Should I Submit my Article to my Site and Article Directories?

July 21st, 2008 | 55 comments

submit article to site and directory? There are a handful of questions that CONSTANTLY come up in regards to Article Marketing.

The basic concepts behind article marketing are fairly simple. It’s understanding what has worked and what hasn’t worked historically that can get confusing. One of the handful of questions that is constantly asked is this:

Should I submit the same article to my site/blog AND article directories?

The answer to this question is No, you shouldn’t.

But, it isn’t going to hurt you dramatically. To understand my logic you need to understand the primary benefit to article marketing.

First, let me say this. The #1 biggest misconception of article marketing is that the backlinks you obtain within your article’s signature block are the main advantage to article marketing.

Man, how this myth has remained alive over the years is beyond me. Look, those links help, but they are not very strong!!!!

Here is an example, showing the primary benefit to article marketing:

I build a mini-site in the cell phone market. I do some keyword research and I find a list of, lets say 25 long tail phrases in that niche. Each of these phrases have some daily search volume, but little to no competition. (easy to obtain a top 10 ranking.)

We write an article about each of these 25 phrases, 25 total articles, each targeting a different phrase.

We create 5 (for example) pages on our mini-site. Each page will contain one of these articles and obviously we’ll insert the targeted phrase in the title of that page etc.

We submit the remaining 20 articles to article directories. Since the good article directories already possess authority, and since I’m targeting long-tail phrases, the top article directories are able to get my article in the top 10 search results of Google.

Since they are long-tail phrases and have little to no competition it’s easy for these top 10 rankings to stick, with no additional effort.

That means each of these articles will be getting search traffic. This traffic lands on our articles and they like it, so they click on the link(s) to our site that we inserted into the signature block.

This generates long-term traffic directly from the article directories.

So, whether our own mini-site pages end up ranking for their targeted keyword phrases or not is irrelevant. We just target each site page to a keyword just for the heck of it, would be dumb not to.

So, why shouldn’t I submit the same article to my site and article directories?

Because that article is targeting one phrase! If you submit the same article to your site/blog that you submit to article directories, you’re just competing against yourself!

Will it hurt you? Probably not, but it’s going to take extra time and the return of investment (time) is typically not going to be worth it. Also, I want my sites content to be as unique as possible. Obviously you can’t control spammers who scrape your content, but why make your own content even less unique? You won’t get a penalty, but you never know, you may lose a spot or two in the SERPS.

photo credit: ~EvidenceE~

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55 comments

Brian (6 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Josh,
Your clear advice and good logic are a tonic, man! The “duplicate” issue has been a roadblock for me for a long time. It just jammed up my thinking, and stopped me cold. Now I can’t wait to get home and get to work submitting articles with a clear plan.
Alles gudde!

Brian
ComputerDoc (5 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:35 pm

How do you fell about targeting different keywords but writing an article that is basically an abstract of the site post but leaving out some crucial details and links.

This can create an interest for the reader to get the whole story.
Preschool Activities (5 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Great article you have here! Nicely explained.

I will be placing more attention on these article tactics for some of my websites now!

Thanks for keeping it real!
Chris Lockwood (4 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:42 pm

Josh, I don’t follow your logic when you talk about competing with yourself.

What’s wrong with getting 2 pages in the SEs instead of 1? Wouldn’t you prefer that?

If I’m going to write an article and submit it to a directory where anyone else can take it and publish it, it doesn’t make much sense to me to not use the article myself.
Advantages Of Solar Energy (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Good post josh, plus if people come to the site and see the same article they just read on the article directory they more then likely will not stay long and you will lose adsense clicks or product sales as a result
GetArticlesDone (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Excellent advice Josh. The times are over where submitting the same article to hundreds of places did bring great results.

Today Google has become smarter and values unique content more than ever. Submitting unique articles to the top article directories brings the best results.

