Article Syndication....beginner questions

Thanks for the tips....there is so much that I still don't know! I will be checking that today.







I totally get what you are saying. My problem is that when you read your own material, you are some what biased in a way. Kind of like thinking your kid is cute....of course you do, they are yours! I guess I question my judgment of my own material.

I really am more concerned with getting some content on popular blogs in my niche, then ezine articles....so far it has really done nothing for me. I know having content on some of the most popular blogs in my niche, could generate some decent contacts.

I do have a few concers though....if the blogs are more known than mine and I share my content with them, won't they end up ranking above me for MY article???? I know y'all say you are not too concerned with rank, but right now 90% of my traffic comes from search engines.

Do these people publishing keep the links in tact???? I would hate to think that my material was floating around out there and was not even being linked to me!



Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! After reading the threads I know that I was likely going about it the wrong way, but still suprised at the complete non-response.

Thanks again!

Brit, I read your article. If I were publishing in that area, I would take it immediately. It has personality and conveys a lot of personal experience and insider knowledge.

I'm not quite sure where you got this notion. With the never-ending and seemingly bottomless well of needed content, the possibilities for content creators outside the areas you mentioned have never been better.

Again, I'm not sure where this is coming from. I've worked hard over a period of years to build my network, and you'll forgive me for not baring all because some pseudonymous poster on an online forum tries to call me out.

Now we're getting somewhere. Maybe. When some of us advise "writing for syndication", it's to draw a contrast between that style and things like writing for sales or (cringe) writing for backlinks. Writing for syndication means writing to connect with other humans, to share something with them, and to do it in a way that other people (publishers) also want to share it.

It's not an either/or proposition, or at least it doesn't have to be. When we talk about writing articles of a certain length, it's simply a recommendation based on our experience of a 'sweet spot'. Most publications have such a sweet spot for article length. For some, it's around 1,000 words. For major magazines, it's often 2,500-3,000 for a feature article.

If all someone is after is "a couple of reposts on someone else's blogs", I'd agree with you. If that's all your after, drop your articles on EZA and move on. If you really want the benefits, build a network over time and give them what they want - content they can care about and want to share with others.

In my own case, it's a matter of 'once burned, twice shy'. Of giving out particulars and finding them copied over and over. Add the fact that many who create content in multiple niches do so under a number of pen names, and I imagine you can understand why you may not see a lot of case studies and such.

If I seem overly sensitive on the matter, perhaps I am. There are other posters on the forum who enter any thread that talks about syndication demanding to see proof, and declaring that anyone who refues is a fraud.

As for the majority of claims, I would venture that the ratio of of people spouting theories or parroting what they've read is no higher than any other area of online marketing.

Fair enough.

And in those last two paragraphs, you'll see that we are not all that far apart.

This is quite incorrect. Most people here who make their livings from affiliate marketing and have done any significant research into their niches (especially if "not being too competitive" is one of the attributes for which they're searching) very understandably don't share their experiences or offer "proof", whether their business model involves article syndication or not.

The people who present their businesses in public (and there are a lot of them here, of course, by definition, because it's an internet marketing forum where people sell stuff, duh) are people selling/promoting something here. They're not unreasonably expected to be able to demonstrate income, or at least evidence of income, in order to make a sale.

The large and increasing numbers of us here making our livings from content syndication are mostly not selling/promoting anything here, so obviously enough that doesn't apply to us. That seems to be the key point you're missing, I think? Or one of them, anyway.

The reason is obvious. Especially now that both John and I have explained it to you.

By the way, article syndication - at least in this context - is more a traffic-generation method than a "niche", per se.

That's how you sometimes come across, though. One could even be forgiven for getting the impression, from what you sometimes say (and not only in this thread) that you actually imagine that enormous numbers of people are - for some mysterious, unspecified and apparently entirely motiveless reason - collectively confabulating their entire business models.

If that implies that you don't stand by the rest, then that's welcome; and thank you.

There are probably two reasons for this:

1. How many people did you reach out to?
I've found that I'm not as good of a writer as many other people
who are doing this. I have to send between 20 to 40 emails
per day to add those five good publishers to my syndication network.

2. What are you sending in your email?
John McCabe might be the single best person to explain this because
he is both a publisher and a syndication expert. But what I do is
write a short introduction followed by two articles and some sort
of thank-you conclusion. myob has mentioned that he also puts
a link to his EZA articles in-case they want to read more of what
he writes.

Ultimately, remember that the point is not just to get your current
articles accepted, but to build a network of people who prefer receiving
content from you. myob originally told me to try to add 5 per day to this list,
and I have found this to be a reasonable and realistic goal, usually
taking about two hours per day. (I'm a "slow and steady" kind of worker)

These days, I usually get requests for new topics or even title
suggestions from some of the people in my publisher list.




