Article Marketing Tips: Q & A About How Social Media And Article Marketing Work Best Together

With the constant changes taking place in the search engine marketing world, it's no wonder that many people are confused as to what is acceptable, what works, and what they should be doing.

Over the past years social media has played a pivotal role in the evolution of the search engine marketing game, and it's important to learn how to marry social media with the more established marketing tool of article marketing.

Here are some questions you may be wondering:

1 - Do I need to choose between doing social media and submitting articles, or is it best when they are used together?

Social media and article marketing play very well together, and any well-rounded online marketing campaign will be aided by the combination of the two.

In addition to article marketing, you should also be doing things like forum commenting, blog commenting, Twitter, Facebook and other social media activity, social bookmarking, and maintaining your own blog on your site.

In the past, your website's 'authority' in Google's eyes was largely determined by backlinks, but that's changed now. If you're getting traffic to your Twitter page or your Facebook, if your website is being bookmarked for instance (all of which is a lot easier if you're producing a steady stream of content for article marketing), then it points to your website's 'authority'. The indicators for measuring the importance of a webpage have become more diverse.

Interacting with colleagues and people interested in your niche online also lead to forming relationships with others that help your SEO and your business in an indirect way.

2 - If the blog or forum has links that are nofollow (the link does not influence your search engine ranking), is there still SEO value to commenting?

Most definitely--in fact, if your links are all dofollow, then it can look suspicious. When I comment on blogs and forums, I don't concern myself at all as to whether the links are 'dofollow' or 'nofollow' and I encourage you to do the same. It helps to keep things as natural as possible, so don't be so calculating in getting the search engines' attention that you forget about the importance of having genuine interactions with people online.

Just as you wouldn't write articles just for search engines (of course, you write articles to help your target readers first and foremost), you also shouldn't plan your online community involvement just for search engines either, but rather see it as a way of helping others online.

When you comment on blogs and leave helpful tips on forums, it helps establish your reputation and credibility online and can lead to developing relationships with other website owners. You should see the SEO benefit from the backlinks as icing on the cake.

The internet marketing world has changed considerably over the past few years, but I think for the best. It's always a good idea to be genuine in your interactions online and in the content that you provide via your articles, not doing it just for a higher ranking, but doing it to connect with people in your field.