Already
a very popular method of achieving a high search
engine ranking, article PR (aka article
submission) has now entered the mainstream. As
such, its popularity is increasing at a dramatic
rate. While this is great for SEO copywriters
like myself, there are some side-effects that
need to be addressed if article PR is going to
remain a viable search engine ranking technique.
This article discusses some of those
side-effects, along with how they might be
addressed.
But First, a Little on Article PR
Article PR is the process of writing 'frëe
reprint articles' and submitting them to the 250+
established article submission sites on the
Internet. An article submission site is simply a
repository of frëe reprint articles - a place
where authors can submit their articles frëe of
charge, and where webmasters can find articles to
use on their websites frëe of charge. In return
for frëe use of your article, the webmaster
includes your author bio and its links to your
site. Every time your article is published, you
get another link to your site and a boost to your
ranking. If the quality of your article is high,
it can be published hundreds of times.
The Rise And Rise of Article PR
Because article PR is such an effective way of
generating a high search engine ranking, it has
now entered the mainstream. As an SEO copywriter,
I get several requests each week for quotes to
write articles. These requests come almost
exclusively from business owners and marketing
managers who know little (if anything) about SEO.
They obviously didn't go looking for article PR;
article PR found them...
As a result of its newfound mainstream
popularity, the number of articles being written
and submitted has increased by between 100% -
600% in the past year!
Christopher Knight, owner of the biggest article
submission site, EzineArticles, tells me that the
number of article submissions to his site
increased by a staggering 600% from 2004 to 2005.
In 2004, EzineArticles was averaging only 1416
article submissions per month. In 2005, it was
averaging 8482 article submissions per month!
Similarly, at the end of 2005, when I spoke with
Mel Strocen, owner of GoArticles, he reported a
doubling of article submissions in the second
half of the year. "In the last 6 months
article submissions have increased by 100%, going
from about 1,000 submissions per week to 2,000+
per week," he said
Jason Lynch, owner of ArticleBlast, reported
similar increases; between April '05 and January
'06, submissions to ArticleBlast increased by
over 300%.
The web traffïc to these sites tells the same
story. According to Alexa statistics, at the end
of 2004, EzineArticles had a reach of approx 100
users per million Internet users per day. Just
over a year later, the site is reaching over ten
times that many Internet users. (If we take the
total number of Internet users worldwide to be
964 million, EzineArticles traffïc has increased
from around 96,000 per day to over 1 million
visitors per day.)
Alexa stats for GoArticles report similar
increases in traffïc. At the end of 2004, it had
a reach of approx 50 users per million Internet
users per day. Just over a year later, it's
reaching approx 10 times that number of users.
(Again assuming 964 million Internet users
worldwide, GoArticles traffïc has increased from
around 48,000 per day to around half a million
visitors per day.)
Figures for ArticleBlast are more difficult to
ascertain as the site is younger and has lower
overall traffïc.
Even if Alexa's figures are a little inflated (as
I think they tend to be), they still provide a
consistent measure for the period. As such, the
percentage increases should be relatively
accurate.
The Side-Effects of the Rise of Article PR
A number of writers have voiced the fear that
article PR will die through 'over-use', just as
keyword stuffing and link farms died. But I don't
agree. Why? Because article PR isn't just useful
to authors and SEO copywriters. The success of
article PR is based on the premise that our
articles are also useful to READERS. So long as
the majority of articles remain useful (i.e.
helpful, informative, and easy to read), readers
will still want to read them, publishers will
still want to publish them, and article PR will
remain a viable link building method.
This is true no matter how many people are
writing and publishing frëe reprint articles.
Frequent use of a tool doesn't make the tool
ineffective. (Just look at traditional forms of
advertising - millïons of businesses engage in
radio, print, and TV advertising, and those
methods remain very effective. The fierce
competition simply encourages advertisers to
improve the quality of their ads in order to
stand out.)
No, in my opinion, there's no such thing as too
many articles. However, there is such a thing as
too many BAD articles. Readers want helpful,
credible information; they don't want badly
written articles or empty words ('article sp@m')
which simply carry a link.
Just as importantly, webmasters don't want to
spend hours trying to find the right article to
publish. At the moment, there are literally
hundreds of article submission sites out there.
Most of them are generic, fully automated affairs
that involve no human moderation. They don't
distinguish between good writing and bad, they
don't cull article sp@m, and they don't
categorize their articles very well. As a result,
publishers have to wade through a sea of poor
quality to find a handful of useful articles.
These issues are the real hurdles that need to be
overcome if article PR is to survive.
Overcoming the Problems
The article submission sites will overcome the
problems. Here's how...
As mentioned above, readers aren't interested in
bad articles or article sp@m. This means that, in
the long run, there's no real value in publishing
such articles (either for webmasters or article
submission sites); readers will frequent the
sites that publish useful articles and ignore
those that don't. Likewise, publishers will
frequent the article submission sites that post
useful, easy-to-find articles and ignore those
that don't.
This means we'll see an increase in the number of
human-moderated article submission sites. And
once this happens, the article PR landscape will
change forever:
1) Human moderated article submission sites will
offer a higher percentage of quality articles,
and those articles will be easier to find;
2) Human moderated article submission sites will
attract more publishing webmasters, and, as a
result, more authors;
3) We'll see a decrease in the number of
un-moderated article submission sites because
they won't generate enough traffïc to make
AdSense profitable;
4) We'll see a decrease in the overall number of
article submission sites (anyone can launch an
automated article submission site, but it takes
real commitment, business sense, and a dedicated
budget to run a human-moderated article
submission site);
5) The spoils will be greater for the surviving
article submission sites, so they'll go to
greater lengths to ensure the high quality of
their articles; and
6) We'll witness the decline of article sp@m and
poor quality articles simply because they won't
be accepted at the good article submission sites.
All in all, it's a positive outlook for authors
and publishers of quality articles.
Happy writing, publishing, and posting!
About The Author
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR
specialist.
He owns article submission service
Article PR
and copywriting studio Divine
Write. He
can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details, more
FR-E-E articles, or to download his FR-E-E SEO
e-book.
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