I think we all know what is coming next when you start
off like that. :rolleyes:


All this time I have never been successful??
Well, at least I have a lot of money to console me. :p



Fixed that for you.
Of course, it is strange that all of these syndication experts
keep giving away the information for free rather than selling
a magic book of secrets on the subject? It's almost like the
method actually works and we don't need your money?


"Over zero"? :p



Hmm, passion, humor, new information...
And you want to somehow suggest they were not written
with syndication in mind? Sure, that might be true.

On the other hand, for you to attempt to suggest that
professional writers who rely on proper article syndication
do not write with passion, humor, and the love of sharing
knowledge, that is just plain ignorant.

("ignorant" as in lacking knowledge and experience,
not as any kind of insult!!)


I almost agree with this. Write what you feel comfortable
about and love writing about, aim to get readership and
return visitors... Umm, guess what, that is all syndication
advice!!

But your idea that it is mere "reposts" on other peoples "blogs"
is just not accurate at all. You are failing to grasp the core
of the strategy here.





:rolleyes:

So you can make a general and claim about someone else's
business model and essentially call dozens of people here liars,
but you somehow expect that we don't come here to correct
your spreading of misconceptions and preconceived notions
based on an utter lack of understanding of what our business
model actually is? :rolleyes:


So why should we bother, really? We're not trying to sell
you anything. We're giving free information that works.
Take it or leave it, you're the one that has to live with your
choice, not us.


I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here, unless you are
making the claim that other marketing methods have shown "evidence"
and article syndication has not?

Again, we're not trying to sell you anything. We don't need your
money because what we are doing actually works. That you
do not understand it and have not actually tried to use it is not
our problem, it's your's. It's a discussion forum so are free to
come along and say whatever you like, and I'm sure your intention
is based on your own experience. What I'm trying to say here
is that it doesn't seem like you have any proper experience
to be speaking on this matter with any great confidence or authority.



Strange, I never once came to that conclusion. Neither
did a lot of other people. But, as you have already stated
above, you don't have much trust for people online.
(Which makes me wonder how much confidence you have in
your own online marketing method? But that's another story.)



But have you actually done it? Properly?



Best advice you have given in this thread.


It seems clear to me from the OP that they made the decision
before you ever came along and tried to instill doubt. :rolleyes:

Part of the problem is that there are a lot of people who think they are writers and are not. There are those who boast of attainments not ever met in ALL fields - but there are those who do actually know what they are doing. It requires due diligence to know who's who - but a quick scan of a person's articles can pretty much tell you who is probably worth listening to and who isn't..........providing you can read.

As far as article length - 1000 words gives you the room to explain your points fairly well, yet is short enough to leave them wanting more if your 1000 words were written accordingly. It's still the case, though, that if it only takes 600 words to render good information and enough of it to be worth the keyboard stress, it's better to leave it short than puff it up with filler. I once wrote an article that was only around 350 words - can't remember exactly, but it was the only one EA ever refused and it was because it was too short. I never bothered to beef it because I had said what I needed to say and had done so clearly and succinctly, so the article just went on my own blog - and got me lots of traffic because it was vital info for my audience. It was probably not near as much traffic as it could have pulled in syndication - but with all those I did have in syndication, it still gave those who clicked to my site fresh unique content to peruse. So if it's too short to syndicate - it doesn't make it a failure or time wasted if it's what people want to know.

I also have a little tool I use that nobody ever talks about but I really like it. It's called ping-o-matic. Just set it up and ping your page after posting it and it blows around the net to lots of sites. I never put anything up anywhere (other than forum posts) without pinging it once - and only once. Spamming isn't kewl.

One of the best ways I found to get an article out, though, was to do interviews of other known experts in my field. When they know something they said is being posted, they often provide a backlink to their own audience so they can read the words of the master (:rolleyes:). You've not only gotten extra traffic, but people will find you more credible because you are rubbing shoulders with the experts they already hold in esteem. It's called networking and it's an important part of branding, syndication, etc.




My main niche is one I am extremely well versed in, yet doesn't contain a lot of prolific writers, so syndication was so staggeringly simple it took me awhile to understand why others had a problem understanding it.

You mean that you might say "I'm lying about the cake" instead of "The cake is a lie"?!

Maybe, I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm not convinced that it necessarily matters all that much. Maybe for some types of syndication more than for others, and it depends on the niche and whether your article's something that's clearly supposed to be "speaking from experience" and "giving a personal perspective"?

I have one niche in which I very often do this. But generally, I think I don't do it very often ...

("Publishing on EZA" doesn't really figure in my calculations/plans, to be honest: that's only an afterthought for me - I wouldn't really decide anything much according to that, or at least I should say it's more "publishing something on EZA which people will want to syndicate" rather than "for EZA" in itself).

JohnMcCabe you said Given that "guest posting" is as trendy in the content-for-links circles as "fennel and goat cheese" in the foodie world, I'd pretty much forget the term when approaching publishers

Actually in the foodie world it's wild fennel pollen and goat cheese. Just thought you'd want to know.

Dee