Sharing is caring – especially when it comes to content.
A great article can have many lives, circulating across platforms and generating traffic for months, or even years, to come.
But what does it take to write an article that not only drives organic traffic but expands your reach across a variety of channels?
In this guide, we’re digging into the masterful art of article marketing – from topic ideation to content writing, to establishing a viral-worthy sharing strategy.
Sure, article marketing has gotten a bad rap and been abused by some. And yet it’s still a viable content marketing tactic when done properly. That’s where we’ll focus.
What Is Article Marketing?
Article marketing is an area of content marketing that involves writing and distributing articles across a variety of outlets.
These articles are typically designed to promote the author’s business or website via backlinks created, authority built, and visibility gained.
How Article Marketing Helps SEO
Article marketing involves the creation of valuable, informative content to be read by users online.
When users search for a given topic (mainly, within Google), they’re taken to the top-ranking web pages and blog posts related to that topic.
This means that website owners can publish their own article content, optimize it for search engines, and rank in Google Search for a variety of topics.
Do the optimization game right and you can drive dozens to even thousands of users to your website with your articles.
SEO Benefits Of Article Marketing
Article marketing offers many benefits when it comes to SEO, including:
- Enabling your website to rank for a wider range of keywords.
- Increasing the authority and trustworthiness of your website.
- Attracting more organic traffic from search engines.
- Converting users into subscribers or customers.
- Providing opportunities to rank in image or video search.
- Directing authority to other pages on your site via internal links.
- Attracting valuable backlinks to your site from other websites and blogs.
Can Article Marketing Work On Other Channels?
Article marketing is not only a strategy for SEO, though. It can also empower you to generate traffic via a wide range of social, direct, or referral channels.
For example, with article marketing you can drive traffic from:
- Facebook.
- Twitter.
- LinkedIn.
- YouTube.
- Other blogs.
- Email campaigns.
- Paid campaigns.
Benefits Of Multi-channel Article Marketing
Taking a multi-channel approach to your article marketing is the smartest way to get the most “bang for your buck.”
If you are going to put time (or money) into creating content, why not use it to attract visitors from a variety of platforms?
With this in mind, here are a few benefits of article marketing on other platforms:
- You can increase user engagement and interaction on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
- You can generate organic traffic to your site and referral traffic from a variety of sources.
- You can re-share your articles to Pinterest, third-party sites, Medium.com, and more.
- You get multiple opportunities to convert visitors into subscribers or paying customers.
How To Write, Publish And Share Great Article Content
Article marketing is made easy when you establish a go-to process that fits your business and the users you are trying to reach.
This process can look a bit different from website to website, but the general steps go as follows.
1. Choose Your Topic
Brainstorm a list of broad topics that may be of interest to your audience. Whether you are a blogger, a business owner, a marketer, or something in between, you’re likely sitting on a treasure-trove of topics if you just give yourself the chance to think.
For example, if you are a freelance graphic designer, you can believe that your target audience is interested in all things digital design.
They may want to know:
- What are the best tools for graphic design?
- How to design a logo.
- What are the best fonts for business flyers?
- How much does graphic design cost?
- What are the greatest designs of this year?
Try to be exhaustive when it comes to thinking up topics related to your business and the people you are hoping to reach.
Then, you can move on to Step 2, which involves narrowing down your ideas with keyword research.
Answer the Public is a helpful (and free) tool you can use to come up with article topic ideas.
2. Conduct Keyword Research
Coming up with interesting article topics is great, but mapping them to searchable keywords is even better. After all, what’s the use in writing an article if no one is looking for the topic you are writing about?
Keyword research tools like Semrush allow you to look up a range of broad topics and see how many people are searching for that word (or related words) every month.
This search volume is a good indication of whether it’s worthwhile to write the article for SEO purposes.
Another factor to consider is competition level. You might find a high-volume keyword, but it’s too competitive for your small site.
In that case, it’s best to aim for a less competitive topic and then go after more competitor keywords over time.
