Article Marketing Strategy for 2010
Recently here at StartRankingNow we have been running a test to see what exactly are the best article directories to submit articles to. There are many sites that will provide a list of the top 10 article directories to submit articles to based on Page Rank, but just because a site has a PR of 4 on their home page, does not mean that it will be valuable or profitable for you to submit your articles there. As we literally submit hundreds of articles per month to the article directories, we have run a test to find out which article directories get indexed by Google the fastest without having to do any external link building.
What we did:
We submitted 100 articles to each of the article directories over a 3 month period. Within 30 days of submitting the articles and the articles being published, we checked all of the submissions to determine if the urls generated by the article submissions were indexed in Google. We gathered the data and determined what percentage of the urls were indexed.
Here are the results:
- Ezinearticles.com 100%
- Buzzle.com 100%
- Goarticles.com 89%
- Articlebase.com 91%
- A1articles.com 100%
- Articleblast.com 90%
- Articlefeeder.com 96%
- Articlerich.com 83%
- Thefreelibrary.com 89%
- Amazines.com 32%
- Articlemonkey.com 30%
- Articlecube.com 35%
- Articlesfreedirectory.com 5%
- Articlesnatch.com 35%
- Articlepool.com 0%
- Ideamarketers 22%
- Ehow.com 40%
- Associatedcontent.com 40%
- Helium.com 40%
- Isnare.com 21%
Always remember to TEST your SEO activities and be sure it works. If your SEO company is submitting to hundreds of article directories but your articles are not getting indexed, then those links don’t count!
Do you know of another article directory we can test? Please let us know!
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Top Free Press Release Distribution Sites
First of all, it is important to understand exactly what a press release should accomplish. Press releases are a way to promote your company and a product in a journalistic style and not a way to create another company advertisement. It should not be full of showy adjectives that have no real, factual importance. A press release should be time sensitive and grasp something that is innovative and different about you and your company, right now. Press releases can be one of the mot important ways to gain exposure for your company, but they need to be written in a very specific way. This is one of the main reasons it can be helpful to get tips from one of the top press release distribution sites.
One of the top free press release distribution sites is free-press-release.com. They offer a range of packages to fit the needs of any company. Their free press release service is a great way to get your feet wet, but if you can pay $1 per press release you can get their premier package that includes many more benefits. These additional benefits include features like the ability to add pictures to your press release, premier home page exposure and can be over 3 times longer than the free version. This is a very informative site that gives you tons of tools so that you can learn everything you need to know about writing an effective press release. They list their features and products clearly, so you know exactly what you are getting.
Another excellent site for featuring press releases for free is 1888pressrelease.com. This site al
so offers a free service to post your press releases and upgraded packages. 1888pressrelease.com is bit more pricey than free-press-release.com, but they offer over 18 impressive features with their Diamond Plan. These features include the ability to upload your video gallery, advanced PR placement strategies and promotions, and distribution via social media. They strive to showcase press releases that really make a statement by reviewing each and every submission for content, formatting and grammar. This makes 1888pressrelease.com a really credible site for journalists and editors all over the world.
Another one of the more popular free press release distribution sites is 24-7pressrelease.com. While they do limit your ability to submit free press releases to 1 per day, they do offer upgraded press release distribution packages. These packages allow companies to choose the level of exposure they are able to afford. There largest package offers mass media distribution to over 4000 websites and trade publications. You will find their service to be very user friendly and offer quantity discounts for their Mass Media Distribution plan.
Each of these services helps to educate their clients on how to write quality press releases and each one offers a way to distribute those press releases for free. If you are looking for more exposure and media coverage, each company also offers upgrade options that allow you to get a really big bang for your buck. Don’t go another day without distributing a press release about your company.
Keeping Track of Links is an Important Step in Your SEO Strategy
For any online business it is very important to keep track of your inbound links. Many people spend a lot of time and resources creating unique articles and posting them to article sites all over the internet, but do not take the time to track their links to see which ones the search engines are finding. As you create articles it is important to keep a spreadsheet listing each of your articles, where you posted them and which keywords you are focusing on. Some articles will be more appealing to the search engines than others and this is why it is 
important to track which articles are performing on which search engines.
The second thing you will need to do is sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and verify your site. Once your site is verified you will start seeing statistics about your website including inbound links. This will give you a list of which sites Google is tracking and which pages on your website have links pointing to them. This will help you build a strong backlink strategy which will bring your website up in search engine rankings and increase traffic to your site.
Link building is still one of the most important steps in any search engine optimization strategy. It is the main way to get your website listed organically on the top search engines and increase the page rank of pages on your site. The more links you can build the better, but you need to build links in a natural way. You do not want to go and post 100 articles pointing to your website in two days. The search engines will not like this technique and they could actually penalize your site for it. 
Understanding the importance of link building and the proper techniques for it can seem a bit overwhelming, at first. The key is to stay focused and organized. Keep track of the articles that you write and the keywords that you are using. Post articles on popular sites such as Ezinearticles, Hubpages and Squidoo, and post them a few at a time. Do not go out and pay some company to post 1000 articles for you in a few days or a week. This is a sure way to hurt your website.
Outsourcing the writing of your articles is a great place to start with your link building strategy. You can then post the articles yourself in a way that will not cause the search engines to penalize your website. There are many freelancers online that can help you with this task for a reasonable rate. Link building is one of the most important tasks related to building any online business. If done correctly and tracked regularly you are sure to see amazing results in your search engine rankings. If done incorrectly you can really hurt your online business. So, keep a list of your articles and keywords and sign up for Google Webmaster Tools in order to see which sites are working the best for your website and post articles slowly.
