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There are some search engine optimization techniques that will always benefit you in one way or another.  One of these techniques that has been around for a very long time is known as article marketing.  Of course, many people are familiar with the term Bum Marketing but really, all this is is a glorified form of article marketing.  The concept itself is very simple to understand.  You write articles that are topical in nature about your particular niche and then you distribute them to the various article directories on the Internet.  The benefit to you?  You get to put at least one link back to your website in the bio box of the article.

Most article directories will require anywhere from 250 to 400 words for every article that you submit.  For most people, they tend to go for the minimum number of words in order to submit the most amount of articles in a short period of time.  There is a lot of method to this madness and it certainly is true that by submitting multiple articles, you will also be able to gain multiple links into your website.  Many people also write variations of their articles for the different article directories and they do this for a specific reason.  There is a school of thought that says that Google will discount articles that are duplicate and may not count the links back into your website from these duplicate articles.

Article submissions to these directories are great and they are a perfect way for you to gain some back links and to get the search engines interested in your website.  They do have their limitations, however, and many of them do not allow linking to your website within the article itself. For this reason, Google may not give that much weight to articles that have the link at the bottom of the article and not in the body of the article.  That is why another method of article marketing comes into play, one that can get you some of the best links that are available on the Internet.

It is often difficult to get websites to link back to you, especially if they have a lot of weight in the eyes of Google.  It is possible, however, that you can get a link back to your website in exchange for writing some original content for use on their website.  Of course, you’re never going to know unless you ask so try writing some of these website owners with your offer of free, original content in exchange for a link back to your website.  You will probably be pleasantly surprised with the number of webmasters that will take you up on your offer.

Writing articles is an excellent way to get exposure for your website and to begin compiling links that will help you in the free search engine listings.  If you are persistent in your efforts and you do things the right way, you will be surprised at exactly how far this type of marketing can take you.

Of all of the traffic that you can get your website, some of the best visitors will come as a direct result of your website being listed in the search engines.  Not only is this traffic very targeted, since they are looking for something specific, it is also free, which makes it all the more valuable.  In an effort to gain this free search engine traffic, many individuals have begun employing various search engine optimization techniques to help their websites to rank better.  These techniques come in two basic forms, on page and off page optimization.  Although on page optimization is important for you to understand, it is the off page optimization that will really propel your website to the top of the list.

Although there are many different things that you can do in order to improve your search engine rankings, the most popular and most effective is through obtaining inbound links to your website.  These links can take on a variety of different forms and they can come from a number of different areas but some of them are much more effective than others.  Let’s start at the bottom of the list of links that you can obtain and work our way up to the most effective.

Several years ago, it was very common for individuals to exchange links to their websites.  This was a process that is known as reciprocal linking and it helped many people to be able to gain SEO ground within the various search engines.  Unfortunately, this pattern of linking was also very easy to exploit and many websites overdid the process until it became almost the useless.  Today, the search engines put very little value on a reciprocal link but that doesn’t mean that it has no value whatsoever.  It should still hold a position in your SEO efforts, just make sure you don’t focus entirely on this type of link.

Another type of link is a one-way link that comes from efforts that you make to get listed on a variety of different websites.  These can include directory links, links from articles that you have written and links in forum posts that you have made.  One of the most popular of these is article marketing where you write articles on topic, post them to the various article directories around the Internet and include a link back to your website.  This can help you to gain some ground in the search engines if it is done properly and persistently.

The holy grail of links, however, is a one-way link from a well-established, on topic website.  Unfortunately, these are very difficult to obtain as many of these websites will not link out to other sites.  If you make your content compelling enough, however, you may get some natural links from these websites.  You can also offer to write original content for their website in exchange for a link.  What ever it takes to get your link on their site, it is well worth the effort as this will help to propel you to the top.

Below are some more great ressources about Off Page Search Engine Optimization.

Role of Directories in Link Building

Edu & Gov Links

On-Page and Off-Page Optimization

Top SEO Blogs by RSS Subscribers

To your success!

Guido Nussbaum