What Should Your Article Be Linked To?
With more and more emphasis on good content, many article submission sites are frowning on product linking. Some are even now rejecting articles that have affiliate links in the bio box. So what do you put for a link?
These days you have to be careful. The term "spam" has taken on a whole new meaning to include links to sales pages that aren't clearly marked as such. So for example, if you put "for more information, go to . . ." with some anchor text leading to a sales page in your bio box, chances are an astute article directory owner will catch it and perceivably label it as spam.
The latest Internet trend is toward open source, so likewise free information is what brings ratings and rankings with the search engines. Organic pages filled with good, solid information rank high, content filled with sales pitches and affiliate links rank low if at all.
So the article submission directories, in an attempt to stay in form, are now screening bio boxes for blatant linking to product pages, and in particular, affiliate links. What this means for Internet marketers doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It simply means that you have to focus more on "pre-selling."
After all, you're goal in writing and submitting articles should be to first, brand yourself as an expert in your field, then second, to convince your readers of the viability of your expert recommendations. Thus this trend toward free and organic content can serve as a further opportunity to do this and actually add more clout to your position.
Here's some ideas to accomplish this . . .
Rather than pointing your bio box link to a sales page, link it to an article page on your site that lists other related articles. On that page put a link to your sales page, or list relevant affiliate links your readers can choose from. Mark them as advertisements just to keep pace with the trends.
Alternatively, you could set up a blog through an open source blogging platform like Rtilcz.com, Wordpress.com, or Blogger.com and post 400 to 500 word articles relating to the products you sell. Link to the sales pages in the blogroll.
Not only will this give you more "room" to convince your readers of your expertise, but you can then submit these article pages or blog posts to the social networks in order to drive more traffic and accumulate more readers.
As we all move closer to the open source concept, it's definitely going to thin out the herd of would-be sales people using the Internet. Many won't be able to keep up with the requirement of updated fresh content, so they'll fall by the wayside unless they learn how to do it.
But on the other hand, anyone who searches the web, whether through the search engines or on article submission directories will be assured that the content they're given to read will be from someone who has the knowledge and credentials to make a reasonable recommendation.