Making money on the net. Is it that easy? With article marketing? Isn’t article marketing dead?

This is a question that is seriously being asked on many Internet Forums as we speak. What has triggered this is the latest Google Algorithm update where it is reported that Google is now giving less importance to article directories.

The most important point that most of the questioners seem to forget is that Google values unique content. That’s what it wants. It doesn’t want to serve up ten identical articles in it’s top 10 results. It then follows that of course, they will give preference to one article, if many duplicate articles are found. But how do they decide which article?

It’s a good question and worth exploring. Firstly, they will give priority to uniqueness. If everything else is equal, then unique will win every time. But what if there is more than one copy of the article on the Internet? Well, they will give serious consideration to the site who displayed the article first. The first time their spiders discovered the article.

The other significant factor is the importance of the site the article is displayed upon. If yours is a brand new blog, then that will not carry very much weight at all. But then again, if you submit your article to a large and trusted directory, an authority site, such as EzineArticles, then your article has just been given a large push up the algorithm ranking.

Of course, it’s not just as easy as that to get a page 1 ranking in Google for your article. It’s not easy making money on the net. You have to consider keyword research, competition, search volume, keyword density and keyword positioning. It all counts. Then of course, you’ve got to get people talking about your article, or at least linking to it. This is another whole subject on it’s own, but just remember this:

If you write a unique article, of value, and submit it one of leading article directories, such as EzineArticles, then you are one giant step closer to making money on the net. Of course, there is a little point in getting your article listed on page 1 of Google if it is on EzineArticles and no one clicks through to your site after reading your article. That’s why you need a good incentive in your resource box to encourage visitors to either read another one of your articles or indeed, to click through to your site, where you will have a nice free offer waiting for them.