Web PR Tactics
Online article syndication
Online article syndication is one of WebPR’s principal and most successful tactics. It involves writing articles that are in no way a direct promotion of your site. These are not press releases; they are written to provide information and valuable content. Articles are submitted to online article directories, from where they are picked up and republished on other sites.
As the articles contain links and keywords relevant to your site, the benefits for search engine optimisation are excellent. But the strategy won’t work unless people want your articles - so they need to be broad, informative and not just thinly disguised adverts. Remember, we’re in the PR chapter here.
Each article will also have an “About the Author” section. This could contain up to three links to your site and many article directories will allow you to include a backlink in the body of the article as well. The aim: the article gets republished on many web and blog sites in the weeks after it is published. In order to ensure your site remains the search engine authority on the article’s subject, the article should be published and indexed there first. Online article syndication not only allows you to introduce fresh, optimized content to your site but enables you to generate valuable SEO backlinks.
Articles containing relevant information are value-adding and therefore attract links naturally. And, if published on a third party site, should carry a link back to your own web site. This drives visitors to the site that are automatically predisposed to your brand, and are therefore are more likely to engage and buy the products on offer.
Writing an article for online syndication
Choose a topic
By looking at your web site’s content themes, and the key phrases associated with them, you will be able to write targeted, key phrase rich articles. Listening to the conversations around your brand, and seeing what customers are saying, can also lead you to topics relevant to your web site and your customers. Refer to your SEO strategy, and the keywords you are targeting, to create articles that complement your SEO efforts.
Optimise the article and publish it to your own site
Using SEO and web copy guidelines, ensure that the content is optimised for search engines, as well as engaging for readers. Publish the article to your own web site first, to establish the authority of your web site. Doing this will:
- Allow you to reap the SEO benefits of fresh, optimised copy.
- Enable your site to be regarded as the expert on that subject.
- Avoid Google’s strict duplicate content policies.
Firstly, the article needs to be optimised for your web site. Implement all the tactics covered in the online copywriting chapter, such as correct meta data, optimised title and key phrases, optimal use of <h> tags and links. Once it is live, you will need to wait for it to be indexed by the search engines: if you type the article title into the search engine and it returns the page with your article on it as a result, it has been indexed and it’s now ready to be submitted to the online article syndication sites/directories.
The article then needs to be edited for syndicating. Different directories have their own requirements and guidelines which need to be adhered to.
For example, some directories require that all links to your web site in the body of the text, bar one, would need to be removed, as well as all mentions of your company as a brand name. You will also need to create an “About the Author” section at the end of the article. This can tell readers more about your company, and the information they can access by visiting the site. You will be able to add two or three links in this section, depending on the directory. Send one link to the home page and the other(s) to pages within the site.
Most directories allow the inclusion of keywords relevant to the article. Ensure these are relevant to the article and that you include the key phrases for which you have optimised the article . These key phrases will allow readers to find your articles, using the search function on the directories. This is also called tagging your article.
Many directories also allow a description. This description will be displayed, along with the title of the article, when someone has searched the directory for a key phrase or category for which you have tagged your article. The description should entice the user to read your article, so it needs to be succinct and gripping.
Once you have done this, you will then need to convert the article into HTML. The HTML is very basic, and while the different directories have their own HTML guidelines which you will need to familiarise yourself with, the standards tags are as follows.
To bold: <strong>phrase you wish to bold</strong>
To italicise: <em>phrase you wish to italicise</em>
To underline: <u>phrase you wish to underline</u>
To list: <li>lines you wish to list</li>
To create a paragraph: <p>paragraph here</p>
To insert a line break: <br/>
To insert a link: <a href=“page url”>phrase you wish to link</a>
For each directory, the submission guidelines will indicate requirements for the text.
Submit the article to directories
Publishing the articles to directories means they can be picked up and republished on other sites, which contributes significantly to link building efforts. There are hundreds of online article directories out there but you need to be selective when choosing which ones to submit to. The good article directories usually allow up to 4 links to be placed in each article.
Here is a list of 10 directories that you could publish your articles to:
- www.ezinearticles.com
- www.goarticles.com
- www.postarticles.com
- www.uberarticles.com
- www.ezine-writer.com.au
- www.article-hangout.com
- www.articledashboard.com
- www.simplysearchforit.com
- www.amazines.com
- www.newarticlesonline.com
These directories all allow 3 to 4 links, they all give statistics on how the articles are doing and they all allow you to preview the article before you publish it – it is important to be able to preview it to ensure that no mistakes were made during the HTML conversion process.
All of the above article directories are free, though you will need to register for an account.
Once you have submitted the article it will undergo a review process – the directories do this to ensure that the articles are actually useful and relevant rather than simply advertorials. It will then be approved and available to read on the site. From here people who are interested in republishing the article on their own sites/blogs can do so as long as they reproduce the content exactly as you have submitted it. If the article is well-written and informative it has the capacity to go viral which is the ultimate goal as the more times it is republished the more links you will acquire – and all at no cost to you.
Monitor its progress
A bit of basic online reputation monitoring will enable you to keep an eye on where your article is being republished and that it is being republished correctly - there’s no use in sites republishing it if they’re going to strip out all the links and the “About the Author” section which you include
