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Posts Tagged ‘article syndication’

There are plenty of places where we can learn about an affiliate marketing business, but there aren’t many places where you can find someone to do some of the hardest work for you.  Well, I haven’t quite fixed that problem for you, but I know that I have unearthed what is probably nearly as good.

I do affiliate marketing, although I also sell my own information products and physical products.  I use websites and blogs for all of my online business activities.  I rely quite heavily on search engine optimization (SEO) to secure traffic, but that is a long term strategy.  In some cases, I have used PPC for affiliate products with success, but more often I am lucky to break even. 

So, for me, as for all Internet marketers, traffic is a very challenging part of my business.  Especially difficult are those times when I have to pass on a new affiliate opportunity because none of my websites are optimized to bring in targeted traffic for the product, so I face the age old question:  How do I send my traffic to the vendor’s site?

My approach to directing traffic to the vendor’s site is just like many other affiliate marketers, I bring the visitors to my own site initially for an introduction to the product or, perhaps a comparison of competing products.  Then I just hope that I have been sufficiently convincing to get them to click the link that directs them to the vendor’s site so that I have some small chance of earning my commission.  I would like to make that process a bit less involved and take the prospects to the vendors a little more efficiently.

I use content syndication for all of my sites.  While I get some traffic directly from the articles, my primary reason for article marketing is its SEO value, which is considerable.  There are two major problems with the traditional approach to article marketing, especially for the affiliate marketer.  The first of those problems is that the top tier directories that publish and distribute articles do not allow links within the body of the article, contextual linking.  Typically, the links are isolated below the article itself in a sort of no man’s land called the author’s box or the resource box.  Second, the major article directories do not allow affiliate links or even links to redirected pages or domains.

Finally, there is an article distribution service that solves those two problems and allows direct linking using our affiliate links which can be placed contextually within the article.  Yes, you will be able to join the affiliate program of the amazing My Article Network once you become a member of the service.

My Article Network is something of a cooperative that brings site owners (publishers) together with article marketers.  (That link will let you know what I have to say about it on one of my sites.) 

Since I am writing for affiliate marketers, I’ll cut short the presell message and let sales page of My Article Network speak for itself.  I’ve been using it for less than two months, and I am a complete convert to the system.  I joined it for the article distribution, but I became so enthused that I set up four new blogs to take advantage of the free content in some of my niches.  {(Go ahead.  Click the link, you know you want to.)(Do it!  You know you want to click the link.  Come on…don’t you think I deserve it?}

I make a lot of judgements in my online business, judging the output of others.  We all do that, I guess, although perhaps in different ways.  Even in our roles as consumers of business products, we judge the copy of a sales letter or a video before we buy a course or a new piece of software.  We assess what is good or ineffective when we do our competition analysis of the website design of others in our niche.  We also critique the writing of our writing team or those to whom we outsource article marketing.

I write all of my content about Internet marketing (including article marketing) myself.  However, I hire free-lance writers for most of the other niches in which we compete.  In addition, I average about two dozen unsolicited articles per day from other marketers who want me to publish them on my sites in some of those other niches.

I have learned from having wasted money.  I now use a select stable of writers who make up my writing team and whom I have trained to do my paid writing.  However, of the unsolicited articles…I reject a substantial majority even though they come to me as free content.

I thought that it might benefit other marketing writers to know why I am more likely than not to refuse to publish the articles that they send me.  Here are the most frequent reasons for my rejections:

*  The articles don’t make sense in English.  Any language, of course, is composed of its vocabulary and its grammar, and it is difficult to master both by taking a few years of apparently inadequate instruction.  It is certainly posssible that a writer may write brilliantly in her or his native language, but, without complete fluency in a second language, the writer will never be able to write effective marketing copy.  The writer (or the writer’s employer) needs to hire a native speaker of the language to edit (or even rewrite) the article.  After writing a first draft, have a writer who is truly fluent in your targeted language rewrite the copy. 

*  The articles are submitted in the wrong category.  I receive articles about subjects that simply make no sense for publication in a blog that has a theme such as the one to which the writer has submitted.  I have a business blog to which people submit suggested articles dealing with plasma televisions or planning your daughter’s wedding.  All the writers have to do is to put a business spin on their idea, somethat that could often be done with a little rewriting and an extra paragraph.  One could author an article about how to build a wedding planning business and cover many of the same topics as the article about planning a daughter’s wedding.  A web author could switch the things to look for in a plasma TV to the best features in a plasma monitor to be used in business video presentations.  Either of those, I might be happy to publish.

*  Many articles are the victims of poor spinning.  I have spun articles for many years, so I can usually recognize within a paragraph or two if an article has not been well prepared for spinning.  No website can get any benefit from a poorly spun article or from publishing duplicate content. 

Implicit in all of these reasons for rejection are the solutions to the problems.  Either follow proper writing, submission and spinning standards yourself, or hire a web article author who thoroughly understands the needs of Internet marketers.

I have some actual data to share, but first let me provide a little context with you.  Seven weeks ago I joined an content distribution service.  While I don’t actually know the guy that designed this remarkable tool for online marketers, it seems to me as if I do, because I have bought so many of his products and joined enough of his membership services to have paid for a good part of his car.  [He should at least offer me a ride in it

Due to my many prior experiences with this boy genius (well, he’s not really that young), I was confident that the service would accomplish for me what it promised: An innovative way of distributing my articles.  Like any Internet marketer, I could always use more traffic, and is there anyone who isn’t on the look-out for a way to add external links pointed toward our virtual real estate?  My primary approach for achieving both of these goals is distributing content to article directories.

