Top 5 Web 2.0 Places to Post Articles for SEO

I'll say this at the outset - I've used Squidoo, Hubpages, and Ezine but not Associated Content or Go Articles. My favorite so far is Hubpages and so I spend most of my time here.  The reason I've included Associated Content and Go Articles is because I've seen them mentioned quite a bit and I've seen them included in a number of SEO article submission software programs.

That said, most of the SEO information read states that you should post to as many of these Web 2.0 article sites are you can. Then Digg (or reddit or ...) the article. Obviously if you have decided to use these article sites to make money you need a link inside the article. That link should be to some other page you have with more information on the topic. This builds a quality backlink.

Be careful though. Most article sites, like Hubpages, have rules about the content you post. Some are more stringent than others with the most stringent I've seen so far being Ezine. Don't SPAM the sites and don't maliciously violate the terms or you risk getting banned.

Additionally sites have rules about your contributions before they will allow Page Rank to be passed with your links. The last time I checked Hubpages required that you have a user rank of at least 75 before your articles links would pass Page Rank (i.e NO FOLLOW tag gets removed). The rules about passing Page Rank are there to prevent spammers from flooding the site with single submission garbage accounts all containing the same article text, all pointing to the same URL. It also keeps you coming back to check and maintain your account so those backlinks don't disappear.

The primary benefit of Web 2.0 sites like Hubpages is that you need very few HTML or web skills to get a good looking page up on the internet - with backlinks - in a short period of time. The main drawback, as I see it, is that importing an article from something like MS Word is more difficult than it should be.

Blogging on a site like Wordpress or Blogger is pretty simple once you get yourself set up. If you are using MS Word 2007 it can post to your blog for you. The drawback is getting someone to notice your blog.

With a site like Hubpages or Squidoo there are features where other users of the site can easily find your content. This article is being written as an answer to someone else's question. Chances they will read this article. If they like it they may search my other articles. If they like those articles well enough they may become a fan. When other users find that person's articles and notice they are a fan of me then that 3rd user may just follow that link to my articles. So it's easier to get noticed on Hubpages than Wordpress in my experience.

Don't completely ignore blogging though. You can drive links to the blogs from your articles on Hubpages and other Web 2.0 sites. And you control pretty much everything including the anchor text and the number of links in any given blog post. Your blog posts can be product reviews or additional information related to your Web 2.0 article.