Welcome to part 2 of my series of articles where I’ll be talking about the best free strategies to generate real traffic to your websites. These are proven strategies and tricks that take time to kick into action, but they’re also the ones that will generate long-term traffic inflow to your destination.
A Bad Reputation
In part one of the series, I talked about on-page SEO. In part 2 I’ll go over Article Marketing. Article marketing has taken a severe beating over the years starting in 2012 with the “Panda” and “Penguin” updates by Google and continuing all the way to today. It’s 2021 and if you think that you can generate traffic by mass-submitting, you have another thing coming. Not only will it not work, but your website can get penalized for trying to play the system.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Google makes most of their money through paid ads and services. They would be idiots to ruin a several billion dollars industry by allowing people to rank easily through cheap tricks. Something can work for a while, but sooner or later Google catches up and updates it’s algorithm, and the game starts all over again.
The only things that Google takes into consideration from day 1, and will do so always are VALUE and ORIGINALITY. If your content is 100% original and has valuable relevant information, Google will help you rank on its own. If these 2 components are missing from your foundation, you can try any and all strategies to generate traffic to your website, but you won’t get anywhere without paying.
Article Marketing is still one of the Strategies to Generate Real Traffic to Your Websites That Works if Done Properly
As I said, the days of mass-submitting articles is long, long gone. Nevertheless, you can still draw traffic by writing articles. There are some simple steps you have to follow though.
Rules to Article Marketing
- Choose a good directory. Ezine Articles is my article directory of choice. There’s a huge audience for every topic you can think of. There is actually a lot of useful stuff I picked up in time from people posting on Ezine.
- Be sure to read and comply with the rules of the platform. You will not be able to override or trick the system. Not following rules will get you banned.
- Write 100% unique content. This is something I always point out. Do not use PLR and then work your way around it. Research the topic you want to write about and do your best to present your opinion in an articulate, and easy to read fashion.
- Make your articles at least 400 words long. This is the minimum most article directories require. And to tell the truth, if you can’t write a 400 words article, you shouldn’t be writing in the first place.
- Divide your article into several paragraphs so it’s easier on the eye. If I come across an article that’s one paragraph with 500-600 words in it, I’m not going to read it no matter how interesting the topic is. It’s just too chaotic and hard to follow.
- Make your content as awesome as possible. This seems one of those things that goes without saying, but what I mean is that you need to make sure the readers are going to get some value out of what they just read. Make your article interesting and packed with valuable information, so that people read your next article when they see your name. Take time and try to switch perspective. What would you consider an article worth reading?
- Follow these steps every time. If you do article marketing the right way, it is truly still one of the strategies that will generate real traffic to your sites.
Article Submitting Tips
As we discussed before, mass-submitting is out of the question. Another thing that’s important is that you should only submit your articles to the top directories (Ezine, Quora, etc). This will save you time, as you will get much better results much faster.
You should also try and get your articles into other areas. Try getting your material posted on other people’s blogs, newsletters, forums, newsgroups, etc.
Structure of an Article
Many beginners will face problems when writing an article in terma of structure and maybe not having enough material for 400 words. A good method that I had used when I was first starting out is repetition through structure.
What I used to do is start my article with something like “Here’s what I’m going to tell you…” Then you state what you’re going to talk about. After that first paragraph (make it look natural) You can start another one in the middle of the article with something like “Now I’ll explain exactly…”
When you’re near the end start a paragraph with “So, here’s what I just told you…”
This way you should get to 400 words without any problems.
Another important element of article writing is your bio-box. That’s a small section at the end of a blog post where information about the article’s author or your offer is displayed. Keep the bio-box short and sweet. For example, it can read something like this: “Do you want to learn how I solved this problem? Click on the link below to find out.”
Conclusion
Even if it’s got a bad reputation over the years, article marketing is still a legitimate way to drive traffic that keeps working. All you need to do is check out some of the directories for yourself…they’re packed. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of visitors. So, that many people in one place is a market in itself. Just imagine writing something that would catch the eyes of 15 or 20% of the audience….it could mean you hit the jackpot.
More to Come
In part 3 of our Strategies To Generate Real Traffic To Your Websites series we will be talking about blog hopping, which is a very effective method to generate quality traffic that search engines recognize and consider legit.
You can watch this video I’ve done about on-page SEO that I wrote about in part 1 of the Strategies to Generate Real Traffic To Your Websites.
If you want to see a “set-and-forget” automated method to generate traffic from real people to your website check this out:
I hope you liked the article, and that it will help you in your quest for financial freedom. Feel free to share this article with your friends if you think it could help them. Stay safe and stay tuned for more.