Another thing has changed. In the early days of article marketing you got good results with just a few articles. Today you need to submit almost daily to get the same results. The competition got stronger. Another reason for submitting unique content.

Gunter
dennis (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 5:49 pm

josh,

wow. this all makes perfect sense now. you have to get the keywords part down right for any of it to work.

thanks for the article.
Frank Bruno (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:00 pm

To get by the challenge of writing articles for each keyword and needing 5 articles on your blog for the same 5 keywords at an article directory, so that its logical for search engines and readers alike, make the 5 articles on your site an extension of 5 articles on the article directory.

Since you will need the same keyword in both articles anyway for seo, you will actually need 2 articles on the same keywords for a total of 10 articles. 5 on your site and 5 in the directories, the remaining go to the directories.

Frank Bruno
Josh Spaulding
21st July, 2008 at 6:01 pm

@ Brian,

Gut, allesklar. Sprechen sie Deutsche?

Duplicate content isn’t really an issue until you start submitting to hundreds of low-quality sites. Just submit to quality article directories and you’re good to go.

@ Computer Doc - As long as they’re targeting different keywords and the abstract is long enough to be accepted by article directories it should work.

@ Chris - If you want your entire site to be duplicated then by all means, do it. Like I said, it’s not going to really hurt you, unless you go crazy with it, but the time investment just isn’t there. That extra link or two isn’t going to help you out much.
lowell (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:03 pm

Josh,

Great answer to a question that comes up way too often. Thanks.

Lowell
Paul Elliott (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:05 pm

Thank you, Josh.

This is an issue that I’ve seen hotly debated but with less knowledge and rationale than you present.

Keep up your excellent work!

Paul
Evan Hood (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Makes perfect sense. I’ve been primarily doing PPC campaigns but after reading your $5/day formula I think I may take a month off to play with it article marketing. One question for you though. I was digging through lists of high paying keywords and someone commented that companies paying for these $30-$40 keywords know what they’re doing and do not promote on Google’s content network. Even if they did, they would be targeting only the top 5ish sites in each niche.
womens golf clubs (3 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:48 pm

Josh - you may have addressed this in a previous post, but when you are researching long tail keywords a site like your cell phone site mentioned above, what services are you using to

a.) determine the long tail keyword
b.) whether or not there is competition for the keyword phrase

Thank and great post.

Dave
Oldbuddy (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:51 pm

I agree with the previous comment, you’re allowing others to post it so why not yourself? I think the more hooks you can troll at once, the more fish you’re going to catch.
Deanna
21st July, 2008 at 6:57 pm

Josh,

Thanks for the explanation. This has been something I’ve wondered about for a long time. You cleared it right up!
Nancy Boyd (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 6:57 pm

Josh, I appreciate your thinking here — but what I am wondering is how hard is it to tweak each of those articles so that the content is enough different that you end up with one for the directory and one for your site? That’s been my plan and so far it seems to be working very well.

What’s your opinion on that?

Thanks!

Nancy
Moving Services (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Josh, finally i receive an answer and an explanation to this question. I have been asking this question on many forums but i keep getting many answers with no explanation. Now, i understand why i should not post on both : my site and article directory.
Thank you
Josh Spaulding
21st July, 2008 at 7:18 pm

@ Evan Hood - I’d say that’s because they’re looking for laser targeted traffic, which search will provide, but the content network will not. Not sure how this relates to article marketing though?

@ Dave - I use the SEO Book Keyword Tool to get an idea of the daily search volume and I just do a Google search for the phrase to look at its competition. No tool can give you an accurate reading of any given phrases competition.

@ Oldbuddy - If you think the payoff is worth your time then by all means, go for it

@ Nancy - Well, that depends. Is the new version still targeting the same phrase? If so, you can do that, but like i said, it’s not going to do you much good. If you’ve been doing well with it though, no reason to stop. You say it’s working very well. What is it doing? The extra incoming links are giving you higher rankings? Are you sure there are no other factors involved? Those links aren’t very strong.
Chris Lockwood (4 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 7:53 pm

Josh,

Are you saying there is no value in having 2 pages in Google’s top 10 rather than just 1? I would like to have all 10 if possible.

