Should you post to an article sharing site?
Back when I first started copywriting, I used EzineArticles.com a lot. At the time, I could usually count on getting at least one inquiry every time I posted a new article.
I DID get really frustrated because while those articles are free for anyone to take and post on their own
websites, some people put them through “spinners” before posting them. I wouldn’t have cared, but part of the requirement is that the person leave the author’s resource box on the post, and I sure didn’t like my name associated with some of the spinner results.
Spinners used by non-English speaking people can come up with some pretty strange sentences. In one case they changed the word “can” (as in you can do something) to “crapper.” On articles about construction that mentioned my husband in the resource box, “retired home builder” changed to “old bag builder.” Some of the other results were just gibberish - worse than the things Gwen Banta posts in her bloopers blogs.
After a while I decided that people reading those blogs would consider the source, so I should just not worry about it.
Eventually I got busy with other things and stopped writing for them. Now I’m re-thinking the whole thing, and in fact did post a new article just today. Although I hadn’t been there in a couple of years, the fact that I have more than 500 articles posted still gives me “Expert Author” status.
Why am I re-thinking this?
It all started a few days ago when Carol Williams wrote about our blogs being a non-diminishing savings account that can sometimes lead to large monetary deposits. Her post got me thinking, and I decided that perhaps posting articles on sites such as EzineArticles.com can serve in the same manner - for you as well as for me.
An article that demonstrates your expertise can be nothing but beneficial. When someone else picks up that article and posts it, it creates a link back to your site via your resource box. So even if their geographic area is far removed from yours, it can help your SEO. On top of that, if you’ve used your location in the title, potential clients entering keywords in search just might find you right on the article site.
So why not rework a few of your Active Rain or personal blog posts and submit them? You never know - if you hit on the right topic, they could go viral.
I don’t intend to take part in the “100 Articles in 100 Days” challenges that I once did, but I’m planning to submit a new post every week or two in the coming year.
Will you join me?
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