I had written in a post a couple of months ago that the easiest way to get backlinks for your web site was by writing articles and posting them all over the web.

A few people thought I was crazy. So I thought I'd share with you some hard numbers for a site that was recently launched and for a new blog. The numbers are quite impressive as you will see.

The web site and the blog are the links in my signature if you care, but what's important are the results of a small article writing campaign.

First let me give a little background. The web site was launched last November, and the blog was launched February 1st of this year. The first of the articles was published on February 25th. The articles where published using Article Marketer , an online article publishing service.

This is an important part of the strategy because it doesn’t do much good to write articles and just distribute them to a few sites. Article Marketer distributes articles to about 3800 different sites. No other article distribution service I’ve found even comes close to that.

Now when Article Marketer distributes your article it won’t go out to all 3800 sites because all of the sites aren’t appropriate for whatever content you have. But the average number of sites that my articles got sent to was 788. Not all of those picked up and published the articles of course. But the point is that using Article Marketer got me much wider distribution than I could have gotten any other way. And certainly there is no way I could have done that kind of distribution myself.

This service isn’t free, but it’s not expensive. And if you are going to use this strategy it is the right tool for the job.

It is important to note that during the timeframe covered here I wasn’t doing anything else to create backlinks, though a few may have occurred for other reasons than the article campaign.

The articles I published were basically rewritten from blog posts or other things I’d already written, so I didn’t spend a lot of time putting this campaign together.

The last note is that the number of backlinks was obtained by using SEOMoz.org free backlink checking tool.

OK, so now for some results:

Feb 24th - Starting Point Backlinks for Webite 39 Blog 33
Feb 25th - First article published
Feb 28th - second article published - Website 43 Blog 36
March 3rd - Website 57 Blog 38
March 6th - third published - Website 92 Blog 68
March 9th - fourth published - Website 103 Blog 71
March 11th - Fifth published - Website 111 Blog 73
March 12th - sixth published - Website 112 Blog 75
March 17th - seventh published - Website 189 Blog 119
March 21st - eight published - Website 229 Blog 140
March 27th - Website 260 Blog 160
April 4th - Website 237 Blog 143
April 22nd - Website 409 Blog 225

Now at the end of March I considered the articles to have been very successful at creating backlinks. I have no idea why there was such an explosion of additional links well after the last article was published. I assume that some of the articles actually took a while before they were used by the different sites, and maybe the numbers will continue to climb.

I will continue from here posting articles of course, though maybe only one or two a month. So over time this kind of strategy should create tons of backlinks.

Some might say that backlinks don’t matter as much as getting real traffic that converts, and I would certainly agree. What I can say is that we are getting more hits from search engine now than before, and that Google analytics makes it clear that we are getting traffic from people clicking on the links in the articles.

I did not set this up so that I could track traffic from articles to conversion, but it could be done.

This project was meant to be a test of articles creating backlinks and traffic and not much more. So I would say mission accomplished. This kind of result would be nearly impossible to get any other way with the possible exception of using videos in the same way, which by the way is my next project, and I will report on it soon.

But by simply taking content I’d already written, giving it a slight rewrite, posting it on the web using Article Marketer, I think that the results speak for themselves.

Chris

Thanks for sharing Chris. That really is the great thing about articles, it is pretty much a surefire way to get backlinks. Granted, there are much easier ways to get backlinks, but writing and distributing articles is probably one of your best bets for constant backlinks.

One thing to keep in mind though, like Chris demonstrated, is that you a.) have to continuously publish articles and b.) get them distributed in many ways as possible. Now I have never heard of Article Marketer before, but there are really a ton of services and tools you can use to distribute your articles.

There are also some additional tactics you can do to increase the performance of your articles (i.e. spooling, tagging), but that is entirely up to you. Some consider these additional things to be unethical in nature, but that is all really a personal preference. Whatever you do though, make sure to track your results.

I for one have had similar results like Chris with articles. While I actually bought a tool for distributing my articles, it sounds like this Article Marketer service has a larger reach. Solid info Chris.

article marketing is definatly an easy way to go that can generate tons of backlinks if done properly

Nice post Chris, I love it when people post actual numbers:)

Chris, can you post a link to some of your articles? Do you post links to your site within the article itself, or at the end, like a signature?

Great technique. I use article submitter pro for my articles, but it only submits to 340 sites. I'll take a look at the ArticleMarketer as well. What do you do to make the articles unique so that they don't get penalized as duplicates on google?

Here's one article I found. Evidently, syndicating your OWN content is not the same as duplicating already syndicated content...


Syndicating Your Own Content - Google Penalty?

Sorry I haven't responded to the questions above sooner - I just haven't been on here lately.

Perky - there is an author box at the end of each article where you would put your name, a plug for wehat you do or a statement of benefit or expertise and any links you want. I keep my links out of the article, make the article good content, and the author box is the the ad, asnd also where the backlink is.

