Worldwide Alexa traffic rank: 131. In the US : 58. Number of sites linking in: 33,232. Online: since end 1999. Who are we talking about ? Ezinearticles.com, a website with a design that feels a bit as if Jakob Nielsen designed it (sorry, Jakob, just kidding) but who cares?
Not Christopher Knight, the founder of the website and the number one in article marketing from an Alexa viewpoint, before first competitor Articlesbase.
However, both have another business model and different approach as I’ll explain in later posts. In this post, it’s all about article marketing and Ezinearticles.com since I interviewed Christoper Knight to find out the facts and myths about article marketing and to find out if and why companies should publish or reprint articles from a site such as Ezinearticles.com in their email newsletters, websites, blogs, etc.
We might not find the answer to the last question in this post but let’s start with the interview.
I told Christopher, Chris for the friends, that I recently purchased, for my report, a paper that claims to explain how you can generate huge traffic using article marketing. It also promises you that, if you read it, you will be making buckets full of cash from affiliate programs. If you want to buy a paper like that: the Web is filled with them. However, before you do, maybe look at what Chris thinks about these papers, promising heaven.
He is not a fan of reports like that, as “they spread scammy misinformation and tricks that violate the terms of service of platforms such as Ezinearticles.com because they seek to game their systems”.
Article marketing is not a short-term strategy
So, what can the bloggers out there really expect from article marketing? Are all these “My traffic grew with 1000% in one month” stories true?
Chris: “Article writing & marketing is not a ‘get rich on traffic overnight’ strategy. It’s a strategy that builds highly pre-qualified visitors to your site, month after month, year after year… your traffic compounds as your article inventory grows. Your traffic is directly proportionated to how many high quality articles you have written and syndicated/distributed (to a site like EzineArticles). I’ve seen plenty of members who have achieved MILLIONS of article views and HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND of clicks to their website thanks to writing & submitting articles”.
I left the capitals because Chris used them himself to stress what can be achieved with article marketing. However, have you read what he said; it’s a strategy and not a short-term one. So: no, you won’t get rich in a month.
For marketers: a word on content syndication
For all the email marketers and other marketers out there looking for content I asked Chris why marketers would buy content from third parties? The question didn’t only concern Ezinearticles.com but all syndication sites.
This is what Chris said: “Often, marketers can’t produce the content themselves in a quantity high-enough to have the kind of impact necessary for massive measurable success or in the time-frame desired. An average person can write between 4-12 articles per day; whereas a team of writers can produce hundreds of articles per day or week”.
That’s true, I know because I write. However, the question of course is, if you can’t produce the content yourself, whether you should hire a copywriter, buy content or syndicate it. I guess it all depends from the budgets you have, the quality of the content you’re looking for, and whether you want to have “unique” content or not.
What is good content?
I asked Chris what is good content for him, from the article marketing viewpoint.
Chris: “Good content is original works (400-800 words) that get right to the point, delivers a very simple & specific promise in the article title along with the full corresponding delivery in the article body of what was promised. Our readership wants solutions they can scan and get value within seconds to minutes, not hours. While we’re lucky to receive a lot of articles by writers who write for a living, the majority of our members are real-life experts in their area of business and life. To us, helping them capture their expertise is more important than whether they can write perfect sentence structure”.
In a way he already partially answered my next question: what matters most to him as a person (so not from the article marketing viewpoint): very relevant and valuable content with typos and grammar errors or “OK” content that’s perfectly written.
Chris: “If we waited for “perfectly written” content… we wouldn’t have millions of articles already in the site, nor would we be able to offer our users the level of comprehensiveness that we do today. It’s more important that our members keep on writing & submitting articles because we know that they all improve on their quality with every single article”.
True, as a non-native UK blogger, I can confirm that your writing improves as you go along (oops, at least that’s what I hope).
Tips to monetize your blog
Now, back to the fellow bloggers that might be reading this and thinking “I want to invest time and energy in article marketing to increase traffic and revenues on my blog, give me some advice”.
Chill, I asked Chris how a blogger can monetize his blog using a service such as Ezinearticles.com.
Chris: “Bloggers should take a percentage (10-50%) of their blog posts that are 400-800 words and submit them to a site like ours because we can most likely bring their content more traffic than they can by themselves. This is because of our 10 years of being in this business combined with how our system is designed to attract qualified visitors to their articles thanks to millions of monthly permission-based email alerts/newsletters, RSS feeds/widgets, and social media distribution tools”.
Want to try it? I will, because I want to test and find out.
And, finally, in case any of the competitors of Chris are reading this, I asked him what made his platform, again, from an Alexa viewpoint, the number one in the field?
Chris: “There isn’t one thing; but perhaps our commitment to constant innovation is at the heart of our success. We’re scared of being knocked off…and thus the passion to continually listen to our members & million daily visitors who give us constant feedback that we’re able to use to prioritize which new features & services we offer. Having so many expert authors who contribute high quality, unique & original articles year-after-year most definitely has a lot to do with it also. Most submit to us first before they submit to their own website or our competitors. This prioritization helps ensure that we can deliver more traffic per article than anyone else”.
There you have it: share your thoughts and experiences and, in case you never heard about Ezinearticles.com, click here.
By the way, I’m testing out some systems and must say the Ezinearticles user interface for bloggers that want to post their articles has some nifty features and support is good. Expect more later.
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