One of the goals of content marketing is getting your name in front of new people by providing helpful information they might not be getting from your competitors.
But if we only keep that content on our site, we limit the number of people who will see it. That’s why it’s important to take advantage of content sharing and repurposing.
An article bank is another outlet allowing you to post either existing articles you’ve written, or brand new articles.
The first benefit of an article bank is getting your name exposed to people who might not otherwise find you and your website. The most popular article banks see loads of traffic, perhaps far more traffic than your site sees.
But an article bank isn’t just for getting your articles read on those sites. That brings us to the second benefit. With most of these free article bank services, other people are allowed to use your articles as long as they give you credit.
For example, someone may need content for a newsletter about marketing. They find your article on postcard marketing and decide it’s the perfect fit. They use your article and include a link back to your site, or whatever you’ve indicated must be included with the article.
All is not perfect in the world of article banks, though. For one thing, it might be hard for your article to stand out on a site that has thousands of articles. If you’re writing articles in a very narrow niche, your odds of being seen probably go up.
Also, there is a lot of discussion about the effects on search when an article is included on many different sites. After all, do you want a search result to show your article from different article banks listed before that same article on your own site? Generally, we want search results to point to our site first.
And some of these less-than-savory article banks have taken a hit in their own site rankings as Google has cracked down on sites that were nothing more than content scrapers. (Search “google panda” for more on that if you’re interested.) If your content is on these types of sites, the benefits to you might be small or non-existent.
So, it’s something you’ll have to weigh. If you have old articles that you’re not planning to do much with beyond letting them languish in your archives, putting them in an article bank or two might draw some extra eyes to your site.
Personally, I don’t use article banks as much as I used to. That doesn’t mean they’re not a great option, though.
But if you’ve been with me since the start of this series, you know there are many channels for placing your content. I don’t advocate you use every single one I mention, at least not when you’re starting your content marketing journey.
You should use the channels that are the best fit with the type of content you have and the goals you have for your business.
My goal with this series is to make you aware of the channels, explain them as simply as I can, then let you decide which are the best fit for you. (Or, I can help you decide with a personalized consulting session so you’re not left to guess on your own.)
The site I used, and still like, is Ezine Articles. But there are other top-notch article banks. A search will show you plenty of options.
One thing in particular I liked about Ezine Articles was a WordPress plugin that allowed me to publish directly to my Ezine account from my blog. Things that allow us to easily share or repurpose our content always get a thumbs up.
If nothing else, spend a bit of time looking through articles in an article bank and get a sense of what’s available, and whether this option might be a good fit for you.
Other articles in this series:
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Your Starting Point
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Twitter
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Facebook
Content Sharing and Repurposing – LinkedIn
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Google Plus
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Guides & Reports
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Books & eBooks
Content Sharing and Repurposing – Guest Blogging
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