I’ve come up with a new idea on how to test the strength of each of the article submission services that I use. I’m going to be using a similar strategy to what I’ve used to show the power of Unique Article Wizard in the past.

In the past I’ve only used this approach with Unique Article Wizard because it’s the only article spinning submission service I use that includes an author name so that I could create a unique author name to track how many times that name shows up in the search engines (which shows me how many different indexed pages my submission shows up on.)

But I’ve realized that I can actually do the same thing with the other services if I include a unique name somewhere in the body of the article (I could also use some sort of unique phrase, but I think coming up with a weird unique name is the easiest way to do it.)This is what I’m going to be doing with this test which is going to include all five of the article submission services I’m currently using as a part of my link building strategy.

This is a step by step on how I’m going to be doing this:

(1) Write/spin an article with Magic Article Rewriter. I always use this software as it allows me to write/spin an article just once and then use it for all of my submission services. This particular article is actually also going to be a part of this project and it’s going to be promoting ArticleRanks in particular.

(2) Submit the article via Unique Article Wizard with a unique author name. What I mean by “unique author name” is that it has to be a name which currently has zero results in any of the search engines. That way when I search for the name in the future I will know that any results that show up for that name were from my UAW submission. This allows me to see how many of the pages that have my article on it are actually being indexed by the search engines.

And since I am going to share this unique author name with you on this page, this will allow you to follow the results of this test yourself.

UAW unique name: “Vernon U. Huffington” — If you search the search engines right now for that name (with quotes of course) you will find absolutely zero results (besides perhaps the page you are reading right now.) This is a unique name I am not going to use for any other articles so any results you see for this search are coming from this single UAW submission.

(3) Submit the article via SEOLinkVine. This service (like all of the others besides UAW) does not include an author name area so what I’m going to do is include a sentence about how you can test the power of article marketing services by including a unique phrase or name somewhere in the article. I will then give an example “such as _____.”

SEOLinkVine unique name: “Vernon S. Huffington” — Each of these unique names I’m creating currently have ZERO search engine results. Remember to use “quotes” when searching for yourself.

(4) Submit the article via ArticleRanks. “Vernon A. Huffington” is the unique name for this service.

(5) Submit the article via Article Marketing Automation.  “Vernon M. Huffington” is the unique name for this service.

(6) Submit the article via Free Traffic System.  “Vernon F. Huffington” is the unique name for this service.

Yes, I Know

In an attempt to discourage people from leaving annoying comments where they tell me things I already know:

Yes, I know that the amount of indexed results from a test like this isn’t a huge amount of information to really go on. It doesn’t tell me the quality of the pages that these articles are on or how much weight the links back have (although it does let me see exactly where my articles are ending up.)

But I still think this is a good way of making sure that each of these article marketing services are actually working as advertised. I do this even though I’m quite confident in these services (some I’ve been using for quite some time) because I think it’s important to make sure things are still working quite frequently (as things often change in the internet marketing world rather quickly.)

If you want proof of actual search engine rankings from article marketing then take a look at this “Article Marketing Loop” project.

I’m doing a new test of the link building powers of my current article marketing strategy. I’m doing this because I think it’s important to periodically test services like these because sometimes they can improve (or get worse) over time and it’s good to stay on top of what is working now (rather than what used to work.)

I’m also doing it because I haven’t done a real test yet of SEOLinkVine which is the newest article submission service I’m using (I just a little over a month ago.)

The test works like this:

(#1) I set up five new hubpages each one of them assigned to a specific article marketing service. (I’ve just finished this step today.) These hubpages are all about subjects that are very much related to each other so that I can write one article which I can use for all of them.

(#2) I do not link to these hubpages with any other means. No social bookmarking. Nothing. The test must be as “pure” as possible to be meaningful.

(#3) I write/spin one 300+ word article with Magic Article Rewriter.

(#4) I submit the spun article (with the appropriate links included) to each of my article submission services. To be clear, I only include the specific hubpage link that is assigned to that specific article submission service (along with other links that have nothing to do with this test.) This way I can tell that if links are built for that specific hubpage that they are being built with that specific article submission service. This is what makes it a “test.” It’s now how I would normally work (I would build links with all of them usually, mixing everything up) it’s only to see how well each submission service works.