Nobody said anything about duplicating a whole site. I thought this was about posting an article on your site that was also in a directory. It seems odd to make people look on someone else’s site to find my articles.
womens golf clubs (3 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Thank you for the response…last question. What do you consider worthy/not worthy in terms of competition?

If a term according to Google internal keyword tool says a search was performed 14,800 time with 499,000 competing pages (R/S = 29), would you consider that low traffic?

What is your personal threshold?

Dave
womens golf clubs (3 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Forgot to ask in the last question - when you are researching, do you use “quotes” around your long-tail keyword phrase to in Google to determine exact number of competing pages?

For instance, womens golf clubs has 499k pages but “womens golf clubs” has 48k pages….

Thanks
Dave
Josh Spaulding
21st July, 2008 at 8:43 pm

No, I’m not saying that at all. But, is your site gong to rank higher than that article? If your sites page is going to rank higher than you shouldn’t be submitting articles to promote that site anyway, it has enough authority to do well with other avenues.

If it’s not going to rank better than the article I’m just saying it may not be a good time investment.

If you disagree that’s absolutely fine We can’t all agree on everything. If you come up with some good proof I would be more than open to hearing about it and possibly blogging about it.

These are just my thoughts and beliefs after doing a good deal of article marketing and seeing good results for a long while now. That’s not to say I’m always 100% correct.
Erica DeWolf (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Thanks for the info- great post! I didn’t even realize I had this question about article marketing until you brought it up- when I realized I didn’t know the answer. Thanks!
Nancy Boyd (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 8:45 pm

Hi Josh,

I don’t care so much about rankings. What the articles are doing for me is to send me highly targeted visitors, who have a very high conversion rate in purchasing my products.

That’s what I wanted in the first place!

That’s what I mean by “it’s working for me” — I get faster sales and people joining my lists.

If you know a better way to do that, buddy, let me know!!
Step-by-Step Internet Marketing Strategies (14 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 9:05 pm

Great post Josh, you really simplified the answer and made it easy for anyone to understand.

Another good trick, especially if you’re stuck for writing ideas is that you can target two different keywords with the same article, just rewrite it a little and make appropriate edits.

Thanks,
JR
Step-by-Step Internet Marketing Strategies (14 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 9:07 pm

I also wanted to recommend to anyone who has not to donwload Josh’s $5 Mini - Site Formula e-book, some great stuff in there!

Thanks Josh!
6 Step Niche Sites
21st July, 2008 at 9:25 pm

“But, is your site gong to rank higher than that article? If your sites page is going to rank higher than you shouldn’t be submitting articles to promote that site anyway, it has enough authority to do well with other avenues.”

I think you said something there, Josh, that is VERY important and bears repeating. Most likely, those important words will be over-looked by many readers.

Folks, if you already have a site that has good authority on its own with Google, then target your long-tail keywords with content on your own site. However, if you are building a new niche site that *has no authority*, use article marketing.

Great post, Josh!!!

Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
mat (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 10:20 pm

I agree with you in part, but not totally. You exemplified with 25 long tails, and for each long tail an article would be created. 5 of them would be put on the website, while 20 would be submitted. Now why give that search traffic to article directories instead of your own website? You must know that as good as an article is, it hardly gets more than 10% click through rate, and even if it were 50%, why make the visitor need an extra click?
As for the backlinks that article directories provide, I have to disagree with you, they still hold some weight. I know of people who are in top 10 for pretty difficult keywords who are only using article submissions for backlinks.
Wordpress SEO (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 10:22 pm

Josh, I think one should definitely version your articles and send them out to article directories as well.

I agree though the master on one’s main site should stay unique.
Brigitte Smith (1 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 10:26 pm

Great insights, Josh.

