Is It Better To Have Your Article Published on a Website or in a Newsletter?
Having someone else publish your article is a great way to bring traffic to your website. It’s a chance to get attention from people who may be interested in what you have to offer, but haven’t heard of you yet. Not all articles are published to websites, however. Some are only sent to a newsletter or ezine list. Does it matter whether your article is published on someone’s site versus their newsletter?
The benefits can be different for each, but it’s not something I stress about, personally. The main thing you want from your articles is exposure to a new audience.
Website Publication Benefits
The benefit of having your article published on someone else’s website goes beyond the initial exposure to human visitors. An article on a website usually stays up for years, potentially giving you traffic for years to come. Links in the article may provide you with benefits for your search engine optimization efforts. It’s a pretty good deal when it’s done right.
Newsletter Publication Benefits
The publication of your article in a newsletter has similar benefits, except it may be for a shorter time. How much initial benefit you get depends on how big the list is, how engaged they are and how relevant they find the information you’re sharing.
If it’s a big list, but they send out so many emails that many don’t get opened, your article may get lost in the shuffle, no matter how well written and topical. You have to be careful when choosing newsletters to offer an article to, because some won’t be worth the time.
Some newsletters also get published on websites, so while there’s no guarantee of later visitors finding the article, or of any SEO benefit, you will get that sometimes. Don’t expect it unless you know the newsletter is published on a website as well. A membership with the Directory of Ezines is a shortcut to finding relevant newsletters to check out.
With any newsletter, the main surge of traffic you may get will be on the day the newsletter is sent, with late readers trickling in over perhaps a few days.
Does the Difference Between the Two Make a Difference?
While the extra traffic you can get over time from having an article published on a website is nice, don’t completely rule out newsletters and ezines. Most important is which one will get you in front of the audience you’re after. Getting in front of the right audience can do far more for your online business than any search engine benefits you may get.
Don’t get me wrong. Ranking highly on the search engines for your keywords is a wonderful thing. Sometimes it’s a huge thing. But it can also be short lived and frustrating. Rankings rise and fall, and there’s only so much you can do about it. Build your traffic in other ways, and a drop in rankings won’t be quite the crisis it would be otherwise.
While it pays to keep both the short term and long term benefits in mind, you shouldn’t always sacrifice one for the other. Besides, if you get a good list of newsletter and website owners who are regularly willing to publish your articles, you’ll have a long term benefit already. You’ll be able to write articles and know that you can pull in traffic more or less when you want it, not just when the search engines like you.
