An Idea Generator reader asked, "How can I manage my article marketing efforts? Specifically, what are the best sites to post on and how do I monitor what’s working/not working so that I can determine where I am getting my best ROI and focus my efforts on posting to those sites or writing about those topics?"
There was a wonderful and vibrant discussion about this topic earlier in September on the New Coach Connection (NCC). If you join today, you can search the discussions for "EzineArticles" and read all of the posts.
Kathy Mallary, a consistent, generous and wise contributor to the NCC list and blog, shared a link to this post on the Copylicious blog, A tale of two article submission sites. In it, Kelly makes some excellent points that really had me pondering the future homes of my own articles.
This was also around the same time that one of my articles was flagged by EzineArticles, "because it contains a link which promotes a mass article generator, which we do not allow." Of course they were referring to my Top 10 Article Generator, which I promote in my author resource box. When I followed the instructions to get it cleared up, I got no response and had to follow up again.
Eventually the article was released, but I must say the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. And as many of you know, I've been a long-time fan.
Regarding ROI and statistics, when reviewing EzineArticles' robust statistics, I discovered that I actually have a very LOW click-through rate from my writing and editing articles. People are reading them, and even sometimes emailing them and publishing them on their own websites and newsletters, but they're not clicking the link in my author resource box. At least not as often as I'd like them to.
I haven't done a thorough analysis of why the author resource box wasn't working for me, but I did rewrite it so that my new articles will hopefully get more click-throughs. I haven't yet gone back to change the articles I've already published (sounds like a job for my VA!).
Whatever stats are available to you, review them regularly to see which articles get the most interest, AND which articles lead to actual results for you.
I've often suggested that people submit to both general and targeted article directory sites. For a new article directory site that is laser-focused on helping coaches find clients, check out Coach Spotlight.
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