Progress at BB Articles

I can't believe how quickly time has passed since converting BB Articles into a WP article directory rather than using Article Dashboard. Over 3 months now and I can honestly say that I made the absolute right decision for myself and the site.

The site performs much better than previously, more than 3 times the amount of visitors and a steady growth. Although the Alexa ranking has dropped from just over 70,000 to around 97,000 I am not concerned about it. Basically my site stats and Google analytics tells me that there are far more visitors so the Alexa drop must be because there are less internet marketers with the Alexa toolbar visiting and more visitors seeking information.

Articles are getting indexed within hours usually and views are variable. It really depends on the key phrases used and if the authors give their articles a little extra help with bookmarking or linking to them. Clickthroughs - I don't know. It would be great to have a plug in that would tell myself and authors how many views and clickthroughs there have been for each article - on my wish list!

However I did a test last month by getting 10 articles written for a new site and submission to the top 4 directories. I submitted them to BB Articles with slight alterations and have tracked the progress. BB Articles has done just as well as 2 of them for clickthroughs and better than the other two. That is only one test though - results might be totally different at another time or for somebody else.

Interesting was that I wrote one new article myself and submitted it to BB Articles and those other directories and that single article has outperformed the ten outsourced put together. I don't think that I'm an especially good writer but I think the difference was that the 10 articles were produced to order and rather flat and boring whereas I just sat down and wrote what I thought and what was interesting to me and my article flowed better.

Of course if I'm charting the sites progress I need to look into finances. It isn't earning a fortune yet but BB Articles is in profit for the first time in over 2 years. There are more things that I can do to earn but I'm happy for now because earnings are slowly growing and I'm not spending the miserable hours on the site every day checking a high percentage of dire articles.

Of course there will always be problems with some articles and some authors. I have refused several new authors because the articles that they showed me when they asked to become authors were full of errors and offered no real information. At least now I can refuse before they flood my site with poor quality articles that wastes my time checking them and their time submitting them.

A very low percentage who sign up ask to be upgraded to authors. Probably intimidated by having to take a further step, or they might think that there are plenty of other article directories out there and they don't need mine. True but I don't care how few actually ask to become authors as long as the ones who do treat my site with respect as I would with theirs. Contrary to what they think I don't need them because there are plenty of other authors out there - and who needs poor writers, plagiarists, article spinners etc.? not me!

I've seen tirades against a certain top article directory on forums whenever they refuse articles. The posters complain when their articles are denied for poor quality, lack of information, spinned goodness knows how many times with no more information or impossible to understand. You get the usual saps who comment say that they save the best content for their sites and post the worst on article directories. These people are out to get quick backlinks and do not care about what they put on other people's sites - I also wonder if they would put the poor content on their own sites - I doubt it.

I have been using an autoposter for some of my niche blogs. It's pretty good, pulls in Amazon ads, Clickbank and ebay, Yahoo answers, flicka images, Youtube videos and articles from a choice of 2 directories - 1 of them a top directory. I've been getting some good results with it but after seeing how dire the majority of the articles were I have set the autoposter to add the posts as drafts rather than them appear immediately on my blogs. Why? Just look at the following to see why:

If your ceremonial is arrival up and you need to acquire the perfect ceremony strip for you wife, something that is not exclusive resplendent but also meaty, then you can see to Land party adornment to make the ideal wedding toroid to state your relation. Gift your rising relative a strip that she can examine at and ever be reminded of your compassion may be a discouraging chore, but with Goidelic European jewellery, you can learn both meaning and beauty in fitting one repair of jewellery.

Erse adornment become the Conservative Slip, How and when to chose the perfect gifts:

Do you understand that? I don't and whatsmore nor will any visitor looking for information. I really think that dumping articles like that on other people's sites is taking the whiss and that any directory owner who accepts articles like that are asking for problems with Google, if not now eventually.

Dancing Naked In The Corn | BB Articles

Dancing Naked In The Corn | BB Articles: "I was asked if Doctor Who could take me on a journey in his Tardis where I would choose to go, but when it came to seriously thinking about it I was stumped. I considered the periods of history that I knew something about and dismissed them one by one."

Gift Ideas For Men - Celtic Jewellery? | Celtic Bracelet

Gift Ideas For Men - Celtic Jewellery? | Celtic Bracelet: "My cousin suggested Celtic jewellery when I was looking for the perfect gift for an old friend s 50th birthday and really struggling. Mike is one of those mens men, into rugby and football but too old to play now. A round of golf and propping up the bar at the end of the game is about his limit."

Classy Celtic Bracelets | BB Articles

Classy Celtic Bracelets | BB Articles

Tiger Sharks: Predators Of The Sea

Tiger Sharks: Predators Of The Sea

Giving Up Smoking - 3 Months Tobacco Free

Giving Up Smoking - 3 Months Tobacco Free: "3 months on and how I stopped smoking"

Giving Up Smoking - 2 Months Tobacco Free | smokersstop.co.u

Giving Up Smoking - 2 Months Tobacco Free | smokersstop.co.u: "An extract from a giving up smoking diary"

Article Video Robot Review

Video marketing is gaining in popularity and increases targeted traffic for those who use this method of marketing. By submitting to video sites you get a new distribution channel for your content and more quality backlinks for your websites and blogs. I'm not a technical person but now I can convert my articles into videos quickly and easily.

