Ezine Article Submission as a Web Site Traffic Generator

Here are ten tips on how to make ezine article submission into a web site traffic generator. The best way to improve web site traffic is to convince the search engines to recommend your pages for relevant search terms. Very important to the search engines in making their recommendations is the number of quality pages linking to your pages and mentioning your keywords in their anchor text. Ezine article submission to article directories creates pages with those links.

The purpose of search engine optimization is to move your pages to page one of search engine results for particular keywords. The most important factor in high search engine result placement is having a large number of back links (also called "external links") to your pages spread around the web, which contain your keywords in the "anchor text," that is, the clickable text in the links. The presence of links tells the search engines that your pages are important, and the anchor text tells them what keywords your pages are important for.

An effective way to get back links is ezine article submission to article directories. By submitting your article, you give people the permission to republish it for free provided that they keep it intact. The "resource box" of your article, the last paragraph contains back links to your web site and serves not only as a direct web site traffic generator by click throughs, but also as an indirect one by raising your pages' placement in search results.

Here are ten tips for using ezine article submission as a web site traffic generator:

Tip 1. If you are submitting to a limited number of directories, do not submit to one that uses a plain-text resource box, that is to say, one that restricts your links to be a URL in all of its http://... glory. Similarly, do not submit to an article directory that puts rel="NOFOLLOW" into the links in your resource box. These tell the search engines not to use the link to promote your page's rank, defeating the purpose of using articles for search engine optimization.

Tip 2. Optimize each page you are promoting for one main page keyword and at most two secondary keywords. Consider using one keyword as the topic of the page and a second as the benefit to the reader. Choose keywords with a reasonably large number of searches but not insurmountable competition: Make sure that the keywords have enough searches that if you get to the top of the search results, you can get a useful amount of traffic. Make sure that the keywords have low enough competition that your pages actually can get to page one of the search results.

Tip 3. Use an ezine article submission service that submits unique versions of your article to hundreds or thousands of directories. These services work by mixing interchangeable versions of your paragraphs or some of your sentences -- you write the semantically equivalent versions, so you can guarantee that all the randomized articles are still well written. Search engines look for duplicate content, and they tend to ignore more than one copy, so you get more back links from non-identical versions. Spreading hundreds of unique versions of your article is a much better web site traffic generator than submitting a single version.

Tip 4. Make a list of anchor text to be used in links to the page. The main and secondary keywords are on the list. Add some other semantically related keywords. You want some diversity to make the links look authentic. Identical text does not look like people independently chose to link to you. Use the alternative anchor text in your articles' alternative resource boxes.

Tip 5. Choose to supply alternative paragraphs rather than alternatives of some of the sentences, if the submission service gives you a choice. A paragraph gives you space to reorder and replace words. Replacing minor words, such as pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, probably will not fool the duplicate content detectors. Look at the Google search results page. They show in a lighter font the words they are ignoring in the search term. They probably strip out the same words when looking for duplicate pages.

Tip 6. Optimize the article for keywords with little competition. If the keyword has too much competition, the article will not get to page one of search results. These keywords probably have fewer searches than those you use for your web pages. It would not make sense to use a keyword that has more searches but less competition for an article rather than for a web page.

Tip 7. If you put some keywords with very low competition in the article, they may bring the article to the top of the search results. There will not be much traffic from them, but it costs you almost nothing.

Tip 8. Have your article's titles state both a topic and a benefit, for example: "How to [benefit] by [topic]" or "How to [topic] So You Can [benefit]." This allows you to use keywords for both the topic and the benefit and getting search engine placement for both.

Tip 9. Make sure every version of the title includes the main article keyword. Include low-competition keywords with a reasonable number of searches in some of your alternative titles. For example, if your main keyword deals with your topic, you might choose low competition synonyms for the benefit. It is the same reasoning as scattering some low competition keywords in the article: The alternate titles give the article a chance to show up when people search for them. Since the title is a more powerful position, you can mix in keywords with a bit more competition than you would scatter in the text. These keywords cost you almost nothing, but they may bring some traffic.

Tip 10. Create alternative HTML resource boxes using different anchor keywords for the pages you are promoting. Do not link to a single page more than once in a resource box. What counts more with search engines is the number of pages linking to your page, rather than the total number of links. You get more mileage out of your resource boxes by promoting different pages at your web site.

Ezine article submission is an inexpensive, effective web site traffic generator, but remember that article SEO is built around the effective use of keywords. You need to consider both the keywords for the pages to which you wish to bring traffic and for the articles you are writing to build back links. These ten suggestions should help you use ezine article submission effectively.


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For information on how to buy web site traffic or learn about ezine article submission to improve web site traffic, visit the web site created by Dr. Christopher, a Colorado Front Range public speaker.