(#5) I will check my external link count (making sure to exclude internal hubpage links) using Yahoo Site Explorer. I’ll be posting the results in the comments here.

The Five Article Submission Services

(#1) Unique Article Wizard

UAW has done very well in my tests in the past and I’m quite confident that it’s a very effective link building tool.  Yet, it’s still good to do a periodic check to be sure.

(#2) Article Marketing Automation

I’ve been a member with AMA for over a year now. It’s done very well in past tests too. It’s a very user friendly service which I do recommend. It did go through some issues a few months ago (with slower submission rates) but they seem to have cleared those issues up. This test will let me make sure of that.

(#3) ArticleRanks

This service seems to be getting stronger and stronger. I’m excited to see the results for it.

(#4) Free Traffic System

You can try this one out for free, so if you’re broke this would be a good place to start. That said, I’m a paying member because you are leveraging your work far better as a paying member.  My philosophy is that you shouldn’t be afraid of spending a little money if it saves you a lot of time. It’s an investment.

(#5)  SEOLinkVine

I haven’t tested this service yet so I’m most curious to see these results.

Yes, I Know

I’ll probably get some comments from people saying things like just the amount of links on it’s own isn’t meaningful without knowing the quality of the links etc etc. Yes, I know. I’ve been doing this for a long time. And yes I know that what really matters isn’t the links but the SERPS. It’s the search rankings that are ultimately going to make me money! That’s the ultimate goal. But it’s much more difficult to test that (I’ve done it in the past, I don’t want to get into all of the technical difficulties.)

And of course when I check my backlinks using Yahoo Site Explorer for this test I’m not just seeing a total amount of links built, I’m also seeing where those links are coming from.

Step by Step

My last post (from May) includes my current step by step approach to building links (search engine rankings) with article marketing.

As I’ve written about many times before on this blog my primary method of getting more links back to my sites to improve my search engine rankings so to that I can get more targeted natural traffic (which leads to sales) is the use of article submission services. I’ve just joined another such service: SEOLinkVine.

I’m just getting started with this service so I can’t give any kind of review of it yet. All I can say is that I was convinced by my research (and their sales pitch) that it was worth giving a try. I’m always looking for quality article submission services to add to my arsenal so that I can expand my link profile and SEOLinkVine looks to fit the bill.

This means my current article submission routine works like this:

(#1) Write/spin an article (over 300 words - I try to get the spin % over 60%) with Magic Article Rewriter. I include 2 links in the article at first (I usually spin these links to go to multiple different landing pages.) When I say “export the article” below I mean that I export it from the Magic Article Rewriter program.

(#2)  Export the article using the “Unique Article Wizard” button. Submit the article via Unique Article Wizard. They have a limit of 2 links in the body. I can also include 2 more links in the resource box. They also allow for an embedded youtube video which I usually include (if I have a youtube video related to the article.)

(#3) Add a 3rd link to the article in Magic Article Rewriter (the rest of the article marketing submission services I use allow for three links in the body.) By the way, I usually spin both the url target (linking to multiple different landing pages) and the anchor text quite a bit with my links.

(#4) Export the article using the “Unique Article Wizard” button. Submit the article via SEOLinkVine. I use the “Unique Article Wizard” button because the formatting is the same with this service and it doesn’t have it’s own button.

(#5) Export the article using the “Article Marketing Automation” button and submit it via both Article Marketing Automation and ArticleRanks (they use the same formatting.) I add youtube videos to both of them (they both allow youtube embedding) if I have youtube videos related to the article content.

(#6) Export the article using the “Free Traffic System” button and submit it to Free Traffic System. This one is a bit more tricky than the others because I have to go into the article and replace the links with %Link1% etc. But that’s something you will learn about if you become a member. While the service is a bit clunky (I especially dislike the “blog choosing” step) compared to some of the others (particularly Article Marketing Automation & ArticleRanks which are very smooth to use) it does bring good results.

I would like people to promote my Clickbank Diet Product’s Affiliate Program with the article marketing distribution services that I know work from my own personal experience.

So what I’m trying to do is set up a “Step by Step” on article marketing in the affiliate area and then I’m also setting up pages for each of the article distribution services along with the article spinning software that I use.These pages are being put up just today (and probably won’t be finished as far as all of the content on them until at least the end of the week.) These are brand new pages that aren’t even indexed in the search engines.

