The added advantage is that this method is also free to do. Even if you can't or don't want to write your own articles, article submission is still a very low cost method of advertising as you can get articles ghostwritten for you at around $10 an article.
The benefits of writing articles include:
- backlinks to your website (helps your search engine ranking)
- establishes your reputation
- readers of the article may visit your website
You can use one of three methods to submit your articles:
- Manual Submission (free, but time consuming)
- Submission software (faster and a one time charge)
- Submission service (fastest method, usually a monthly charge)
I decided to do a test to determine the best method of submitting my articles. In this test I used three submission methods:
- Article Post Robot (submission software)
- Article Marketer (submission service)
- Submit Your Article (another submission service)
I also tested submission of the same article to all directories versus the submission of an article with random variations (i.e. multiple variations of the same article). The purpose of this was to test the theory that varying the article submitted resulted in more backlinks.
First, here is a summary of each of the three ways to submit your article, the cost, ease of use and effectiveness.
Cost - $127 (one time fee)
Features - this software provides over 400 directories to submit to and over 50 mailing lists. The initial setup is time consuming as you need to register with a lot of directories, but this is a one time exercise. It takes around half an hour to enter your article and all the details plus an extra half an hour if you want to add additional titles, resource boxes, sentences/paragraphs and summaries to be rotated randomly. There is an option of using automatic submission where you just leave the software running on your computer, submitting the articles on your behalf, or if you want more control you can review each form after the software has filled it in and submit it semi manually.
Pros - large number of directories to submit to, easy to create variations of your article, one time cost only
Cons - initial set up can be time consuming (registering with all the necessary article directories)
(2) Article Marketer
Cost - $99.99 per quarter, $269.99 per year or $599.99 lifetime for unlimited articles
Features - Article Marketer allows you to submit unlimited articles to article directories and email lists. For those on a budget they have a free version that submits to a small number of directories, or you can go for their paid version with a wider distribution. Adding your article is quite simple and once you press the submit button the distribution is automatic.
Pros - Easy to submit your article; No limit to the number of articles you can submit
Cons - it can often take a few tries to have your article approved due to the various "Insta Edit" automatic checks and human reviews; There is no way to create multiple versions of the same article.
Cost - $37 per month for up to eight articles each month
Features - Submit Your Article (SYA) allows you to submit up to eight articles per month and each article can either be submitted as is, or you can use their "Article Leverage" feature. Article Leverage allows you to easily create variations of your article by entering alternative article titles, paragraphs, sentences and resource boxes. You can add as little or as many variations as you like and SYA will randomly interchange them and automatically submit different versions of your article. I was able to submit an article using the article leverage feature within half an hour.
Pros - very quick and easy to use, article leverage feature is also very good
Cons - limit of 8 articles per month, monthly fee
As an experiment I submitteed
- One Article using Article Marketer
- One Article using Submit Your Article
- One Article using Article Post Robot
- One Article using Submit Your Article with Article Leverage
- One Article using Article Post Robot with the feature to create multiple versions
My aim was to find out:
- which submission method was the best in terms of distribution, value for money, ease of use
- if writing multiple versions of the same article was worth the effort (i.e. did I get more backlinks or not?)
- does submitting to more directories really mean more backlinks?
Each article was submitted with a unique sentence within it that could not currently be found in Google. This allowed me to check after one week, two weeks and a month, how many pages with my article had been indexed.
At the end of the experiement here is how many indexed backlinks that I had for each of the methods after one month.
- Article Marketer - 9 backlinks
- Submit Your Article - 7 backlinks
- Article Post Robot - 25 backlinks
- Submit Your Article with Article Leverage - 36 backlinks
- Article Post Robot with the feature to create multiple versions - 37 backlinks
From this experiement I can draw two main conclusions:
(1) Submitting your article to more directories DOES increase the number of backlinks, even when the article is not changed in any way. I say this because my Article Post Robot submission submitted to far more directories than AM or SYA and this article is showing on 3x as many indexed pages in Google.
(2) Creating multiple versions of your article DOES make a difference. If you compare the results of the article that I submitted using Submit Your Article (SYA) above, the number of indexed pages is 36 when I use SYA's Article Leverage and only 9 when I don't use this.
I hope you find this useful when deciding which article distribution method to choose.My main recommendations are Submit Your Article for fast and effective distribution using article leverage and Article Post Robot, which takes slightly longer but can distribute to more directories.
Overall I liked Submit Your Article the best and this is the method that I currently use the most to submit my articles.
Did you like this review? You can find a more indepth version of this review in the PIPS Power Group forum, plus read reviews lots of other products and services.
.gif)
