I don't blame you for being confused. Rest assured that measuring your success is pretty scientific and does not involve any guesswork.
It is important that you take multiple indicators into consideration. Here are the ones you need to measure:

1 - Traffic to your website

2 - The number of backlinks to your website

3 - Your website's search engine ranking for your keyword terms

4 - Google PageRank of your site

Measure all of these one time per month. Just pick a date, and put it on your calendar to document these stats in a spreadsheet that you create. Looking at all of these statistics will give you a much better idea of how your article submission campaign is progressing.

You can start measuring these stats from the onset of your article marketing campaign, but keep in mind that you won't see results right away. It usually takes several months for Google to register newly created backlinks, so the first few months you will just be establishing a baseline. Probably anywhere from the third to sixth month you will start to see improvements in some of your stats.

Which Changes Will You See First?

Here is the process:

Links are built, then Google adjusts PageRank and search engine ranking. When your website moves up higher in the rankings, then you will start to receive more traffic to your site. You can also see an increase in traffic to your website through people clicking the link in your resource box, but that traffic is minimal compared to what you are looking for from the search engines. The major benefit of article marketing is search engine traffic.

Keep in mind, all of this information fluctuates -- that is why it is a good idea to record these stats on a monthly basis. If you are just looking at one thing, such as number of backlinks, you can get discouraged very quickly if it is taking Google awhile to calculate your new links. The same with the other stats -- if you focus too closely on any one of them, you may get the idea that you are not making any progress when really you are.

Some months you may take two steps forward in one or more of these areas, and during the same month you may take two steps back in other areas. Looking at a variety of stats helps keep you balanced.

Also, remember that article marketing is a long term marketing tool, so you need to submit articles consistently each and every month, even after you start to see results and even after you reach your goal of a #1 ranking for your keyword term.

Search engine optimization is a very competitive business, but if you are using article submissions, the work is quite doable for the average person. The key to success is consistency -- submit quality articles consistently each month and develop a consistent way of measuring your progress.


About The Author
For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website, go now to www.submityourarticle.com/report. Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article distribution service www.submityourarticle.com used by thousands of business owners.


Courtesy: GoArticles