3. Draft Your Article
Writing your article may be the best or most complicated part, depending on your writing experience.
One option is to hire an SEO writer to ensure your content is informative and optimized. However, you can certainly write your content yourself.
If you are going the DIY route, we highly recommend the Inverted Pyramid Method of SEO copywriting, which is an easy-to-follow structure for writing an article from start to finish.
This method will help you lead with value and write content users really enjoy reading.
4. Optimize Your Content
Next, you’ll want to optimize your content according to on-page SEO best practices.
This involves:
- Writing a click-worthy, keyword-optimized title tag.
- Including a descriptive meta description.
- Adding an interesting H1 headline.
- Including concise H2 and H3 headings.
- Writing valuable body content.
- Adding internal and external links.
- Using an optimized URL structure.
Ticking all of the boxes in terms of on-page SEO will help set your article up for success, making it easier to rank high in the search results and drive traffic from Google.
5. Add Media
Once you have the bulk of the article content, it’s time to get creative.
Now you can add media to engage users, add value to your article, and improve your chances of ranking in image or video search.
Some media types to add to your article include:
- Pre-recorded videos.
- Original photography.
- Stock images.
- Gifs.
- Graphic designs.
- PDFs.
- Surveys.
- Digital tools.
- Infographics.
6. Establish A Sharing Strategy
Before you hit “publish,” think about all the channels you can share your article to in order to maximize your reach.
Actually, many CMS platforms make this easy, by including social share icons when you publish an article.
Similarly, there are third-party tools like Buffer that allow you to share your article to Facebook, Twitter, and beyond automatically.
Whether you go auto or take the manual route, be sure to share your article far and wide to reach as many users as possible.
7. Include Linkable Assets
One of the most important pillars of SEO is backlinks. Backlinks direct authority to your site, which causes search engines to essentially “trust” your site as a reputable source of information.
Adding what’s called “linkable assets” to your article can help attract links back to your site. Some linkable assets might include videos, infographics, free tools, resource guides, images, and more.
Learn about it here: Want Links? Here’s How To Create Link-worthy Content
8. Get (Re)published!
It’s one thing to publish your content on your own blog, and another to get it posted on other websites. You may have to “pitch” your content to other publishers in order to broaden your reach.
HARO is a free subscription-based platform where you can find publishing opportunities on other sites. Not only will publishers post their prompts in search of content, but they will often accept “cold” pitches for new articles.
Another option is to reach out to industry websites directly to ask for guest posting opportunities. If they bite, it can be a great chance to plug your own content and direct links back to your site.
Finally, social blogging sites like Medium.com allow you to publish content for free and link out to your own site.
These platforms can help generate more visibility for your article, even going as far as to “promote” your post at no cost. (In fact, this is how I generated over 13,000 views on a single Medium post.)
9. Interact, Engage, And Follow Up
Now that your article is out in the webosphere… now what?
Rather than wait for the traffic to trickle in, you can double-down on your marketing by engaging with users as they interact with your content.
This can look like:
- Responding to comments on Facebook.
- Replying to your blog post comments.
- Liking and commenting on re-shares on Twitter.
- Retargeting readers with Facebook Ads.
- Following up with new subscribers to your email list.
- Responding to people who reply to your email campaigns.
The important thing is to not let your article disappear into the abyss.
You can re-share your content over and over, giving your article new life. That way, you can drive traffic for months or even years into the future.
Get Creative With Article Marketing
Is article marketing part of your content strategy? It should be!
Every blog post is an opportunity to attract more traffic, subscribers, and customers from a range of platforms. Don’t let your blog go to waste!
Another pro tip? Ask your audience what topics they are interested in and add these to your queue.
You can start a running list of article ideas to tap into in order to keep the traffic flowing.
More Resources:
- How Content Marketing Has Evolved
- Why These 5 Unexpected Content Marketing Skills Are A Must To Build
- Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
Featured Image: PCH.Vector/Shutterstock
