So, You’ve Written An Article… Now What To Do With It?

Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian
(reprinted with permission)

We’ve seen many discussions about what to do with articles you’ve written (or had written for you) in the wake of Google’s Panda/Farmer update and the resulting drop of EzineArticles.com ranking in Google’s eyes.

A lot of good advise is scattered all through the forum, on multiple discussion threads, sometimes buried among other conversations. And it isn’t cohesive or coherently organized to help a struggling article marketer figure out what exact sequence she should follow with the work she has created.

Here’s an attempt to put it all together into a formula (even though article marketing is anything BUT formulaic!)

Hope it helps.

1. Consider Your Purpose:

What do you intend using that article for?

* Getting more traffic to your website or blog?
* Attracting more fans to your writing?
* Solving a problem for your end-user audience?
* Being published across many other resources?

Each of these purposes will require a slightly different style of action, so knowing it before-hand can help guide you to doing the right thing.

2. Define Your Target and Goal:

A few weeks or months from now, where do you SEE this article being?

* At the top of Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages) for specific keywords?

* On dozens of directories around the Web?

* Featured on hundreds of blogs and sites, not necessarily connected to your topic?

* Spotlighted on the very best industry publications (online and off) in your niche?

* Reprinted in newsletters and ezines of other publishers?
Knowing this will help you plan a specific set of actions AND monitor the impact of what you do – so that you’ll learn what works or doesn’t… and then tweak your action steps the next time around.
3. Get Your Content Published:

The obvious question is “Where?”

The not-so-obvious answer is “It depends!”

Read this first. And also get an overview of what Google considers to be ‘duplicate content’ and how it deals with such content by reading this from Google Webmaster Tools.

Done? Now you have a fair idea of how a specific course of action will affect your content/article – and you will be able make a reasoned decision about where to submit first, where next, and so on. Here are some places you may want to publish your content:

* your own blog
* your own website or article directory/archive
* your own email newsletter
* article directories (for being viewed by others, and perhaps syndicated)
* private blog networks (for back links)
* other blogs, as guest posts
4. Get Your Article Indexed:

Once you have submitted your article to a content resource (your own or others), it is often desirable to have it ranked on search engines.

For that, it must first be ‘indexed’. The benefits are two-fold. Indexing is the first step to entering SERPs. And it also places on record the fact that you have published the content first.
Otherwise, it is possible that someone may rip-off your hard work, publish it and have THEIR version indexed faster… leaving you struggling to convince the world that it was originally yours!

Not desirable – at all

How to get an article indexed? Everyone has their own preferred method. Here are a few that work well for me:

* publish it to your blog, and then ping services like Pingomatic. As your blog grows established, indexing may happen literally within SECONDS!

* publish it to a popular article directory like EzineArticles.com – content often gets indexed within hours of ‘going live’ on the service

* Link to it from frequently spidered services and sites like social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Mixx, Digg, Diigo, Delicious etc.)

* Post a link to it from a popular forum
All work well to get fresh content ‘indexed’.

5. Get Your Content Syndicated:

The ‘Holy Grail’ of most effective article marketers is to make their content widely accessible… to the right audience, and in a manner that does not compromise their own best interests
in any way.

Why do I qualify my statement? Because some article marketers are arguing that publishing ALL their content on directories like EzineArticles.com is a viable strategy with long-term benefits – while in reality, such an approach may end up with your content on the directory’s website ranking HIGHER than your own resources under your control. Which means, any time a shift like the recent Google update happens, your “business” is at risk!

Another reason is to highlight that “less is sometimes more”. You don’t gain much value by having your content in front of unqualified viewers. You want to target your syndication to reach your best/ideal audience, and targeting your efforts to a certain extent will bring you much better results than taking a shotgun approach to “creating the widest damage”!

Here’s an action plan you could follow or adapt to suit you:
* Launch a blog of your own, and publish the articles there (and link back to it in ALL your syndication request messages to showcase your other work, in case a publisher likes another article better or wants to syndicate a lot more of your content!)

* Submit copies (rewritten, or as-is) to article directories (at least the top ones, EzineArticles.com, ArticlesBase.com, GoArticles.com and maybe few others)

* Contact ezine publishers in your niche and ask if they’d like to publish your articles in their newsletters – for free

* Submit your work to niche Web publications that are ‘authority sites’ and that are looking for (and accept) guest submissions

* Contact popular bloggers in your niche to ask if you can submit ‘guest posts’ from time to time (or on a regular basis)

* Use article distribution software (like ‘Article Bot’) or services (like ‘Unique Article Wizard’) to submit your content widely

* Look for ‘syndicators’ or ‘syndication services’ in your niche, or even publicists who work with content publishers, and ask if they’ll help spread your work (sometimes, you’ll have to pay for this service)

* Submit your work to offline publications like newsletters, magazines, newspapers etc. – and ask if you can become a regular columnist for them.

This last action is more time and effort intensive, as you’ll have to either get on the phone, or send a letter by post, or even get out of the house and go meet the people face to face. And because of this “barrier to entry”, you will have VERY little competition – so your chances of getting syndicated are much higher. Also, the reach you’ll get from offline syndication is extensive. All of this will help spread your name and brand widely.

Whenever a reader comes across your writing on a ‘remote’ site and likes it, they will search for more articles from you – and land on your blog, where they can read more, subscribe to your email list or RSS feed, and become your ‘fans’ and ‘followers’… or writing clients, if that’s what you want!

6. Get Your Content Repurposed:

Too many article writers stop after basic syndication efforts are done. They move on to the next article. And even with this minimal attempt, the benefits from article marketing are well
worth continuing.

But you’ve probably heard the phrase, “No traffic jams on the last mile”

It applies to article marketing, too.

Advanced syndication is one untapped avenue of article marketing. Re-purposing content is another.

What if you did any (or all) of these things?
a. add every article you write to your email auto-responder series

b. compile related articles into a short special report for sale or as an incentive to build your list

c. slap a rebrandible affiliate link on them and let your affiliates re-publish on their site, being paid for sales they refer

d. convert the article into a PDF document and distribute it online (various resources accept PDF submissions)

e. convert the article into a slideshow and do the same

f. turn it into a video and do it again

g. read it aloud and record it as an audio version, then turn it into a podcast or distribute it online

h. pack a big collection of relevant articles into a cohesive narrative, and turn it into a book (ebook, Kindle book, printed book, whatever!) There’s more you can do with every article you write or order. And that’s what will make it worth paying $50, $100, or even (like some of my writing clients do) $500 for a single article – because you can squeeze a LOT more from top quality content
over time.

On average, if you get this right, you can generate $1 PER WORD from every article you write – over the long-term.
(I do – which is why I write so much!  )

Do the math on your writing. See if you are hitting this target consistently. If not, change something so that you get closer to this mark.

I’ll leave you with an inspiring message I first learned from
Jeffrey Lant:

“I don’t start writing an article until I’ve figured out 26 different ways to profit from it!”

All success
Dr.Mani
Dr. Mani’s Infopreneur Blog, Turn Words Into Wealth