The Article Marketing Blog

We are currently remodeling the Article Marketing Hub main website. The design is complete and all we have left to do is begin inserting all of the awesome article marketing content that we have been saving for you.

From absolute beginners to seasoned veterans, we’re going to have something for everone, including news, forum, blog, classifieds, featured authors and articles, a new article directory and much more.

Stay tuned!

Allen Graves

I have been seeing another widely unheard of benefit of article marketing lately…and that is the fact that some people will attempt to contact you directly. They will get to your website, but they do not click on your purchase or affiliate links. Instead, they send you an email.

This is the absolute BEST contact you can get from your prospects because you already have their 100% undivided attention. If this ever happens to you…DO NOT hesitate in responding to them. The quicker you respond, the more the prospect is likely to purchase your products/services.

How do I know this is happening? Well, unfortunately, some people do not realize that the article is being hosted on an article directory and they will send their email straight to the article directory contact link.

Here’s a real live example of an email I received yesterday:

Have purchased a used 2002 YCT Pontoon Boat Trailer  Model PTB2335t;  serial number 4H1062624Y0270079
One set of wheel bearings on one of the tandom axles has failed and must be replaced.  I have been unable to find
the part numbers for the inner and outer wheel bearings and races as well as the inside grease seal.  Please
advise ASAP so I can get replacements to make the repair.    Thanks.        Jonathan

This was in relation to an article on Lowe Boat Accessories. I quickly replied and asked Jonathan to click through to the website and THEN use the contact link.

Again, this kind of direct communication is GOLDEN and should be taken advantage of whenever you get the chance.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

Since I launched Website-Articles.net a few months ago, and people have seen that it is succeeding, they are desperately trying to get me to reveal my secrets to them on how to create a successful paid article directory. After all, no other paid article directory has ever succeeded, and this one is absolutely thriving!

Membership websites are very popular right now, and with the huge amounts of article directories out there, it’s only natural to wonder if a paid article directory would work.

As I said, as far as I know, Website-Articles.net is the only paid article directory that has actually been successful. All others who have attempted this type of membership site have failed miserably…or have so few members that they cannot please the search engines and will end up failing very soon.

So how is it that Website-Articles.net would thrive while all of the others fail?

It’s simple really.

The membership at Website-Articles.net is not for the article directory itself…it is for the other benefits that come along with it. The article directory is simply a nice bonus that the members are able to take advantage of.

Of course, in the article directory you are allowed to use pictures, videos, html, css, rich text and basically anything else you could do on your own website (scripts and Adsense are not allowed), and they enjoy a favorable amount of Google love…not to mentioned the highest click-through rates online today, by far!

But the real benefit to the members comes in the inside information they receive from Allen Graves and his (my) staff of article marketing experts. The information that is revealed to the members is so powerful and exclusive, that they simply have an unbelievable advantage over article marketers who do not have access to the information. I am obviously not going to reveal what the members get “inside,” but I will tell you that it is WAY worth the price.

Things change in the article marketing world all the time. If you are not up-to-date on everything and on top of the search engine changes, you will continually be one step behind the competition. Website-Articles.net bases its membership fees on this information…not the article directory. And that is how they have become the only paid article directory to ever succeed online.

So if you are thinking about starting up a paid article directory, remember that it is not the directory that will make you succeed. It is individual attention to the authors and the information and benefits that you provide for them. Remember, the author is your boss!

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

I always keep a close eye on the “top” article directories out there. From ArticlesArea.com to Website-Articles.net, I run a special program every day that shows me several statistics about all of them.

Over the last several years, a vast majority of the article marketing community has considered the top 3 article directories to be EzineArticles.com, ArticleDashboard.com and GoArticles.com, however over the last several weeks, I have been noticing a big change that I want to bring to your attention.

Both ArticleDashboard.com and GoArticles.com seem to be taking a virtual nosedive when it comes to traffic. I have started a few threads on a couple of internet marketing forums asking the forum members if they have lost their SERPs rankings for articles in these directories. EVERY SINGLE REPONSE that I received said that they have lost pretty much all of their SERPs rankings for articles in these two directories.

