Building backlinks

[webindustry]

Hello all! We regularly create articles for clients and post them (along with links to their Websites) on their blogs. We then promote the blog article across social media and other networks to create backlinks / authority for the articles. My question is whether anyone has had any success with an automated submission tool for the articles that delivers good results to "many" directories, social Websites and so on. At the moment, we do everything manually.

Thanks!

[TommySwanson52]

Article submission to directories won't get you anywhere significant. This was a popular strategy a few years ago, but it's obvious Google and other engines have significantly devalued article directories.

I would suggest using some of the articles that you're creating for your client as guest contributions on other blogs. Give the article to a relevant blog or content provider and ask for a link in the byline. Not only is this strategy whitehat, it's one that I doubt Google will ever devalue significantly.

[mikescotty]

My firm does some of the same as you describe - creates content for clients with supporting inbound links for their websites.  We also do subsequent social distribution to our clients social venues and to our own.

We experimented with the automated distribution (and still employ it in certain situations), but have found that there isn't nearly as much engagement - which is what really matters as social signals if you're looking for SEO value.

Automated submission frequently misses images or picks the wrong one, totally skips video, and most importantly doesn't allow you to comment on what you're submitting - a key attention getter and response generator.

Yeah, it takes time, but so does good content, which is what it's all about.

[Dekoda_Jones]

I strongly recommend signing up to HARO (Help a reporter out).  It's a free service that journalists use when they need someone to interview.  Keep scanning these each day and you will find relevant news articles that you can comment on and provide insightful comments on.  Most of these will link to your site or allow a bio commentary (which Rand talks about using for deeplinking purposes).

This use of your energy to write high value content for high value publication will get you a lot further than article marketing.

[webindustry]

Thanks for the tip about HARO!

Most of our clients are competing for a very specific set of keywords and we are mainly focused on the success (rank / position) of their keywords. We have followed the recommendations of Matt Cuts related to blogs and articles within those blogs containing natural content that points back to the sites. The article marketing is basically just backlinking the blog articles to get them better PR and more traffic.

But your comment creates some good thought about the use of our articles and the energy we put into them.