I’m finding that having an article on my site and a similar (but not the same) article submitted to the directories works well. I don’t use this strategy all the time, though. I’ve also been getting great results posting articles to directories that don’t appear on my sites. I tend to use ghostwritten articles for this purpose - ones that don’t necessarily sound like my “voice” or don’t convey quite the same quality as I want for my own sites.
Mike - Best Metal Detectors (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 10:58 pm

This is one of the areas I have to get going on.

I’ve written a few articles for my site, but that’s as far as I’ve gone.

I’m concerned about the quality of my articles, but after some of the ones I’ve seen lately, I really shouldn’t be too worried.

I’m no Hemingway, but I’ll give it a shot.

Mike
Alan Petersen (2 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 11:42 pm

Excellent post Josh. I believe what most folks forget is to write those articles for people not search engines.

The back link is gravy but you want those articles to be found by people who found your site from your article and who are ready to buy what you’re promoting on your site. Not just for search engines . Search engines don’t buy.
Scott Soloff (3 comments.)
21st July, 2008 at 11:45 pm

Hey Josh,

Clear, concise and helpful.

As always, I appreciate your efforts and hard work.

Best,

Scott
Cheap Auto Insurance (6 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 2:57 am

Hi Josh, thanks for your tips, what you think if we want to rank for a competitive keyword, should we write many articles for that keyword and submit to article directories and link to our own site so that we can get relevant links from article directories?
Evan Hood (2 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 3:00 am

The formula uses adsense for monetization and I was under the impression adsense runs off of the google content network, not google search.
stocks and bonds (1 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 3:13 am

Hi,

I totally agree with you. For long tail keywords it’s definitely your logic. For short keywords it’s probably still a better idea to do article marketing though don’t you think? Or do you totally denounce short keywords?
Mayank - Google Nemesis (3 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 4:10 am

@Brigitte:This a good point that you raise. Ghostwritten articles will not have the same voice as the ones we write ourselves.
John Widmark
22nd July, 2008 at 5:22 am

Thanks for the knowledge. Great idea of yours…
Now I know I shouldn’t have to depend much on keyword search tools. Just got the idea…
Neels Theron - Non-Guru Road To Making Money Online (9 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 5:47 am

Josh, when I started out I didn’t know any better and used the same articles for my sites and for article directories. This definitely hurt my rankings. So, I will never do this now. Unique content on my sites - that is what visitors want anyway.
michael (1 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 8:52 am

i just want a way i can get money through my articles, that ’s how i can sell my articles online
racquel lyle (1 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 10:41 am

I just looking for some good post about article marketing when I stumble to this site, well what can I say it is a great article. and I will definitely go back here and from now own I will be your regular visitor.
JK Swopes (1 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 12:17 pm

I love it Josh! So many times I hear conflicting views on this, but each time I come here your plain and logical advice wins out!

I need to spend more time around these parts
Charlie
22nd July, 2008 at 8:09 pm

Question!
What would the result be if you wrote those five articles for a website that already had other content? Is it necessary to have a thin site with only 5 pages?
Make Money Online Reviews (1 comments.)
22nd July, 2008 at 11:02 pm

GetArticlesDone said: “Today Google has become smarter and values unique content more than ever. Submitting unique articles to the top article directories brings the best results.”

Yes. I’m finding the same is true. All that outdated material that Josh is trying to bring to our attention needs to be dismissed. Keep up the good work, Josh, of demythologizing what the sources of misinformation have been putting out there for unsuspecting newbies to buy into.

GetArticlesDone said: “Another thing has changed. In the early days of article marketing you got good results with just a few articles. Today you need to submit almost daily to get the same results. The competition got stronger. Another reason for submitting unique content.”