Yesterday I heard about Article Video Robot and having tried it out free was impressed by how easy it was to convert articles into videos and felt that it was worth upgrading to the paid membership. You can see my first effort below. It isn't perfect by any means, but when you consider that it was my first try and only took a few minutes to make it isn't half bad.



Unaltered First Attempt!

You can try Article Video Robot out free before deciding whether or not it will work for you. If you have an ezinearticles.com account you can create your video in seconds by adding the link to your chosen article. Or you can input your article yourself. I think that is probably the best way and then you can adapt your article for the video and control things more.

One small problem when I was trying out the free version with an article about article directory scripts was that where I had used the initials AD for Article Dashboard and AF for Article Friendly those initials were spoken as they read. Without trying it I guess that it would be better to use A. D. and A. F. within my video article when I try it again.

You can edit your videos and add your own images to their stock images. You can also either use their selection of music soundtracks or upload your own. Their are a choice of different voices to use, or you can record your own and add that. That would probably work better if you have a clear speaking voice - with my Yorkshire accent it could be a problem except for converting my articles about Yorkshire into videos!

Video Distribution

You can download the videos to your computer and place them on video sites, websites and blogs yourself, or if you create a monthly account you get 125 credits to distribute your videos to 17 different video sites automatically - 1 credit per site. After you have used them up you need to purchase more, but if the videos are working for me I won't have a problem with that.

You can also add your videos to several different social networking sites from the distribution screen, that doesn't cost anything.

I'm pretty pleased with Article Video Robot so far but the proof of the pudding will be in how much extra traffic and sales this product generates. I will update with that once I can assess the results from several videos.

Now I'm going to have some fun and play around with it some more and create a better video!

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase.

Update

I made my second video and feel that it's much better. Instead of using the ezine articles link I pasted my article in and found that I had more control. I did a bit more editing and you can see the result of my second attempt below. While I was making this one I posted to Facebook and Myspace and then decided to make some changes. Those changes automatically updated on those sites without me having to upload again.



2nd Video

I think that is better and feel that with practice there will be more improvements. One of the things that I liked about this video was that the sea looked to be moving in the photo of the Blue Grotto in Malta. It looked so inviting that I could have dived in for a swim and inviting is what we want our promotional videos to be.

I think that I will make a training video for article marketing next - watch this space!

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase. But before making a decision have a go with the free trial first.

Update: 20th May

I should have updated this earlier but I've been busy building a new giving up smoking blog. I did as I said and made a training video for article marketing. It didn't turn out bad but there are a few errors. What I have found is that the quality deteriorates when submitted to sites such as YouTube, so I used the alternative publishing option and submitted it to my wordpress blog where you can see it in it's full glory. I tried to post it here but the size was too big for this theme.

I think that the video would have been better split into 2 or 3 parts and the sound quality isn't brilliant using their mechanical voices. I did try to record my own voice but I couldn't get my computer microphone to work. If I upgrade to the business package I will get better HD sound quality and more effects, plus an advanced video editor which will make videos easier to edit. I probably will upgrade once I've had more time to play with it and figure it out better.

In the meantime I will check to see how my videos are doing in the Google rankings. Article Marketing Directory Submission without quotes is ranked 7th but darn it the video on that site has an error message. With quotes blimey - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 10th. That's 5 out of the top 10 and the rest of the sites have the video in it's full glory.

Now I'm going to check the other videos that I made. 'Singapore Festivals' hasn't got anywhere in the top 30, nor did 'travel for free' or 'travel writer'. Their full titles 'Travel For Free As A Travel Writer' and "How To Celebrate And Have a Real Good Time At Singapore Festivals" wiped out any competition. However those titles are less likely to be searched for than the main keywords 'Singapore Festivals', 'travel for free' and 'travel writer'.

What I have learned from that is that I need to focus on my keywords when naming the videos and my fourth attempt 'Singapore Beach Resorts' is 4th, 5th and 9th in Google rankings and the original article is in 6th place. I haven't done anything to promote the videos except for submitting them to several sites, so I'm very happy with their rankings and how quickly they got there - within a few hours.

The page I am directing the 3 Singapore videos to has had 1118 views during the last 20 days, whereas last month there were less than half those views for that page altogether. It could be the videos that have made the difference, or it could be the time of year.

I enjoyed making that video and found that by using less speech and more visuals it is more effective. I'm not happy with the sound quality so I guess that I shall have to upgrade sooner rather than later. You can see what I mean below.



Next I am going to make some videos for my new quit smoking blog. I've found some pretty good key words and I will be able to see easier the effects on a new site rather than one that has been established for a while.

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase. But before making a decision have a go with the free trial first.