Article Marketing is a Waste of Time?

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In previos posts I have made about blogging for money, a recurring tip has been to 'submit your articles/best posts to article directories such as ezine articles and Go Articles. I have been doing this for a while and I am now officially an 'expert ezine author', which means I can keep submitting for free. I have submitted a good 10 articles to both those directories, but do I have the results to show for it?

yes and no

Positive results
- I have received 2 inbound links from people using my articles and referring to me. (2 people have re-posted them their blog).
- I have received a small amount of traffic from people reading my articles (the screen shot is of one of my submitted articles which has been viewed 65 times, some of that traffic will have filtered down to this blog)
- I have spread my name and gained a small (very small) standing as an author.


Negative results
- I have only received 2 inbound links, by submitting over 20 articles which I laboured over like a dog (although I do enjoy writing them).
- The traffic received was very small given how long it took to write those articles.
- I now have duplicate content which the search engines don't like, and to make things worse it's a duplicate of my very best content.
- The sites that re-posted my articles were rubbish and had no authority or original content.
- isnare still have not approved any of my articles, and they say it could take up to 6months unless I pay (which I’m not going to).

So there is a bit of a mixed message there, over all a negative one. I don't really know what I expected. If you think about it, none of the top sites, or even half decent sites got to where they are by re-posting free ezine articles. All that’s going to happen at best, is I would get a whole pile of links from crap sites. Maybe I will have more luck in the future, although I doubt it.

I am eager to know of your experience with article marketing, so do comment if you have any article sites that have worked well for you, or if you agree with me and think its not really worth it.

Blog Review: Rugjeff's Blog About Blogging

Rugjeff.com is a blog you should find useful. It is full of tips about making money online written by Jeff Phelps, who is a graduate of the university of Texas.

It has topics including:

Affiliate Marketing Help
Article Marketing
blogging tips

As you can see these topics are just the sort of thing we all need to know about, so get reading them!

Stay Tuned for more great blog reviews, affiliate programme advice and successful blogging for money articles.