From a SEO perspective, I don’t see any difference or issues with any approach till the time we are getting backlinks. And in a successful link building campaign, it’s important to have a mixture of low and high quality backlinks. Now, low quality backlinks are usually we end up creating over the time. Via Tweets, comments, bookmarking and so on. High quality backlink is when an authority site links to your site within the article and better be first link of the article.
So lets look into this approach and try to find out: Guest posting or Article Marketing link-building: Which is better
Where to invest time: Article Marketing or Guest posting:
When we talk about working online, it’s always time is money. I’m not sure how many of you have seen this movie, In Time, This movie related time with money and I’m sure for every entrepreneur and Blogger, this movie will give a food of thought and you might use your time wisely.
So, if we have limited time and we wish to build genuine back-links, which approach will be right?
In order to get high rankings, every blogger starts thinking about SEO and link building. Link building with articles is the most common type of getting links, however, with increased quantities of spam and spinned content, search engines decided to some extent devalue the power of this type of link building. Guest posting is a more advanced and more powerful link building tactic, but harder to accomplish. So. let’s start with today’s story.
Article Marketing for Backlink:
Article marketing is basically articles posted on the internet, keyword optimized, with the intent of creating backlinks. These articles can be used a number of ways, the most common way is to post one of these articles via a large directory that posts these types of articles based on their specific rules they’ve put forth as it pertains to word count, keyword density, and duplicate content. These articles can be submitted to literally thousands of directories; however it is important to avoid duplicate content. This is wear spinning articles comes in. Many companies choose to take a single article and “spin” it which means changing a few key parts of the article through software or hiring individuals to spin the articles, than submitting spun articles to a number of these directories. There are many article posting software’s that being used and that’s one reason, article directories are getting devalued.
There are some problems with these methods. Over the last couple of years due to duplicate content, spam and bot submissions, the effectiveness of article directories has decreased. Further these articles are rarely actually read, and are almost exclusively used as a way of creating backlinks, which has led search engines like Google to decrease significantly the impact of this specific type of backlink as far as site placement on a search.
Specially after Google panda update, link value from article directories have been devalued by a great extent. Still, it can be a helpful tool in increasing your searchability if used correctly and if duplicate content is avoided. Further, quality articles, even articles submitted outside of these large directories can still significantly increase the power of your backlinks.
Guest Posting for Backlink (My suggestion)
Guest posting is writing a post for someone else’s blog. This should not be confused with commenting on blogs, which is a less efficient way of creating backlinks since it neither sets you up as an authority on the subject at hand, and in most instances comments with links are considered spam and soon deleted.
Guest posting is simple, once you begin a blog, look for other bloggers in your niche and get to know them. Often bloggers allow others to guest post, so offer up your expertise in exchange for a link to your site at the end of the article you submit for them. It is good for the blog owner because it increases content, and if the article is good, provides the reader with information they want. Obviously it is good for you because you get your backlink, establish yourself as an authority if it is a good article, and even introduces you to some of the readers of this blog.
It is important to keep in mind a few things. First, only post on quality Niche blogs. These are blogs that offer actual quality content and not just spun articles. Consider blogs that deal in some way with your niche. Finally, it should be a good article. First the blog owner has the final say so they likely won’t accept bad content if it is a quality blog, and of course you want to demonstrate yourself as an expert in this area.
Here are direct advantages of Guest posting:
- Quality backlinks
- Exposure
- Target Subscribers
- Targeted traffic
Though, many people who are into guest posting, they don’t realize it’s the best way to connect to more audience. If you keep an approach of just building backlinks (which may not be wrong), you missing out the key of SEO (Social). With another extra effort on your guest post article, you can add personal touch and make article look more personalized. Also, if you are working for backlinks only, make sure you guest post on Blog which gives back-link in byline and preferable that should be the first link of the article. As according to reports, Google value first link of the article more than any other links
You can easily find blogs to guest post using search term in Google like “Submit guest post” : Topic and so on. You can also refer to earlier post on List of Blogs that accepts Guest posts.
What To Do?
Both of these tactics have their uses. Today, the way search engines prioritize backlinks, guest posting on a good blog is more effective. On the other hand often article submission is faster and easier. If your blogging business plan consider long term goal, guest posting is the best approach, and for short term goal keep a mixture of article directory and guest posting.
Here is another thought, which came into mind: Since Google launched Google plus your world search, in some time most of search engine traffic (Google) will come from personalized recommended search, and how many of you follow blogs and how many of you follow article directories? So, in long run approach, guest posting is my suggestion.
Now, it’s time for you to put yourself into my shoes and let us know which link building approach works better for you: Guest Posting or Article Marketing ?
Jeff, you are right. Guest posting should be preferred over article submission. Effectiveness of article directories are decreasing day by day.
Although Google is discouraging guest posting, it still has its own benefits.
Thanks for the post.
Thank for the valuable information…!!! your knowledge of writing attracted me to build backlinks.
In previous days i used to post comments like “Nice posts” , “Thanks for information”.
Now i get a thought how to comment on other’s blog for good backlinks. In this post post i get more knowledge about Guest posting. It’s a great work for getting good backlinks,now onwards i’ll start guest posting for increase my Page Rank.
Rather then selecting Mix article site ,Guest posting is very effective on niche site.thanks for sharing useful information.
Nice to see you here Jeff. I will prefer guest posting any day over article marketing.
I think guest posting works a great for this.. I have submitted an article on problogger and i am sure its going to affect my pr.
Yep, I stopped article writing after Panda. Like you said, overall a waste of time now, as Google is only going to continue to devalue these websites, until they become completely obsolete.
Even sites like Associated Content and Examiner are losing more and more hits as Google keeps shoving them down. Besides, most of us never click on an article site anyway, as we know what garbage we’ll probably end up with.
I won’t touch Google Plus though. Sick of Google’s monopoly on the web and, besides, why should Google tell me what I’m allowed to find in search 🙂
Very informative article
Thank you Jeff. Looking forward for more articles from you.
good post jeff, i prefer guest posting by here because of the exposure and eespecially if you are a blogger, its better to guest post.
I believe writing a guest post is a healthy way to get a backlink. It has important, weight-age and also one will get good amount of traffic if he write on high traffic blog. (like SML).
easily explained !! , first i thought its gonna be real technical ,but it is real easy to understand.
thanks jeff
Guest posting is definitely better than article marketing because the PR juice is almost the same and additionally, it helps build a strong personal connection to other bloggers – which is not possible in article marketing.