I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the Panda algorithm update that Google started implementing in late February. Since that time there have been periodic updates to the algorithm, with more on the way. The goal of the Panda update has been to “clean up” the search engine results pages and return more relevant and meaningful results.

If you have been involved with article marketing, you know that many of the article sites had become home to some truly horrendous content. I’ve seen countless “articles” that were so bad it looked like someone dropped 250 words in a blender, and then poured them out on a page. Even worse, some of these articles actually showed up at the top of the SERPs.

The quality of search results have gotten better in the past several months, likely due to the Panda algorithm, and many article sites have worked hard to put into place better policies for providing more relevant and quality content on their sites.

Today, successful article marketing takes more effort. It is no longer effective to just to spew out a few hundred words on a page, throw in some links, and call it good. Quality content makes or breaks your article marketing efforts.

The main goal of your article marketing should not be just to pick up a few links, and hope that helps your keyword positioning. The main goal should be to showcase your expertise and drive visitors to your site who are most ready to “convert,” no matter if you are looking for sales, to build an email list, increase membership, etc.

Here are some tips to help improve your article marketing results:

  1. Whatever article directories or article syndication sites you belong to, make sure you completely fill out your author bio section. Most of the article sites have put into place certain levels for authors in order to validate authors as authorities. Let your voice be heard (after all it’s your business and you are an authority, right?)
  2. Create quality content.
  3. Post the article to your own site first — this will benefit you more anyway — since you are only creating high quality content…
  4. Post the article to an article directory, online magazine, or article syndication site.
  5. Promote your articles through social media.

Article marketing can still be a viable way to help your business, just be sure the quality of the content you put out on the web fits with the quality of your products and services.

Jim Buchanan is an Internet Marketing Specialist for Mindscape at Hanon McKendry