Article Marketing – Should You Use Keywords? Drawback #1
PRINCIPLE 1 – Choose a Method (Keywords or not?)
We live in a keyword-crazy age. Everybody’s swearing by the keywords. I have to admit that keywords are a must if you are doing any search engine marketing. But in article marketing…?
There are some free as well as expensive software products and membership-only websites that charge hundreds of dollars a year that provide you with all kinds of tools to research the keywords which are supposedly hot, and those which are not.
I admit I’ve used many of those tools in the past myself. But I have to remind you, that’s not the ONLY way to do it. It’s just one of the ways. Many keyword groupies will never admit to that.
So here are the two main methods you can use for your article marketing campaign.
1) Keyword Focus method, and 2) Interest Focus method.
1) Keyword Focus Method
You make a keyword search, find out what’s hot these days and write on that topic.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? The more popular a topic, the more it will be searched on the Internet, and the more visitors you’ll get. Simple as that.
However, this method has two huge drawbacks that people usually don’t talk about:
DRAWBACK #1 of Keyword Focus Method:
What’s popular might not be what you enjoy writing about, or know anything about.
“Hair”, for example, is a perennially high-ranking keyword. I made several experiments and every time I wrote an article on “hairstyle” or “hair care” it quickly climbed in a number of readers.
However, I was not selling a hair product or offering my services as a hairstylist or consultant. So there was not much to do to convert all that traffic into something useful. True, I could have used an affiliate product and I did that too. But they did not generate any genuine income stream for me in the long run.
I also have to admit, I was not crazy about “hair” as a topic either. My idea of a hairstyle is to have a short haircut every time I feel like my hair gets too long. With that kind of utilitarian approach to “hairstyle and care,” how can anyone expect me to write hair articles hopping with energy, enthusiasm, and useful tips? Of course not.
If you are not passionate about what you’re writing about but you’re doing it just because it’s “optimized” for a “hot keyword,” it will show through your copy and will fail to bring the traffic and income you expect to get from your article campaign. Quality and enthusiasm cannot be forced or faked.
Should You Hire a Ghostwriter?
You may choose to hire a ghost-writer to do it for you but the question remains: how would you know that the other writer is passionate about this hot-keyword topic either? The chances are if she were, then she would be writing about it for herself and not selling them to you for a fee.
For example, I’m really into Cary Grant movies. I watched probably 40 of his films and I read a lot about Cary Grant.
Now, with that kind of interest, passion and commitment, why would I write about Cary Grant for others in order to make a few dollars here and there? Why would I “hack it” and waste all that “intellectual property investment”?
I ended up writing a book on Cary “Cool” Grant myself instead of ghostwriting for people I don’t even know. I’m not sure how much money I’ll end up making for keeping my knowledge of Cary Grant to myself but I feel more comfortable about it because it’s a topic that I really care about.
In my estimation, buying articles just because your keyword search says they are “hot” is not a winner but a quick way to lose money upfront.