Let’s take this a little further and take a look at their Alexa ratings. Now, a lot of people will tell you Alexa rankings don’t mean squat. To a degree, I will agree with that, but when it comes to websites used by internet marketing professionals (namely, article directories), I believe that Alexa rankings provide a relatively precise estimate of the reach of these websites.

Here is the Alexa ranking map for GoArticles.com:

And here is the graph for ArticleDashboard:

Both of these graphs are pretty self-explanatory. The traffic is decreasing.

I am not saying that these two directories are not worth using, I am simply bringing these facts to your attention. If you are serious about your article marketing campaigns, then you should be aware of the places you should or should not be submitting your articles, based on your own discretion.

My next update will be kind of a reverse of this one, showing you the directories that are moving the OTHER way in Alexa and in general IM popularity.

Respectfully,

Allen Graves

I have often wondered about titles like these. If it were really that easy, all of us would be millionaires by now, right? And why would someone who is doing this want to give away their secrets for $7?

Someone recently started a thread on the Warrior Forum about how to tell if someone was worth listening to. Well, in my opinion, boasting about how much money you allegedly make, or how quickly you earned $100,000 is not the best way of establishing yourself as a maven in your particular corner of our world.

It is VERY tempting to open up a WSO, and even purchase one, that has this kind of title. But when 100 people purchase it and 100 people fail to come close to what you claimed, then you simply end up with a bunch of people on your mailing list that don’t trust you or believe that what you offer is worth two craps.

What I would suggest to newbies, or anyone who is being tempted by one of these offers, is to do a little off-forum research.

Look around and see what you can find out about this person. Are they considered an expert in their field? Has anyone even heard of them before? Do they have a blog or do they post on other forums (other than about their product)? What kind of history does this person have?

If you can’t find anything about this person, then steer clear! If you look around and find that they actually DO have the credentials that would merit you purchasing their WSO…then go for it.

I hope I am not stepping on toes here…I have just seen so many of these WSOs and Sales Pages lately and I have yet to see a reply stating…

“What a great offer! I also made $45,000 in 3 weeks on only 45 minutes of work!”

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

If you’re like me, you’ve noticed that the major search engines have suddenly stopped ranking article directories in the top SERPs for most keyword phrases. Being an article directory owner, this was a major concern for me and a large portion of my business.

Many of my authors and even people who frequent this blog have asked if they should wait to submit their articles until this resolved itself. My answer…NO.

I have been watching very closely and although a lot of my author’s articles disappeared from the SERPs over the last week or so, they are starting to come back. THANK GOD! But here’s the kicker, not ALL of them are coming back.

I am noticing that certain types of articles which ranked very highly last week are now on page 30-something, while articles that ranked low last week have come back on the first page.

I am not going to get into the reason for this or the similarities I have found in the articles which have dropped and the ones that are quickly climbing…that is saved for my membership participants. But I will say that if you have been writing for search engines instead of writing for the READERS, then you are about to get slapped right down into nothingness!

What I would suggest you do is completely start over with a brand new mindset. Write for the readers. Provide valuable information without giving it all away…BUT DO NOT TEASE THE READER OR OPENLY TELL THEM TO GO TO YOUR WEBSITE.

I have been having some great conversations with article directory owners all over the world and a lot of us believe that we are seeing a monumental shift in the way Google is looking at (and ranking) the content on article directories.

A lot of people are saying that article directories are going to lose their effectiveness. This is far from the truth. In fact, I heard from a very reliable source that Google currently believes that article marketing is one of the two best ways to market your internet business. That should tell you something right there.

You just need to know the state of the industry and how to write and market your articles in a manner that is not seen by the search engines as “article spam.” Then, if your content is fresh, original and good, you will be good to go.

At this point, it would be silly to predict much more than what I have stated here, but if you are serious about your internet business and you are using article marketing as a form of promotion, then you need to keep a very close eye on things!

As I always say, “Times Change, Rules Change.”

More to come!

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

If you are anything like me, you wake up in the morning and quickly check your email to see how much money you made while sleeping…even if it’s just a few Adsense clicks! Even if it’s just seeing some articles that were approved. The feeling (and the dream) of making money while you sleep is so satisfying to me and most of you, that it is easy to become overly involved in your internet business.