Now this I’m finding, though true to a degree, is not always true if you shoot for quality articles whose keywords and phrases get searched for all the time. I’m finding that quality articles which get ranked high in the SERPs and stay high because of the content quality are worth the time invested to write and post to the article directories. I have a couple of sites where I haven’t had time yet to add to the small number of articles doing the majority of the marketing for me that keep bringing in sales month in and month out. I’m finding that that small number of articles is bringing in the majority of traffic. Of course, more quality articles means more traffic .
Matthew
22nd July, 2008 at 11:44 pm

Hey Josh, great article! I have a question that’s been on my mind lately.

I heard that Google only takes into account one link from any given domain.

So for example, let’s say I had 300 links on inner pages of your site pointing back to the home page of my site. Does this mean that Google will only take into account 1 of those 300 links on your site pointing back to the home page of my site?

Is that the right assumption? Or, maybe it’s this: Let’s say I have a website with 500 pages, 499 pages being inner-pages of my site, and 1 page being my home page or “index” page. Now, within those 499 inner pages, I have a link pointing back to my home page. In this case, does Google only count 1 of those links pointing back to my homepage instead of all 499 of them?

The reason I’m asking this is because if I’m submitting several articles to the same article directories, and of all those links placed in my author’s bio, only one is being counted by Google, then that has me a bit worried.

I hope I wasn’t confusing, and if I was, please just let me know.

Anyways, I hope that this comment does relate to this post. Any response would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Matthew
Internet Marketing (2 comments.)
23rd July, 2008 at 2:48 am

Great info Josh.

I had the unfortunate experience of having my own content scraped, someone else using it, by the links no longer pointed to my site but another site.

I also found content of mine, put on a site that was far from the niche, an article on insurance was posted on a gambling site, and no links were active.

I have found my articles used by someone else, the site that used my article is found on Google when you search for a phrase in that article, but when you click the result on the SERP, it redirects to a different site.

So there are a lot of people there who have no respect for the effort you put into your articles. There is indeed no control over scraper sites picking up your article or other people using your article for their gain without giving you credit.

So, yes keeping the article unique in the sense that there is less competition would be better. However it really won’t hurt to submit it to many article directories.

In a recent experiment, I have found that out of 100 article directories I submitted an article to, only about 8 got cached. So those are 8 additional links added to your link popularity, regardless of how weak those links may be, it is still a link.

Thanks for sharing.
juhani Tontti (5 comments.)
23rd July, 2008 at 8:54 am

There is an idea in your post, but I still want to make some additional questions:

1. Article distribution. You do not obviously recommend a mass distribution, but a limited one, using quality directories. But could you mention the names?

2. Minisites. How much income in average one minisite with 5 pages and 20 distributed articles can bring to you ( incl. AdSense)? I mean, is it reasonable to do the work needed?

Juhani Tontti
Juhani Tontti (5 comments.)
23rd July, 2008 at 9:25 am

One more question: how long the traffic lasts with these 20 articles?

Juhani
Josh Spaulding
23rd July, 2008 at 3:26 pm

@ Nancy Boyd - Yep, that’s the whole point. But you need traffic to those articles. There will be some initial traffic right away, but if your article doesn’t end up ranking for a good phrase it’s going to die off. Sounds like you’re doing well with what you’re doing though, so keep on keepin on

@ JR - I prefer laser targeting one keyword, but you can certainly go for 2. Thanks for the kind words on the Formula.

@ Jennifer (~PotPieGirl) Yep, exactly. Article marketing isn’t the best technique for every model. It’s primary benefit is conquering long-tail phrases. If your site already has an increasing growth of authority and visitors, Article marketing is not going to do you a whole lot of good. If you want to make some money on high paying niches with a few mini-sites, article marketing is an excellent way to do that.

@ Mat - Like I said, it all depends on your business model. If your site already has good authority you’re probably better off putting the content on your site. If you want to profit from high paying markets with mini-sites, article marketing is very powerful.

I didn’t say the links didn’t hold some weight… I just said they aren’t very strong

@ Mike - the good thing about article marketing is that you don’t have to be Hemingway The articles just need to hold ones interest for about a minute.

