This is an interesting video about the merits of article marketing for SEO. For the most part I agree with the points Rand Fishkin makes, though I disagree with the premise that directories are worthless. (Okay, he doesn’t say worthless, but he does imply it.) I’ve had my own articles picked up from EzineArticles.com and republished on some very high-profile sites, which gives me an important backlink to my site. I’ve also had many of them picked up by scraper sites and not attributed. Unfortunately, that’s just part of the cost of doing business, and I refuse to waste my time hunting down the perpetrators.

The takeaway – and I do agree with this – is to stress quality over quantity in all your article marketing efforts. One quality article is better than 100 junk articles pounded out ten at a time by an English-as-a-third-language “writer” you found on Craig’s List. One placement on a quality directory is better than 100 placements on here-today-gone-tomorrow article directories. You know the ones. They all look alike because they all run on the same software, and you distribute to them via some automation tool that both spins and uploads your articles. One link from a recognized authority site is worth 1,000 links from low-class, accept-anything-that-vaguely-resembles-English article directories.