increasing traffic with articles?

[marshalltown]

hello all
I would like to know which sites etc would be advantageous to write an article on
I am a small builder in scotland.
Im new to this search engine optimisation and would appreciate any help you could give

thanks

[orion_joel]

Start with any local sites that have relevant content. Especially if you are trying to get your own site showing up more, then going local is going to probably provide better results. For two reasons, firstly you are still going to get the benefit from the links, But also you will be getting your name on articles in the same area that you want to work.

Another option is to create your own articles site, or to add the articles themselves to your own website. The one thing that google loves is content, and the more content your website has especially if it has the keywords you think people will be looking for in it, the more you are likely to show up on the search engines.

[cbscreative]

I would not spend a lot of time (if any) submitting to article sites. Like Joel said, focus on your own site or ones that are specific to your market. The onslaught of junk articles for the sole purpose of SEO has made articles less effective unless you get published on an "authority" site. Any SEO advice that advocates articles is now mostly outdated.

[vangogh]

You can write articles and submit them to article directories. Just do a search for "article directories" and you'll find plenty. However there's a better approach.

Look for sites in your industry that accept articles. Even better would be to find bloggers in your industry and begin building relationships with them. Ideally you'll have your own blog first. You can get to know bloggers by commenting on their blogs and linking to their content in your own blog. Once you feel like you're ready contact the blogger and ask to guest post. If your writing is up to the quality of their blog and they accept guest bloggers they'll possibly accept you as a guest blogger as well.

You'll be writing for a targeted audience that way and if your guest post is good enough it should bring people over to your site or blog. Sending them to your blog would be better since it would likely contain similar content to what the person just ready by you on another site.

I realize the above is a lot of work and it would mean starting your own blog. More work, but better results.

As far as links for search engines are concerned here's the scenario when it comes to article directories. You'll submit an article with a bio that links back to your site. The article directory will display it and you'll get a link from them. Some article directories may be adding nofollow to links (I'm not sure if that's true) in which case the link is essentially worthless for seo.

Some people may download the article for display on their sites. However as each new version of the article is just a duplicate search engines aren't likely to place much or any weight on the duplicates or the links from the duplicates. In other words the seo benefit becomes doubtful in a hurry.

Your better bet is to target specific sites and blogs and write articles/posts specifically for them.

[keyword-research]

Getting listed articles listed on local sites would help a lot, but personally I would still submit to some of the higher PR article directories. I think it is important to get some links from well trusted sites and pagerank basically equates to trust in Google's eyes.

[vangogh]

Which is why you'd be better off looking to get your article published on sites with a real audience in your industry. Those sites are likely to be more trusted than most article directories. A few of the top article directories are probably fine to submit to, but beyond that they become junk fairly quickly.

It's also important to consider that the site in your industry has a real audience so real people will be reading your article. Most people are not visiting an article directory to read new content. Regardless of any seo benefit, I'd prefer to have real people consume my content.

[cbscreative]

I would dare say that any real value to article directories would be limited to those who are "grandfathered" in from years ago. For new authors, I doubt it has any decent chance of building credibility or making much difference with search engines. It may have some value, I just don't think it would be significant.

[Harold Mansfield]

Article directories do kind of suck now for SEO, but you can still utilize them in niches without a huge amount of competition to get placement.
The trick is to bookmark the article once it is approved, not your site.

I would go for authoring guest articles on other sites, or even a permanent contributor (even if for free) on a related niche blog if you can get it.

If you are targeting local business, I really think you would be better off writing for local publications (especially ones with an online presence). Writing for big article sites really won't do much in terms of business, but it may get you some backlinks.

The best way to market locally is local publications, and geo targeting adwords.

[royhunters]

You have to take a couple steps back and look at something else that articles do CBS... It gets the "newbie" involved with his website, it creates another opportunity for the website to be found, It hones writing skills.... Look at Vangogh's blog! Look how many posts he has written here. I am sure his writing is a result of the practice and creative thinking.

I deal with "beginners" all the time and I promote blogs as a way for them to get involved with their website so they are always tinkering with it to make it better. I suck at blog writing but it helps to keep me on the ground floor rather than sound like I am writing a tech journal all the time.

There is no doubt the blog directories are saturated and a lot of useless content is being created. I sent a message to Matt Cutts and told him that useless content is getting to be the next generation of spam because the only reason it is being created is because google wants content. Not because anyone is reading it... It is no different than email spam in my book.

There are exceptions of course, Seth Godin's blog is fantastic and I really enjoyed Vangogh's but those are blog styles I enjoy.

I want quality web content but I have to play by the rules, make my clients play by the rules, if they want to get ranked, be found, and be proactive.

Sometimes I feel if I have to set up one more Digg account for a client I am going to go insane but for new websites Digg articles can come up better in SERP's because of the clout Digg has on Google... So the client was found because of an article he wrote that when submitted to Digg, it came up higher than the website did in results.

So be it. That is what we have to deal with untill google gets overloaded with diluted content and they start to loose share because of it. Give me a little of something rather than a whole lot of nothing...

Sometimes I think Google does not really care about the content, I think Matt uses the "requirement" to help feed all these social sites and directories, plus to I think it helps to validate a site as being "real" because it is such a pain to write ALL the time.

The biggest thing now that is really scary is the copywight generators are getting so good that articles really look like they were written by people and that is really going to change the landscape...

So yes you do have a valid point as well... but when you look at it the way I do, a way to get someone involved with their website, Article writing is a very good thing.

So to answer the original posters question, your website is the best place to write for because when people find you, you will give them the confidence that you are "as the Australians say "fair dinkum" and you are building trust before they even talk to you.

If you want to help your website to be found, submit the articles to digg, technorati, EzineArticles, and build a simple page in Squidoo, you can RSS you blog to your squido page. The articles you write can really help you in more ways than one. Over time you will see the benefit.

[vangogh]

I think it's great to write articles, but submitting them to article directories seems like a waste of time to me. I wouldn't want the content on my site to also appear on ezine and go articles, etc.

If you're submitting to article directories the content should be original and I can think of other places where you'd get more value, which is why I'd use article directories as a last resort. There's nothing wrong with them, but you can probably find a better place for your content.

As far as submitting content you publish on your own site to places like Digg, I think that's fine as long as the content in question would be of interest to the community and as long as the community has no objections to you submitting your own content. Some don't mind and others will have objections. Niche social sites may end up being a better places to submit though, that sites like Digg. With things like Squidoo, but all means create a page, but again make it something unique.