The idea is that these pages (talking about how well each of the article distribution services work) will be sort of recursive in nature because any search engine rankings they get will be proof of that. That’s why I put “Loop” in the title.

And this post will be a way of following the progress of the process. Below I’m going to be linking to each of these five pages so you can see them for yourself. These pages will only be linked to via my article distribution submissions (other than the links on this very page of course) so any success they have as far as building up links and search engine rankings will be coming from the article distributions I make.

I’ll be adding a comment here each time I do a new submission. For each submission I write/spin an article in Magic Article Rewriter and then submit it via the four article distribution services. These articles will be linking back to the pages linked to below as well as to some other pages (I like to mix it up not only to appear more natural but to give myself more chances to get more pages ranking on the first page.)

Unique Article Wizard
Article Marketing Automation
ArticleRanks
Free Traffic System
Magic Article Rewriter

To show the power of Unique Article Wizard I’m going to be doing a “before & after” video series. Today (March 5, 2010) I’m going to be doing the “before” video and in two weeks (March 19th) I’ll be doing the “after.” (I’ll update this entry with the “after video” on March 19th.)

Basically these are going to be short videos which are a screen capture of me searching on Google for a unique phrase. The phrase will be my “author name” for an article submission with UAW (the article will be promoting Magic Article Rewriter which is software that I really do very highly recommend as I use it for all of my article writing/spinning now. It allows me to write/spin just one article to be submitted via Unique Article Wizard, ArticleRanks, Free Traffic System, & Article Marketing Automation.)

The idea is that before I create this unique author name there will be absolutely no results in Google for a “phrase” search but after two weeks of submissions via Unique Article Wizard there will be many results (as shown in the “after” video.)

By the way: I did something similar to this about a year ago but without the video evidence.

The Before Video:
(you will have to look closely at the date! I shouldn’t have used “full screen” on the capture)

The Results

0 results in Google on March 5th. 170 results on March 19th. And because of the way Unique Article Wizard “drips” out articles so they appear to be more “natural” this number will probably significantly rise in the future. You can search for this unique author name yourself to see the progress. I am not going to use this name again for any other articles so any results you see will be from just one submission.

570 Article Directories & Other Sites

According to Unique Article Wizard themselves this submission has gone out to 570 sites (I drip them out at 50 a day as recommended.)

Lately I’ve been experiencing some troubles with Article Marketing Automation & Free Traffic System (to be clear, I still recommend these two services - but I have ran into some issues… I’ll get to those below if you’re interested.)

In much better news: ArticleRanks is working better than ever. I’ve been experiencing no glitches with their service and my articles are going out on more and more sites it seems. For example, an article I submitted at the beginning of the month has already made it’s way onto 60 different sites.

I strongly recommend ArticleRanks for link building purposes (along with Unique Article Wizard which has been very reliable since I began using it about a year ago.)

Problems With AMA & FTS?

For those who are curious about the issues I’ve been experiencing with these two services let me share some of the details here. My AMA articles are not going out to nearly as many sites as they used to. I have some AMA articles that have gone out to over 300 sites! But an article I submitted at the beginning of the month (the same one - spun with Magic Article Rewriter - that has gone out to 60 sites on ArticleRanks) has made it onto only 5 sites.

I’ve contacted them about this and they say they are just having some technical issues so I’m trying not to get too frustrated with it. I still think they are a good service and I have no plans on leaving them but it is disappointing that they are not working as well as they did previously.

With FTS I’ve had a couple problems.

The first is that my articles are sometimes declined and no reason is given. These same articles - spun with Magic Article Rewriter so I can submit the same spun article to multiple services - are accepted with the other article distribution services mentioned in this post.

The second is the awkward way the site works. I find the whole “choosing” and “rechoosing” of blogs to be very cumbersome. I much prefer the way AMA & ArticleRanks are set up. They are far more user friendly.

Another huge problem with FTS is the very awkward [spin]red|blue[/spin] spinning syntax they use. It’s because of this that I originally bought Magic Article Rewriter. Luckily that’s turned out to be a big net positive because it has saved me a huge amount of time with my article marketing by allowing me to spin an article just once and submit it via all four of these distribution services.

