Question

Topic: Strategy

Non-exclusive Article Submission For Backlinks

Posted by asterixcreative on 2/18/2017 at 7:42 AM ET 250 Points
I am new at marketing, and have a client I am trying to help get backlinks to her website via the bylines at the bottom of three articles she has written (which I am trying to get published online). She does not have a blog, and does not want to become a blogger. Her goal is to promote a book she has written, via driving traffic to her website. The problem is that it has proven to be a challenge to find places to post her articles, because she'd like me to submit the three articles to multiple online sites, but site owners want either exclusive content, or they want to own the rights to her articles. The other problem is that since she doesn't want to write more articles, she is expecting these three articles to succeed. Where can I start? I feel like I've spent weeks googling for solutions and reading articles that might help with no end in sight. Thank you for any advice you can give!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by asterixcreative on 2/20/2017 at 6:00 AM Author
    Thank you for your advice. I was feeling like it was a very complex job, yet it seems so simple. My client hasn't understood why more visible work hasn't been done, as so much of the work is behind the scenes research. I am now in a position to finally place my client's articles, and I still don't know where to begin. At this point, just getting the articles placed, and hopefully having the articles help in SEO ranking, as well as potential clicks to my client's website will be a good start. Do you have any advice as to where to submit articles. I am thinking something like Squidoo (which is now hubpages, but now only accepts exclusive content). Does anyone have any suggestions? Sincere thanks!
  • Posted by mgoodman on 2/20/2017 at 12:38 PM Moderator
    KSA has given you the right advice: Fire this client.

    The alternative, which is much more difficult and time-consuming: Teach the client why her expectations are not reasonable and propose a different strategy to accomplish the objective. (Note: Clients don't usually want to pay for lessons that seem to contradict their preconceived notions.)
  • Posted by asterixcreative on 2/20/2017 at 5:09 PM Author
    Hello and thank you for your advice. I appreciate it. I really can't "fire" this client, as we had an arrangement that for a specified fee over a 3 month period, I would do what I could to help her get more traffic and place her articles, while I learned some of the basic ropes of marketing. I do have to deliver the final article placements. I just need some help figuring out a way to get articles distributed / published so my client and I can be on our merry way, and begin other (more reasonable) projects together. That is all :-) Thanks!
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 2/20/2017 at 7:04 PM Accepted
    If this client is such a frigging expert, why is she not doing her own linking? Sounds to me like an impossible task, AND that she, sadly, has no idea what she's doing. Q: What are the articles about and what's the book about? Knowing those answers will help focus efforts down, but in the meanwhile, here's a list of article submissions sites, some of which may help: https://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php

    Backlinks are OK, but what she really needs first is readers. So, post, or share the first few paragraphs of each article on Facebook, Medium, and LinkedIn, with a link to the client's website on which the full article can be read. The goal for articles like this is to drive traffic to the site so that readers can be encouraged to sign up for additional content. This then creates an asset in the guise of a list.

    To be honest, three articles isn't enough. If she thinks three articles will sell her book she's living in a dream world. She needs to offer excerpts form the book ... for God's sake, if she's already written a book, she could afford to edit down 10 - 20 parts of her tome into an equal number of 1,500 to 2,000 word articles, each one of which includes links back to her site and sales page. She needs to be connecting with publication and website editors, and ideally, editors who are looking for the kind of stuff she's writing about: message to market match and all that. OR ... you need to set up a small network of blogs, ALL of which point back to her site.



  • Posted by asterixcreative on 2/22/2017 at 6:53 PM Author
    Thank you Gary. I'm looking into the link you sent. Looks promising. Could you please clarify what you mean by setting up a small network of blogs? Thanks again!
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 2/28/2017 at 8:46 AM Member
    I'm referring to a small blog network that could be set up using Tumblr. Three to five blogs, each with a varying slant, each with unique content and name, each one of which points to your main niche site and that cross references social media posts. Make all the content value based and benefit focused. You could also link LinkedIn articles and Medium articles to these sites. You then link these sites together so that each one references the other using contextual links, and you link your main site to these blogs. All this helps build link authority. Avoid duplicate content.
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