Google’s generally advice to website owners over the years has been to “create good unique content” and you will be rewarded. We all know this to be bogus – and if you didn’t know this by now – welcome to my blog. For at least the next several years we’ll continue to see updates to the Google algorithm and everyone will continue to sound the “death of SEO” alarm, but what will continue to be among the most important ranking factors will be the number and quality of links pointing to your website. Because after all…

It’s not the quality of the product that matters most, but the marketing behind it


That philosophy rings true in most markets, but especially with niche websites. No matter how good your website is about dual flush toilets, no one cares enough about what you’re writing to link to you. The same can be said for millions of other topics that can be used as the basis for building a niche website on and that’s where these article marketing tools can help.

Now, if you’ve spent any time reading blogs about how to make money with websites then the first part of this blog post has probably not come as a surprise. Most everyone understands the importance of links but what most people don’t know is how to actually build links in a scalable way. The most common answer to this problem has always been to outsource link building and/or use software to help. Since I’ve had success with both of these solutions I thought I’d take it a step further and document most of the major software based article marketing / link building services in a public case study.

The goal of this case study is to find the top article marketing tools for link building based on data I collect.

What Services Will I Use?

Unique Article Wizard�– $67 per month
My Article Network – $67 per month
Build My Rank – Starts at $59 per month (10 free links trial with no credit card) – Sadly I just got an email a few days ago they were closing new user registration so I’ll have to hold off on Build My Rank for a while.
ArticleRanks – Starts at $39 per month
Distribute Your Articles – Starts at $99 per quarter
Traffic Kaboom – Starts at $197 per quarter
SEO Link Monster – Starts at $47 per month and $147 per month after that
Digi Traffic Accelerator – $19.95 per month (currently half off)

My monthly bill for just link building services will be roughly $500 a month (and I might add a few more services if there is enough demand in the comments). I will be using affiliate links during this study while referencing the tools I use so I appreciate the support when you buy through my links and as an extra bonus I plan to create and give away instructional videos where I’ll show you the best way to maximize your results with the software I find is best that you can watch yourself or hand over to your VA’s so they can do the work for you (just another way of saying thanks for the support). I’m doing this study because link building in general (let alone software assisted link building) is something that I’ve found most people don’t understand so I fully expect this to be one of the most popular case studies I share on this blog so don’t be afraid to ask questions.

What Other Expenses Will I Have?

I’ll be paying for a few dozen domain names, TextBroker.com for some of the content creation and using my full time VA to help with setting up the websites and writing some of the content etc. but I’ll be the one running the software tools for this study so that I can be absolutely sure everything is done the way I want it to be.

Total monthly expenses should run me roughly $1,000 per month, but again I’m spending my money and (in some cases wasting my time) so you don’t have to. You don’t need all of these tools listed above. At most you’ll only need one or two of these services – only if – you’re really interested in building out niche websites as a business model as opposed to going for a more authority focused model without building links through software etc. In that case, stay tuned for a follow up blog post where I cover other link building alternatives.

How I Will Conduct This Experiment?

I’ve thought about this for quite a while and I’ve looked at other experiments and I’ve discovered the best way to do this is to focus on three key areas:

1. The number of backlinks indexed from each service
2. The page rank for each of these backlinks from each service
3. The keyword rankings I get from using these services

I’ll be using ahrefs tool for backlink analysis, but if you want me to check out another program simultaneously for this case study let me know in the comments below. I’ll look at these three criteria over a time period of at least 90 days – so I expect to spend at least $3,000 on this experiment. I’m going to be buying brand new domains with a plan to launch the case study March 1st so I’ll have all of the domains and keywords picked out ahead of time.

In rating the tools I’ll not only looking at the above factors but I’ll also be looking at how easy it is to use the tools as well. If there are two tools that provide roughly the same results but one takes less time and is less confusing to use then I’ll be recommending that one instead.

Overall Summary

The results of this experiment should provide a lot of helpful data for those of you interested in building backlinks to your websites so I’m pretty excited about getting this case study underway. Once I’ve found the best services based on my data I’ll host a webinar and walk you through the various tools I think are the best and show you more of what I learned etc. and provide video recordings for anyone who decides to buy the tools I recommend (again as just another way to say thanks for the support). My goal here is to cut through the crap and invest a lot of my own time so you don’t have to.

Please note: There is no way that I can reveal the websites, keyword choices etc. while I’m conducting the study for obvious reasons and because it opens the study to external factors (limiting variables will already be difficult enough).

If you want to make sure you get all of the case study updates join my email list here. What do you think of how I plan to conduct this case study?

Off Topic PS: Be on the lookout for an email from me early next week inviting you to a webinar where I’ll be showing off some awesome new software that’s been created to help with Amazon focused keyword research. The week after that the WordPress theme I’ve been working with on a partner on should finally be complete as well! We’ve had about a dozen beta testers helping us test it for the past several weeks.