Lately my Clickbank Diet Product has been doing a bit better as far as conversions and not surprisingly I’m also seeing a climb in “gravity.” Below is a graph of my product’s gravity over the past six months, check out the recent spike! (Yes, I know it’s still not great, but it’s nice to see progress.)

(the graph is taken from the CB Tracker.)

To anyone who wants to get started promoting this product (75% commissions!) I’m still offering to build links for affiliates with my article marketing methods including links for YouTube videos. I don’t know of any other CB vendor that offers to build links for their affiliates.

I think it’s a pretty cool offer. Win-Win. Of course you need to build a good keyword targeted landing page (or YouTube video) in order to get any benefit from this offer (and I do recommend getting into article marketing yourself for the best results: Unique Article Wizard, Article Ranks, Article Marketing Automation, & Free Traffic System are the main article distribution systems I use.)

And you should know that this is a long term strategy, so it will take time to see results! SEO takes patience.

I’ve been relying almost entirely on my article marketing for link building strategy for awhile now and it has been pretty successful. But I’m feeling pretty restless at the moment so I’m wanting to try out some new techniques and see how they go. I was convinced by the “Copy Pate Systems” sales letter to give it a try.

Obviously I can’t give details of what’s in the package (that would be copyright infringement) but I can tell you how well (or not well) it works. I’ll give updates in the comments here on how it goes.

I should say that I’m not so much interested in the idea of copying/pasting campaigns exactly because it seems that as more people buy this those particular campaigns would become too flooded with competition. I’m more interested in getting some ideas for new approaches to getting more traffic to my sites (I’ve been seeing more success with my Clickbank Diet Product lately and I’m thinking of giving it another push.)

CopyPasteSytems.com

One of the very cool things about the Article Marketing Automation, Unique Article Wizard, and Article Ranks article distribution services is that you can include a YouTube video (with random anchor texts) at the top of your articles if you want (and this is an additional link along with the three you are allowed to have in each submission.)

I am currently submitting one article every Monday via these article distribution services (along with FTS which does not have this YouTube feature) which is promoting this website which is trying to sell this clickbank diet affiliate program.

I am now offering a deal (first come first serve) where I will include your YouTube video in my submission if you create a YouTube video which promotes the aforementioned clickbank diet program.

In order to qualify your video must do something other than just promote the brand name. I am interested in videos which promote an element such as “lose belly fat,” “lose thigh fat,” or “lose weight fast.” (You don’t have to pick one of these three, it’s just to give you an idea of the kind of keyword targeted videos I’m interested in helping you get links for.)

I’ve found that it’s much easier to get YouTube videos to rank than other things, but I don’t really like the process of making them so this could work out quite well for someone who is good at making promotional YouTube videos and who wants some free links to their video (which can be turned into sales of course.)

Include a link to your YouTube video in the comments here if you want the free links - but please remember that I’m only going to send free links to a YouTube video which promotes this clickbank affiliate program and which is targeting keywords other than just the brand name (you can include the brand name, but it can’t be the only thing… the keywords should go first, for example a video could be titled “How To Lose Weight Fast with TDOD” — you should spell it out - I juse used the acronym here as I don’t want this site showing up in the search engines for brand name searches.)

I’m trying out SEO Heaven. This is a service that claims to put your article up on 1000 pages (with 3 links in each article for a total of 3000 back links.)

I must say I’m quite suspicious of this service but I’m a curious sort of person (I have tried many services like this - and most of them have not worked very well) so I’m going to try it out and share my results with you here (saving you the trouble/money of testing it out for yourself.)

I’m going to be linking to three Squidoo pages that currently have no back links (these are Squidoo pages) I’m putting up today) or search engine rankings to speak of.

I’ll be updating (in the comments) with the SERPS and back link results (back links checked with Yahoo Site Explorer.)

www.SEOHeaven.com

Article Marketing Methods That Work

If you’re looking for some ways to build up back links that have already been tested and been proven to work successfully then I recommend Unique Article Wizard, Article Ranks, Article Marketing Automation, Free Traffic System, & ISnare. These are the services I’m currently relying upon to build up links and I’m quite pleased with the results (and I’ve come upon these five services after testing many others that didn’t cut it.)

I use a program called Magic Article Rewriter in order to write/spin my articles (so I can submit via UAW, AR, AMA, & FTS with the same spun article.)  It’s a huge time saver. Definitely worth the investment.