Of Content and Visitors
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In this SEO Chat double feature, authors Wayne Hurlbert and Subha Subramanian discuss how to create content that gets visitors (
Article Swapping and the Art of Visitor Acquisition), and how to make sure that content is nothing short of excellent (
Color Story). Note that these are excerpts of previous editions of
Plug In magazine.
Article Swapping and the Art of Visitor Acquisition
by Wayne Hurlbert, as featured in the August 2004 edition of Plug In.
Adding new visitor traffic to your website is always a challenge. Finding fresh and innovative promotional techniques is often as difficult as creating fresh content.
Why not accomplish both goals at the same time? By working with your current link exchange partners and other website owners with businesses that complement yours, both goals are achievable.
Every website requires new content to provide interesting information for your site visitors. The same old stale articles won’t bring in much in the way of return traffic, and search engines give extra credit for site freshness and incoming links.
Every article provided to other webmasters supplies them with new content. It assists your site with a themed incoming link. The same holds true for guest articles hosted on your site.
Trading articles with other webmasters will provide fresh content, along with more incoming links. Both help your online business and those of your article partners to reach their desired goals.
Finding the Article Partners
The first step to finding article trading partners is to contact your current link exchange partners. With a suspected decline in the value of link swaps, it’s a great time to upgrade those link relationships. The existing links are probably on a non-themed links page. They probably have weak link anchor text. They are not getting the job done in the search engines or from visitor clicks. Guest articles strengthen every one of those weaknesses.
Another group of ideal article swappers are webmasters in businesses that relate to yours, but who are not direct competitors. For example, if a site specializes in wedding gowns, then flower sites, limousine services, and men’s formal wear sites would make ideal article exchange sites. Columns on weddings in general, touching on the site’s main topic, would add themed content and incoming links. Both sites benefit as a result.
Checking with friends who have unrelated sites or blogs can also provide guest article opportunities. Friends are very likely to swap articles with one another, gaining a link in the process. Bloggers are constantly in search of blog posting ideas, and they are usually prolific writers. Many blogs have huge and loyal followings, providing a large and diverse fresh traffic influx to your site.
Many good article exchange sites already exist on the Internet. Placement of your newly written article and use of another already posted article provides several positives. Besides the fresh content, the authors are introduced to one another, opening up more possible exchanges in the future. After all, the swap is made with a writer of an already known quantity. That fact bodes well for future transactions.
Next: Writing the Article >>
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