Getting articles published in the media might be easier than you think and generates some (potentially) powerful back links - critical for good search engine rankings.

Article marketing for SEO vs traffic generation

Submitting articles for publication is a popular strategy for getting back-links. Sadly it is one that is frequently abused, by submitting the same, poorly written, keyword stuffed articles to multiple article sites.

Google's Panda update has attempted to tackle this problem, but high ranking sites still show this tactic.

Since Panda, the better article sites are demanding well written valuable and unique content. But you can produce the first version of an article then refine it or re-purpose it slightly depending on the article and who you are targetting and submitting it to.

You can submit an article to a sites like Ezinearticles.com which is one of the biggest article marketing sites, or directly to a subject oriented or news site. Some directory sites like NZS.com also publish articles.

Big site, big SEO reward?

Some publications, especially those that have grown out of traditional media (ie newspapers) are cutting costs by reducing their pool of journalists. They are looking for quality articles to use on their websites. Some 'experts' that appear time and time again might not be any better than the next guy, but they write well and have the confidence to approach these media outlets.

A short article on a big, site that get lots of vistors can get you more traffic than dozens or even hundreds of back links from small, irrelevant sites.

But don't think this is an easy way to get valuable 'Link Juice'. There is a gotcha, and it's to do with something called 'nofollow' tags.

For example, Sean D'Souza frequently has articles in the NZHerald. But the links back to his psychotactics.com website has a 'nofollow' tag. This instructs the search engines not to use the link to influence the link target's search ranking. It means not 'link juice' is passed on. This is designed to prevent search engine spam.

This doesn't matter if you are doing it for brand recognition or traffic, but potentially pointless for SEO - or is it?

Most SEO experts will say that strictly speaking  no follow links will not help your rank.  But a 'natural' back link profile - ie one done without SEO in mind, will have a combination of follow and no follow links.

And more importantly, they are more likely to generate traffic to your site - which is the whole point about rankings anyway, Yes?

Final note: You will read a lot of SEO experts saying article marketing is dead.  We don't 100% agree because it depends on the amount of competition in the market you are targeting and where those articles are published.