Tracking your traffic: How much will I get from writing an article?
By: Paul Robinson | Posted: 09th February 2006
Have you ever wondered exactly how much traffic an article can bring to your website?
(I know I have) the trouble is no one tells you exactly how much traffic you will get.
Will it be worth the effort? How will it compare to other methods? These are all questions
rarely if ever answered in web articles. Many articles give an opinion about this but you have
no idea if that opinion is based on solid research, simply copied from someone else's article
or even made up. So if you want the answer you'll have to find out for yourself.
This article will show you how to track traffic from an article or any other promotional
medium for that matter so you can find out for yourself what works,
what doesn't and how much traffic you'll get.
- Make the article/advert your best work, don't cut corners, don't copy from another source
and make sure there is something of real value to your reader.
- Be professional; log every possible peace of information that you can think of.
As a bare minimum you need date submitted, were it was submitted, and a monthly log of the
clicks from your resource box.
It's also a good idea to keep track of the time you spend writing and submitting your article
and putting a monetary value to it, you can then compare with paid advertising media.
- Start with one article/advert and submit to one site or advertising medium.
Track the clicks for one month and put them in a spreadsheet, this is your base line.
If you decide to submit to other sites use a different tracking URL so you can track these
independently. Try other advertising media for a month and compare the results but remember
always use the same article/advert to keep your results consistent.
OK got that, I can probably guess your next question:
How do I track clicks?
Do a search for "link tracking" you will find sites that charge to track your
links but if you look hard there are some really good ones that are totally free.
Link manager is one: http://www.developersdomain.com/asp/codedownloads/linkmanager.htm
Your site needs to have ASP and you need a little knowledge to set this up.
Donate-a-mate is another:
http://www.donate-a-mate.com/dam/home.asp
This is easier because you don't have to download or setup anything-just click the "Post a project" link.
Unfortunately some article submission sites will only let you link to your home page.
So to start submit your article to sites that let you use longer URLs.
Bonus tip.
It only takes one article so write a really good one and post it everywhere you can think of,
here's a few ideas:
- Your own site/ blog etc
- Blog exchange programs
- Article submission sites
- Article submission services
- Newsletter/e-zine publishers
- Forum posts
In about a month you should be able to see results,
you may be surprised at what works well and what doesn't,
use the best performers for your next article promotion campaign and drop the ones that don't
bring results. Soon you will have a razor sharp article promotion campaign based on facts not
Internet hearsay what you do with that goldmine of information is up to you.
You may be wondering, am I tracking this article? You bet I am!
Click here to see results.
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Tags: traffic, advert, advertising medium, spreadsheet, peace, monetary value, advertising media, web articles, bare minimum