@ Cheap - The primary benefit to article marketing isn’t in the links you obtain, but you can certainly build links with it. If you’re using your articles for that though, you need to build links elsewhere along with it or you’re never going to conquer a phrase that is anywhere close to being competitive, not by my standards and definition of “competitive” anyway.

@ Evan - True, I guess I don’t know exactly what you’re saying. I can tell you that there are many markets (mortgage, mesothelioma, debt consolidation etc.) that pay over $1 per click with Adsense though.

@ Stocks - Whether the keyword phrase is short or long doesn’t matter. What matters is the search volume the phrase receives and it’s competition.

@ Charlie - You could certainly do that. I just used a 5 page mini-site as an example. The more content you have, the more landing pages you have and the more chances you have to rank in the SE’s.

@ Matthew - I’ve never heard that and I know for a fact it’s not true. They may give multiple backlinks from one site a little less authority than if there were only one, but the links still count.

But, whether they are devalued or not doesn’t make much difference to me. It’s not all about the links anyway. It’s about getting those articles to obtain top 10 rankings and receiving that long-term traffic.

@ Internet Marketing - Unfortunately content gets scraped all the time… it’s going to happen.

True, a link is a link. The links are good. I’m just saying they aren’t the primary benefit to article marketing.

@ Juhani

1. Sure, here are 15 of them.

2. The ultimate goal with my mini-sites is to earn $5/day per mini-site. You can see my mini-site strategy at http://www.5dollarformula.com/

The articles that obtain top 10 rankings for phrases that get searched provide long-term traffic.
Dan Blackburn (1 comments.)
24th July, 2008 at 12:44 pm

Article directores are not there to provide back links, they are there to provide a resource of content for website publishers.

The real benefits of article marketing come when your articles are republished on other sites or mailed out in e-zines. Your content is king! Submitting aritcles “spun” by a robot, will do your business a lot more harm… That’s just a nice way to make your potential customers think you are an idiot.
Matthew
25th July, 2008 at 2:16 am

Hey Josh, thanks for the answer. As a bit of a sidenote, I just want to say that to me, you are the best Internet Marketer, period.

I’ve come across a lot of people that try and “teach” internet marketing to others, but I don’t know, you start to see the fakeness. And in some cases, people that act like wise asses. I won’t mention any names.

You on the other hand are the most down to earth Internet Marketer I’ve come across. And trust me, I’ve come across many. Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know that.

I’m just so tired of “following” people that truly play the part as the phony “guru.” You, on the other hand, are real, and I really appreciate that. Thanks.

Matthew
Grand Rapids SEO (3 comments.)
25th July, 2008 at 2:20 am

I like to think of everything I write as an “article” that links to bring customers as well as the search engines. Many of the social sites will give you a faster and stronger backlink than most article directories.

Now, when you use wordtracker to get your 25 or more keywords and traffic guesstimates, keep in mind that your root search phrase will have variations with prefixes and suffixes that you can use in an 8-10 keyword title that reads well and nails down a slew of search phrases.

Then, if you really need 25 articles, they can all be pointing at the same selling page. You simply develop the relationship in one or more articles chaining into the central money page.
Tom At The Home Business Archive (4 comments.)
3rd August, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Good points. Posting the same article on your blog and submitting it to article directories will only produce duplicate content.I always re-write the article that I submit to article directories.
Gary (4 comments.)
5th August, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Hi Josh, Thanks for clearing the air on the task of article marketing. I have asked similar questions on different forums only to get no reply or not clear answers.
Thanks again
Michelle Adams (13 comments.)
14th August, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Hi Josh,
Thanks for sharing your experience on whether to duplicate articles on my site and the directories. It is all cleared up for me now and I know exactly where to put my energy. As a newbie it is so great to read the posts from others when they share their little tips and experiences too. Real people sharing real honest experience, can’t beat it, thanks all!
Now off to write a whole load of articles:)