This service has some advantages over traditional submission to article directories, though.  For example, I can now put my links directly into the body of the article rather than assigning them to a resource box.  That’s something that most article directories don’t allow, but I know that it is more effective for both traffic generation and for search engine optimization.  Second, the articles go directly to websites for publication, sites that are in my niche or a closely related niche.  Once again, great for traffic and SEO.  Third, since some of my business involves affiliate marketing, with this service I can put an affiliate link directly in the article, if I want–another thing that the article directories don’t allow.  Fourth, the distribution system has a built in article spinner, so that the version of the article that each website publishes can be unique.

After almost fifty days, I thought that I would check to see what I had accomplished so far.  Here are just a few of the highlights of my experience with My Article Network.

Now the articles trickle out to the sites, so those I’ve put into the system so far are all at different points in their publication schedule.  I have submitted 58 well spun article.  Unique versions of those articles now appear on over 1900 pages on the web.  I am allowed to insert up to three links in each article, but I vary the number of links, so my conservative best guess is that my sites singled out for promotion through this system have received somewhere in excess of four thousand links.  Of course many of those are so new that they haven’t been picked up by the search engines, yet.  In other words, a lot of the work that I’ve put into this distribution already will reach the maximum benefit months down the road.

I started a new site in a very competitive niche about three months ago, and I have directed the links from more than half of my articles toward that site’s promotion.  Alexa couldn’t even find that site when I first joined this system, and now it has climbed in the Alexa rankings more than two million positions.  In fact, it gets more traffic than some of my sites that have been around for quite a while.  Indeed on the oldest site that I ever built (that I still own), has received no attention from me in months, but I entered nine articles into this system and that site’s Alexa ranking has improved by more than 120,000 positions.  I can’t attribute that traffic growth to anything other than those nine articles–and the system that distributed them.

Okay, if you like those numbers, take a look at this.  I didn’t even think of tracking the results of this program until six days ago–yeah, I know, I’m a slouch).  During that six day period, the eight sites that I have promoted using this distribution network have risen in Alexa a cumulative total of over five million positions.  I realize that Alexa is not the finest measure of progress, but I still think that’s a very strong indication of getting my money’s worth and then some.

I actually became so excited by the whole process that I have subsequently created four new blogs to join the over 10,000 websites that are eager publishers for the content that we writer-marketers provide.

I strongly suggest that you become a member of My Article Network.  Yes, you affiliate marketers out there, you can become an affiliate–after you join the article distribution service.

If you run an online business, you have so many things to think about. You must contol of the always growing list of tasks.

One of the many things that you must do is to manage your article marketing efforts to increase efficiency. Surprisingly, a very time consuming part of article marketing is simply coming up with unique ideas to use as topics for the articles. Anything that you can do to improve in this area will increase the overall well-being of your company. After all, your job is to look for efficiencies wherever you locate them.

Therefore, I thought I would share some good ideas ofsources for article topics.

- Every business should keep a list of every question asked by customers or prospective customers who email or call. Many of those questions can be turned into short, informative articles.

- Watch for news stories in magazines, TV, Internet or newspapers that are directly or indirectly related to your niche. If the news organization thought there was a story in that, chance are there is also an article that you can write about it.

- Look for questions pertaining to your niche that are asked in online forums. If someone cares enough to ask a question on a forum, chances are that others are asking the same or a similar question. Consequently, it is a good article topic.

- Go to some of the top article directories, such as A1Articles. Again, search keywords. Read some of the articles authored by others. Is there a way you can put your own unique spin on that topic?

- Take a fresh look at articles that are on your own website. Can those topics be repurposed with more of an informational and less of a marketing perspective?

When you dedicate time to finding topics, don’t stop until you have assembled a list that will last a while. You’ll probably find that one idea leads to another. Keep that long list in an appropriate folder where all of your writers will have access to it. Once a writer uses an idea, delete it to avoid inefficient recycling of the same ideas.

The effort that goes into article authoring is what persuades many online business people to oursource much of their article marketing efforts by hiring a writing and spinning professional. However, if you prefer to do your own writing and spinning, here are some tips that I can offer to increase the efficiency of your writing, always keeping in mind the ultimateobjectives of increased traffic to your site and improved search engine optimization (SEO).

* Dedicate a regular time at least once a week to write articles. Currently, my weekly goal is four articles. With other writing commitments including my website, this sometimes is quite a stretch for me.

* Create an easy format that you can easily copy and paste your efforts into those sites where you regularly contribute. Record the following: (1) A title that meets the site’s policies such as www.ezinearticles.com of 100 characters (2) Word Count (3) Copyright Statement (4) Bio or Signature statement that meets the character guidelines (1101 for Ezine Articles) (5) key words (100 characters for Ezine Articles) (6) A table for key words to be used within the article and as search words.

The table is probably the most beneficial element within this format. As I write the article, I plug in phrases that I believe have high key word value. The table can be easily copied and pasted into a new article with similar key words. These key words then can be prioritized from highest to lowest and used as the keywords within the article submission site. By using the highlight tool, I can quickly determine what words are used within the article’s content.

* To the extent possible, write from your own experience. Many people use the web to locate answers to their questions, so your personal experiences actually lend credibility. Share your failures and successes while you are demonstrating your expertise. In your articles, don’t be too concerned with selling; just begin to build a relationship with your readers in order to gradually convert them into customers. Feel free to incorporate a bit of humor, if the subject matter allows it. Again, remember you want them to want more and click through to your website.

* When selecting the topic, determine the focus through researching the keyword popularity. I try to keep my articles between 400 and 800 words depending upon the topic or subject.

* Upon completion of your article, find a colleague or friend and ask them for their opinion. I currently review many of efforts with two close friends. Suggestions are freely given and changes are made. The end result is always a much high quality of article.

I hope that these tips will proved useful to you and that your article syndication efforts become a bit easier. Never lose sight, though, of the central purposes: traffic, traffic and traffic.