Article directory SEO is something that seems to have positive optimization effects for off-page campaigns. But after the Panda and Penguin updates, the question of their effectiveness has been the subject of much speculation. Since Google doesn’t often share much of its inner workings, it is difficult to gauge how much impact article directory SEO has on a target site. Even sites which promote using these platforms as an SEO strategy differ on which are the best article directories for SEO. Likewise, there’s a nearly constant pole-position switch among top article directories for SEO.
Article Directory SEO: Pros and Cons
The self-evident pros of using article directory SEO is that sites can spread backlinks among various venues. But if those venues don’t have a strong page rank or border on link farms, then they don’t have much optimization benefits. There are places where article directory SEO can pay off, if used properly. But even these aren’t given the green light by industry experts. It isn’t an effective SEO strategy going back to 2011, according to Google’s chief webspam engineer, Matt Cutts.
Effect Article Marketing
For any article directory SEO to be effective, it must have a coherent strategy. That disqualifies article spinning straight away. It also means repurposing isn’t going to garner any worthwhile results. Duplicate anchor text is one reason and of course, duplicate content only helps to hurt. That leaves only one alternative for real article marketing, and it involves actual work. Without legitimate effort, any article directory SEO will fail to produce traffic.
Real SEO Strategies
The paradoxical situation about the Internet is anyone can access any type of information on-demand, instantly. At the same time, search engine optimization takes weeks to produce and months to return on that sweat equity. Optimization just doesn’t kick in the moment links are spread about the Web. Of course, there is a reason article directory SEO is practiced so widely.
Using Article Directories
While some directories are a complete waste of time, there are sites which can be worth the effort. Using article directory SEO can capitalize on this, given some carefully crafted methods. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it certainly is the crux of using article directory SEO.
- Create real, engaging and insightful content
- Don’t repurpose content–even original content–across different sites
- Change-up anchor text from piece to piece
- Use deep linking and cross linking techniques
- Avoid implementing article directory SEO on sites which employ nofollow attributes
- Spread inbound links to the target site’s social media profiles
- Use latent semantic indexing when crafting articles
- Follow each directory’s rules
It is important to keep in mind that article directory SEO is only one part of site optimization. There are literally dozens of other techniques which must be employed even before going off-page. Without these elements, no amount of off-site SEO will produce any discernible benefits.
If you want to learn more about real search engine optimization and effective SEO techniques that get real results, then contact us for a free, expert consultation. We can tell you how our methods get your site the traffic it needs to make a substantial impact on your business and increase your conversion rates.