One of the best feelings is to open up your email account and see multiple “You have received a payment” emails.

So I work harder and harder every day to keep those emails coming. I work more and more to get that article written…to get that extra web page created…to get that image just right. It’s so easy to get so completely involved in a certain task that you end up with the blinders on and you can’t hear someone talking to you from 3 feet away.

Has this ever happened to you?

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Heck, anything to help you retire sooner is definitely a plus, right?

Now I am going to change the mood a little bit.

Yesterday was my daughter’s 8th birthday. After all the hoopla and the visitors and the cake and ice cream, we settled down to relax for the evening. That’s when my daughter said she wanted to do something with just me…just me and her.

I looked at my wife and she winked at me and quietly shook her hand, motioning me to go ahead.

We ended up at the local Malibu Go Kart / Video Game / Skeeball / Putt Putt / Batting Cages place. And man did we have a great time.

We played 9 holes of Miniature golf, jumped on the trampolines that hook to your belt so can jump like 40 feet in the air, we played video games, got a million “tickets” and cashed them in for a bunch of stupid little toys.

But here’s what I am getting at. My daughter was so happy that she was spending this time with daddy. She kept hugging me and joking and laughing.

The best part of the evening, though was when we were about to leave and she looked up at me with the sweetest look in the world and mumbled four words…

“Daddy, I love you.”

The look in her eyes and the tenderness in her voice gave me such an unexplainably wonderful feeling…more than a million “You have received a payment” emails could EVER give me.

So, as you trudge away trying to make more money, write more content or send out that next newsletter. Make sure not to forget what really matters in life. If you stop and take a minute to actually enjoy what you are working so hard for, then you’ll get so much more out of life.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

Hello All - I thought I would post a quick update about my feelings toward Google Knols.

As an article marketer, I love them! But only because I have been marketing for the purposes of informaing readers about my products and services, not just to get backlinks to my website(s). I believe that the backlinks are soon to be a thing of the past and article marketing will be done more for direct traffic than backlinks for SEO. ANyone who has been using article marketing solely for backlinking purposes is about to get slapped harder than any slap has ever been given!

As an article directory owner, I am a little angry. Take a look at Google knols and then take a look at one of my article pages that have been live for years. Is it me, or did they imitate exactly what I have been doing? Listen Mr. Google, that’s all well and good, but give me some Google love if you’re gonna steal my ideas!

Listen, I love the fact that Google is standing up and making a statement. Article Marketing is about to change forever. Gotta run…

Comments?

July 25, 2008 -

My first case study at this blog will be in the relationships/dating niche. I am partnering with Sylvia Rolfe, who owns and operates PLR Articles 4 You, a top-quality membership ghost writing service. Sylvia and her writers are going to provide me with the article body and then I will take those articles and apply my article marketing techniques and marketing strategies to them.

I just got off the telephone with Sylvia and we are going to get started ASAP. I am so excited to be able to let you watch each step of this case study as we set out to get an article to the #1 spot in Google, Yahoo and MSN for a highly searched keyword phrase.

As we go through this case study, I will not be revealing the keyword phrase(s) that we are targeting so that we do not skew the statistics with onlookers. But when the case study is complete, I will reveal everything we did as well as the keyword phrase(s) that we targeted.

Since article marketing is more about results than traffic, we are going to be using a product on ClickBank to sell to the visitors we get from the article. We will be sharing our sales data with you here as well.

We will also be starting a new domain from scratch. This way, you can see the possibilities of any domain climbing in the SERPS without previous history.

Again, we will reveal all of the details at the end of the case study.

This should be very exciting to watch. Just remember that we are talking about search engines here. Things do not happen overnight, but in the grand scheme, this should not take much time at all!

If you want to find out more about my article marketing strategy and techniques, visit:

 http://www.thearticlemarketinghandbook.com

I will be updating this post as we move along. Bookmark this page and come back for updates…

Hello Everyone!

I’d like to take a moment and tell you a little bit about myself and my history in the article marketing community. I think it is important for you to know that I am not just another internet scammer looking to make a buck on something that I know nothing about.

