Enterprise Nation

Articles are becoming more and more prevalent in strategies for boosting search engine rankings.  The idea is that you write an article, submit it to several major article sites, include a link back to your site and then sit back and watch as the article gets picked up and published on other people’s websites, newsletters and sometimes even products. Is this the right idea? Jason Hulott explains.

Is it enough?

Just sending out your articles may not be enough to get the traffic you’re after. Here are a few more things you could be doing with your articles.

Article Submissions

Submit your articles to sites like these:

• www.contentdesk.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.freesticky.com
• www.goarticles.com
• www.ideamarketers.com
• www.findsticky.com

Having articles published on other websites can promote you as an  expert in your field especially if it gets picked up by a well read and respected source. Having people find you and your product via an article is a great way to be introduced to new customers.

Writing large articles and splitting them into 2 parts is also a great way of driving traffic to your site directly from the article.  Submit Part 1 to the Article Directories above and then post a link to your site so they have to visit your site to read part 2.

DIY Syndication

You can use simple scripts to syndicate them yourself.  Not only by submitting them to the article directory sites above but build an RSS feed out of your articles and allow others to utilise this Feed.

You can also create a "send to a friend" link on your own web pages with the help of a simple script added to your code.

You can find various code to do this:

• www.javascript.com
• www.scriptsearch.com
• www.hotscripts.com

This creates another viral element to your articles.  Do the work once and then unleash it on the web, and it creates a life of its own. Acting like a little salesman and promoter all in one!

Blog Content

Fashion articles as blog posts - pull out a major paragraph and add a bit more to it and you have a simple blog post.

Newsletter Content

Add articles to your newsletters or mail directly out to your lists.

Products, Guide and Reports

Collect a series of articles around a theme and produce a guide or a report. You could even use them as the basis of a book or product to sell.

Multimedia

How about reading your articles and recording them as podcasts or as MP3 files that users can download?

How about building a movie based upon it? With screenshots and links in it to make it more interactive.  Nothing too fancy but it then gives you more opportunity and reach as you can submit it to YouTube and other Movie Sites which will bring in more traffic.

Web Content

Oh yes, you can also simply just add it as web content on your site too!

Print Magazines

Send your articles to Editors of related print magazines, they might run it and it could give you even more exposure as an expert in your field. Or expand a shorter article or combine two articles to create something large enough for print.  Print articles would normally be twice or thrice the size of a web article.

Web 2.0

Finally, don't forget to add it to your Web 2.0 sites such as your MySpace Profile, Your Squidoo Lens, Your Ecademy Profile etc 

As you can see, the article is a fantastic way to work smarter not harder.  A good article will get you more web traffic, acclaim, site promotion and a huge array of income generating opportunities by recycling them. So make sure you don’t just write an article then forget about it.  Make it work as hard for you as possible.

Good Luck!

• Jason Hulott is Director of Speedie Consultants Limited - he can be contacted at Jason@speediepr.co.uk