Squidoo vs. EzineArticles

I have been testing Squidoo vs. EzineArticles to find out which one provides the biggest bang for the buck. It’s true that EzineArticles ranks well on Google and other top search engines. It’s also true that article marketing does not often offer you the most traffic. After all, if you don’t get ranked for a highly competitive keyword term, there is a good chance you won’t get too much traffic from your articles.

Article marketing is a great way to drive links to a website. If you write a killer article that others are willing to put on their website, you can get a lot of links back and improve your own ranking on search engines. The problem is, a lot of these websites will be junk blogs and useless blogs that don’t provide you with enough of a push to put your site on the top of the search engines. There are really two approaches to writing articles for EzineArticles. You can focus on quantity or just quality. Article writers who focus on quantity bank on getting a few visitors per each article. Let’s say you get 5 visitors per each article you submit to EzineArticles. If you write 10,000 articles, there is a good chance you get some decent traffic to your website. Will it be enough to pay for your bills? Probably not. And let’s not forget that article marketing can be too boring for a lot of folks. Quantity articles are those that you work hard to write and properly research to make sure they provide value to yoru readers. These articles are easier to promote and while you may not get to write many articles this way, you get better quality traffic this way. You can always build more links to your articles to make sure they rank well on Google. High quality articles make you look good.

Squidoo is a whole different animal. I got started with Squidoo after reading Squidoo Queen. Squidoo is not about writing a one page article. It’s about creating real value to your readers. The community is a bit tighter than EzineArticles and the traffic opportunity is much more significant here. I know a few folks who are driving hundreds of visitors a day to their blogs from their Squidoo lenses. The key to success on Squidoo is writing valuable content and getting involved in the community. You want folks to review your lenses and give it some love. The more votes you get, the better your rankings will be. Your traffic also affects your ranking as well. Squidoo is  hit and miss than EzineArticles. You can create a Squidoo lens that bombs badly on you. But if you get it all right, one Squidoo lens and blow away 10 quality EzineArticle pieces.

In reality, you should focus on both avenues to drive as much traffic to your site as possible. Squidoo lenses take a while to create, and you need get more work done to improve your ranking and get more traffic. EzineArticles and GoArticles can drive you a lot of traffic as well. But article marketing can be a bit boring if you focus on quantity instead of quality. You can always create a killer Squidoo lens and use it to drive traffic to your top articles but I rather use Squidoo to promote my own web properties. The other way around works very well, however. It’s a great way to drive links to your Squidoo lens and help improve its ranking. Overall, if you are looking for free traffic, you can’t afford not to use both Squidoo and EzineArticles.