My name is Allen Graves and I am the owner and administrator of one of the internet’s most respected article directories, Website-Articles.net, as well as three other smaller niche article directories.

Even today as I become increasingly active in the article marketing community, I make the time to personally review each and every article that is submitted to my directories. Over the years I have literally reviewed tens of thousands of articles. 

I have been an active member of the article marketing community for several years. Along with maintaining my article directories, I have actively participated in several internet marketing and article marketing forums and blogs, offering my experience, assistance and guidance to article marketers around the world.

I am also the (very proud) founder and spokesperson for the Article Directory Owners’ Association. The ADOA is a growing group of dedicated article directory owners who are committed to educating the internet community on proper article marketing guidelines. By standardizing and regulating these guidelines, we feel that we will insure the staying power of article marketing for decades to come.

But above all, I am an article marketer. I am writing articles and getting them published throughout the internet, just as you are doing (or will be doing). I have been writing and submitting articles on the internet since 2002, when the technique was still in its infancy. Through the years I have seen “experts”, techniques, software, strategies, article marketing websites and article directories come and go. I’ve seen all the scams and gimmicks, even falling for some of them along the way.

So, why am I telling you all this? I just want you to recognize that I have been active in the article marketing industry for several years and I have used my unique position of being both a directory owner and article marketer, to educate myself on article marketing strategy, trends and practices. I am going to provide a lot of information in this blog and I want you to know that you are getting it from an expert in the field and not someone who is making up rogue, untested strategies for a profit!

I call myself an expert because through the years I have learned how to quickly identify what is and what is not working when it comes to marketing articles on the internet. Recognizing changes in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and writing styles has become second-nature to me.

It’s kind of funny, by simply reviewing a bunch of articles every day, I can tell when an internet “guru” has sent out an article marketing tip to their email list. Suddenly I’ll receive tons of articles with some very interesting similarities. Once in 2007, I received a couple hundred articles that had the exact same keyword-stuffed title. Later that day, while checking my emails, sure enough there was one from a pretty respected internet marketer telling everyone to use that keyword-stuffed title.

Unlike most of you, there is no waiting period for me to learn which articles are ranking highly in the SERPs, which articles are getting the highest click through rates or which writing styles or formats are doing the best. I can see this information almost instantly by merely opening and studying the website statistics of my article directories and scrutinizing the articles to which they correspond.

I am constantly testing new techniques and strategies. Usually these tests are based on things that I find in my statistical research. But I cannot always depend on seeing these newer successful techniques from the web stats.

That’s when things get interesting and fun. I sit in front of one of my articles and simply think of something to change. Titles, resource boxes, submission techniques…whatever. Then, I test it.

I have actually found some of the best article marketing techniques by simply doing something different and testing it. By thinking “out of the box” and keeping an open mind, I have been able to find some very interesting trends and traffic building techniques over the years.

And since things are changing all the time on the internet, I never run out of things to try.

I am genuinely passionate about this niche. I love what I am doing. I love helping people get results and I love studying statistics and watching the results of my own article marketing campaigns and tests.

I will continue doing article marketing research and I will always do anything and everything I can to help build a respectable and profitable online community for article marketers all over the world!

Call me strange, but submitting an article and watching/waiting to see results gives me somewhat of a thrill (I know, my wife says I’m weird). I hope that you can experience this same excitement when you have captured the theories and concepts I will be teaching you and apply them to your own article marketing campaigns!

Even you veteran article marketers out there are going to be pleasantly surprised at the quality, originality and amount of information you’re going to get here.

If you ever begin to feel intimidated or mesmerized by all of this, just start with one step at a time. There is no need to jump in and start submitting a million article a day. Take it slowly and learn the concepts. Once you begin to feel comfortable, then you can start taking things at your own speed and develop your own workflow and pace.

Finally, the information you are going to get from this blog (and articlemarketinghub.com) can be invaluable to you and your web business. The more this information is shared across the internet in forums, chat room or other websites, the lesser the value it will have for you.

Whenever things change, I will be letting you know here. The way things change on the internet these days, the things I write today may be completely inaccurate a year from now!

Thank you for reading this long post. I look forward to giving as much as I can to you and to our community.

Respectfully,

Allen Graves