You ask if I can post a link to some of my articles. If I did that then if the article was taken down you may not be able to find it. So better yet go to google.com and put the following in the search box - "Short Sales - A Great Opportunity for Realtors in These Tough Times"

Just now that brought up 45 links to the article, but if you click on view all at the end of those links it show a total of 99. Look at a few of them and you'll get an idea of what the author box looks like. Every article site will have a slightly different format, so things may show differently on them. But at Article Marketer you just file out the form and don't worry about it.

Agents - Everything I write is unique, but if your refering to my saying that I reuse blog posts, what I do is jhust a basic rewrite of the content. After writing an article and not looking at it for a day or so normally when I do look back at it I would think of different ways I would have wanted to express what was said. So just rephrasing or reorganizing the article is all I do.

I agree with Chris. I tend to leave my links out of the content of the article and only place them in the resource box with a clear call to action.

Although you aren't exactly punished for having duplicate content Google may or may not just omit anything they see as duplicate from the search engine and your overall page strength. While article rewriting software is powerful I have always stuck to writing unique content for each article site. That way I don't have to worry about the thought that Google will slap my site at some point. It is up to each seo to use this technique but from all the major seo blogs I follow and my own experiments I have never used a rewriter. The real question I have Chris is are any of these articles receiving and page rank from Google? If so what are you getting. Please share an example or who me the link.

Always remember you can have 100 page rank 0 articles however, my well written unique article with a PR 1 will trump those 100 pr 0's.

Actually, I've read that pagerank is somewhat logarithmic - meaning 1000 PR1's equal 100 PR2's, which is the same as 10 PR3's & 1 PR4... (I personally believe it's closer to a multiplier of 7 or 8, but you get the idea.)

Based on that logic, 100 PR0 pages would be equal to about 10 PR1 pages. (Of course, this assumes we're talking about pages that actually have a PR of 0 - which is definitely better than a grey bar - which has no PR at all.)

Backlinks work the best if they contain relevant keywords/anchor text and the very very best results are obtained if the anchor text/links are in the content and are a relevant part of the relevant content.

I'm thinking about using an article submission service, but I always have the fear of getting penalized for duplicate content. This gave me new confidence in taking the next step, thanks for the numbers. :)

-Lisa

If your website gets slapped. It is only temporary. Continue to build links. After the penalty, your site will be much higher in the SERPS than it was previously.

When one of my sites got it it went from position 12 to position 88.

OK no problem I though, So I have continued to build links to the website, now I have noticed it climbing back up again!

- Gary

There are many good ways to create backlinks. Most techniques you read online will work, but you need to find out which ones are suitable for you in order to be successful. it is important to first know about your competition and where there are standing. At the end of the day, all that counts is for you to close a real client. I rather close 10 clients a week as an apartment locator, versus 100 backlinks and wait for magick result.
Also, before building backlinks, you need to make sure that all your basic SEO work is done on the site such as good original contents, Titles, Keywords, and description. I have worked with 4 websites in the past and you can find them below.

1. [url=http://freemovetexas.com]Dallas apartment locators[/url] http://freemovetexas.com
2. [url=http://uptowndallasapartments.net]Uptown Dallas apartments[/url] http://uptowndallasapartments.net
3. [url=http://dallastxapartments.net]Dallas apartment locators[/url] http://dallastxapartments.net
4. [url=http://advancedlocators.com]Apartment locators in Dallas[/url] http://advancedlocators.com

What are some of the sites where we can submit articles? I used to know of a good one, but that was some time ago. I'd like to start using them again.

Thanks

Keith

As of the time of this writing here are the 2 best places to submit articles to:

Ezinearticles.com
Goarticles.com

These article directories are considered authority websites. These types of sites are trusted by Google. These directories have human editors that read and approval articles worthy of being on their website. Google knows that and as such those article, if keyword is utilized properly will hit the top of that ranks for that keyword.

Make sure your article is optimize for one main keyword like "Buying a house in Tulsa". Try to use the keyword for every 100 words in the article and make sure your articles are 500 words, for SEO purposes. Works for me!

If you back link the articles your rankings position increase and are more stable.

Great topic and information on this thread. Thanks everyone!

Not sure anyone referenced it above, but I thought I'd suggest a service that helps avoid the "duplicate content" issue. There's a service called Unique Article Wizard (no affiliation!) that will spin your article in such a way that you're actually submitting your article to hundreds of sites, just like Chris' "article marketer" but as a different article each time. I'll let you do the research, I'm not trying to sell anything. Just wanted to chime in with an alternative I've seen work for my business.

Unique article wizard is very good and it definitely gives you unique content. I have used it to achieve top rankings for some websites. And as of a year later those sites are still ranking high.

Here is my recommendation with UAW. If you have only one website you want to promote and have 3-5 hours a week minimum to dedicate to article marketing here is what you can expect.

