles.com and a few others. I’ve had several up to $100+/day before selling.
The downside to running article directories is that they’re EXTREMELY time consuming. The real secret to running a successful article directory is loads of deep linking. The content piles up so fast and so deep that you need to get to spiders deep into it not only to get the content indexed, but to get some authority down into those deep pages.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:30 am
P.S. Article Marketing and Bum Marketing are two different things
Most people don’t realize that though. 
http://ez-onlinemoney.com/blog/article-marketing/bum-marketing-definition/
May 12th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
@Josh — thanks for the helpful comments (and the praise). Like I said, almost all of my article marketing info comes from you.
I really appreciate the clarification on Bum marketing, and I have updated the article accordingly.
Also, regarding time for an article directory — is it the article approval part? If so, what about that takes time, and why can’t that be completely automated?
Thanks!
Mark
May 12th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Thanks for this comprehensive coverage of writing and submitting articles for marketing. I’ve neglected to get into this type of marketing, even though I know it’s been successful for many. Your post has encouraged me to get off the stick.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
@Flora — You are quite welcome. Recommend you start with eZineArticles. Good luck.
Mark
May 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Nicely done, Mark. Very informative.
I, too, like IAWP. I’ve only tested a handful of keywords to see how well it performs and the way it puts together its findings is quite impressive. I’m excited to see how much time it can cut down on article writing.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
@Mark — Glad to hear you are having luck with IWAP. It is definitely one of my new favorites.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Hi Mark,
I just found your blog and you have some excellent content here, congratulations. We have friends in common - Jay & Sterling from IBM.
I use Micro Niche Finder and Article Wizard Pro, two very useful tools.
Regards
Andrew
May 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
@Andrew — thanks! Jay and Sterling are fantastic. They continue to crank out great content. As far as Micro Nice Finder and Article Wizard Pro and concerned, I am glad that you like them. I usually only recommend tools that I actually use, and those two are tools that I use every day.
Thanks for stopping by.
Mark
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I am going to just start now with Article Marketing. Hope to get lots of backlinks and traffic from it
June 14th, 2008 at 5:09 am
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