Once you have your article, the plan on spending at least one hour at the UAW website doing their secret technique to making your main article into hundreds of different articles. Depending on your category (s) you should get 60 - 300 links per article, over time.

Interesting idea Chris, I would try it. Good luck!

Don't worry about Google slapping you for duplicate content. If they did this then people would be submitting hundreds of back-links to their competitors sites so they would be penalized by Google.

I believe Google will only penalize you for your own website and what is on it as this is the only place online where the owner of the website has complete control.

All the best!

Jeff

Just to clarify, you do not get a penalty for duplicate content. If there was such a thing you could ruin all of your competitors. You merely do not get any credit. Its like Google ignores you!

thanks for the great info, chris... it's certainly informative when paired with hard numbers....

thanks for all the great insight. i dont understand th pr1 and pr0 thing though. can someone plz explain this, thx

Chris, PR refers to PageRank. PR is from 0 to 10, from lowest to highest. As a local real estate site, your rank will vary from 0 to 6 or so, depending the age of the domain, quality of content on your site, and the use of white-hat SEO techniques. Getting backlinks from trusted sites with a high PR help you much more than lower PR sites. I hope that answered your question.

Great info in this thread. Thanks.

Great insight on backlinks! Nice to see some real numbers from testing.
Much appreciated. :rockon:

Josh Sanders
Founder, Shiloh Street University

Thanks everyone, I have picked up a lot of good info from this thread. The bottom line is that this stuff requires a lot of thought and long term commitment. Either that or a willingness to pay someone to do it for you.

For now I am not too busy to do it myself. Maybe when I have a good sound grasp of the how to part, paying someone else to do it and supervising the work will be more practical. I have an idea that paying someone to get you well positioned on the search engines and then keeping you there would not be cheap!

Thanks for this information Chris. I will for sure check this out.

I just started Article marketing the 1st of this month and am actually seeing results already. I have yet to syndicate any of my articles yet and am submitting 10 unique articles to 10 high pr sites a day. I plan on adding submission software at the end of the month.

I'm with Jim, just started doing articles myself (have submitted 2 this week with 2 getting accepted and published). Can see the long term benifit of it, but takes quite a bit of time - guess all we can do it do as much as we can and hope its enough!

Chris,

When I checked with several backlink checkers most of the links that you have are from this forum. You have quite a few of them here. The good thing about this site is that they reward you for posting here by killing the "no follow" command. I have a ton of links, but most of them are no follow. Google is only counting 4 of them.

So, whenever you post to a blog or a forum, check the link using this tool: backlink watch http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php it will show you which links are "no follow" so you won't post there any more.

God Bless,
Mark Ellis
Real Estate Marketing Consultant

backlinkwatch is notorious for labeling 'no follow' on links which are dofollow and vice versa. Besides, having only dofollow links would not seem very organic. A more accurate tool would be seoquake's nodofollow plugin for firefox.

Thanks for the plug in I did not have this tool and I am really enjoying it and can see the value in it.

Very nice, thanks for the info & link - will have to give it a shot.

Wow, Thanks so much I'm going to install it now.

God Bless, my friend!

Mark Ellis

Quirk Search Status is a plugin for firefox that allows you to see page rank, alexa, and you can also use it to display "no follow" links... very useful and doesn't clutter up any space on your screen.

Pretty high goals - good luck with getting those articles submitted! Do you have these pre-written, paying someone to write these for you, or are you writing these articles yourself?

[quote=Jim Boad]I just started Article marketing the 1st of this month and am actually seeing results already. I have yet to syndicate any of my articles yet and am submitting 10 unique articles to 10 high pr sites a day. I plan on adding submission software at the end of the month. [/quote]

I have a hard time believing that you can increase your pr and create "high quality" back links by simply publishing articles on a website (unless it were like a digg.com)

Article marketing is great. I avoided it for years but done right the traffic is awesome. Remember to always use original content. Syndication is perfectly acceptable but you must have article directory accounts and the tip is to fully fill out all of the profiles with pictures and everything. The best tools for syndication is Traffic Geyser or Article Submitter from Brad Callen. If you are not into syndication, the top directories that google loves and always rank are EzineArticle (always post there first, let the article get approved then syndicate to others) Go Articles,Article Base, Article Alley, and Article Snatch.

Other ways to get backlinks are Web 2.0 properties such as Squidoo, hubpages, wetpaint, blogger, etc. You can link them to each other to form a link wheel as well as link them to your site.

Video creation and syndication is great for links and ranking on google.

Also Social bookmarking, commenting on related blogs and forums. All great backlinks

I've found some informative ways of creating backlinks for free on youtube.

Out of curiosity, how does filling out all of the pictures help you?

So they can be impressed by your pretty face.

Thanks for the helpful response Ben.

All in good fun. I personally don't think it would help but who knows.