Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 3

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 3I’ve decided to opt out of doing a video for this installment to my Traffic Techniques Series for two reasons – I have a lot of content I would like to cover, and I want to focus on getting a SocialMarker tutorial up in the next few days.  I recently acquired Camtasia Studio 5 and need a day to get the functionality grooving.  As Flava Flav would say – Yeaaaaaaaa Boiiiii.  If you’re just tuning in and haven’t had a chance to go through the last two videos, you can view part one here, and part two here. Let’s get cracking…

Now that we know why article marketing works, and what the key factors are to writing an article that will perform, it’s time to touch on one of the most important elements to this technique – Article Distribution.  If you don’t know where to get your article published, or how to turn those clicks into subscribers, then it won’t matter how well you know your market or how much keyword research you do – your results will not be as spectacular as we know they can be.

How many different ways can I publish my articles online?

The first and most common way of publishing articles online would be to submit your articles to high traffic, high ranking article directories.  This has proven to be an effective medium time and time again, and a technique that many a bum marketer have exercised for two reasons – it costs nothing, and article directories get crawled often which means your submissions will get indexed very quickly.  I strongly believe that there are people who make a living simply writing how-to style articles and submitting them to high traffic directories, with an affiliate offer redirect in the resource/author box.

The key to making this technique work for you is you have to treat every directory as an individual medium and test accordingly.  Each directory will perform differently from the next because they attract different visitors – while one article may convert great on Directory A, it doesn’t mean it will perform well on Directory B or C.  This same rule applies to your resource/author box – you might get more clicks on Directory A when you have your “about me” blurb before the “call to action” section, whereas in Directory B it’s the complete opposite.  Making money online is all about testing, and article marketing is no different.

***Tip – Don’t be afraid to display your personality within the resource box.  Being funny and quirky has always worked well for me and I’ve surprised myself quite a few times when I’ve gone completely off the wall and thought “people aren’t going to take me seriously” and then the article ended up getting a pleasing amount of clicks to my offer.  Be fearless and unique and you’ll be rewarded.

I’m sure some of you are thinking “what do I put in the resource box?” or “how do I know if my call to action is good enough?”  It’s important to include information about yourself within the resource box because you want to be known as a professional or expert within your niche.  List any relevant credentials you may have as well as where you’re from and your professional status.  To put it simply, your call to action should do nothing more than tell the reader what to do next.  Below is an example of a resource box I might use:

“Elijah Vieau is an accomplished Music Producer and Composer from Toronto, Canada.  He is the founder of Basement Theory Productions, where he provides development and consulting services to independent recording artists across the globe.

Head on over to www.Virgostratus.com to hear a free sample of his latest groundbreaking album.

Also, quickly visit www.MrBlueReviews.com to download his free report “Music Marketing On Crack” that shows you how to market and sell albums online using the viral power of social networking.”

***Tip – When it comes to your call to action please try and avoid the “if you would like more information on this topic please feel free to visit www.yoursitehere.com” method.  This is article suicide.  It does not sound confident or convicting.  To me this type of call to action sounds like it belongs in a pamphlet giving information on the Ryan Phelps Foundation for Android Swimmers.

But Elijah, which article directories are the best to use?

I hate to say it, but “the best” is completely subjective.  All I can tell you is that there are 3-5 top directories which most successful internet marketers use because of their page rank and traffic, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t find success with a smaller more targeted article directory.  If you want to scope out this route just type into Goolge Your Niche+Article Directory and you will find results for smaller niche directories that you can add to your submission list.  Below I have listed my personal top 7 list of high traffic article directories that I currently use – in no particular order:

  1. www.EzineArticles.com
  2. www.GoArticles.com
  3. www.IdeaMarketers.com
  4. www.ArticleDashboard.com
  5. www.ArticleCity.com
  6. www.SearchWarp.com
  7. www.MagPortal.com

I also found a great resource listing the top 50 article directories by traffic/page rank here.  It was last updated on August 17th, 2008.

Originally I had planned to cover Article Distribution and Monetization Methods in one post, but it seems there was so much content that I will have to add a part 4 to my Traffic Techniques Series – so in my next post/video I will discuss the various ways you can monetize your traffic from the article directories to maximize your efforts and hopefully build your list and put some money in the good ‘ol Paypal account.

Cheers,

Elijah

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 2

This is the second video in my Traffic Techniques series.  In this video I touch on my 5 key points to a successful article, and those points are as follows:

  1. Your article must address a problem or issue
  2. Do not sell within the content of your article
  3. Effective use of keywords and key phrases
  4. Using a “call to action” within your resource/author box
  5. Proper Grammar.  No spelling mistakes allowed.

I plan to delve into article distribution and monetary tactics within the next video, If you guys have any concerns or specific areas you have questions on – please let me know in the comments below.  There might possibly by a 4th part to my article marketing series, but ultimately that depends on the feedback and how much I can fit effectively into the next video.

Cheers,

Elijah

Submit To 1000 Social Bookmarking Sites In 30 Seconds

Submit To 1000 Social Bookmarking Sites In 30 SecondsYeah right.  Actually it’s more like 100+ social bookmarking sites in about 15 minutes.  How you ask?  By using the free services of a great little site called SocialMarker.com and if you haven’t heard of this site before, and you own a blog or two, then you better hop on over and create an account before they start charging for their services.

I first read about SocialMarker.com back in late June on DatMoney.com, which was around the time Veronica and I were conceptualizing this blog, and I knew at some point I wanted to try out a mass bookmarking service of some kind because we all know how time consuming it is to keep up with all these toolbars, usernames and passwords all in the name of blog traffic.  So over the last month I’ve been dabbling with SocialMarker.com and seeing whether or not half of these social bookmarking sites are worth my time, or just another means of feeding social addiction.  So what do I think?

SocialMarker.com kicks some serious ass!

The most time riddling aspect of using a service like this is setting up the accounts – but who really needs to use all 100+ social bookmarking sites to benefit from the potential traffic and backlink juice?  If you need some help getting started, or are a little overwhelmed by the whole shebang, follow these steps below and you should be on your way:

  1. Go to SocialMarker.com and set up your account.  If you have questions, click here to find your answers.
  2. Decide which social bookmarking services you would like to use, aside from the ones you already belong to.  I suggest starting off with 10-20 sites and work your way up as you become more comfortable with mass bookmarking.
  3. Click and drag the button they provide into your browser toolbar.  When you want to blast a site to all your bookmarking services, select the text and click the SocialMarker button to pre-populate and submit.  Super easy!
  4. If you looking for an all-in-one bookmarking plugin for WordPress, they’ve also taken care of that as well.  Just copy and paste the code they provide into your WordPress template and you’re good to go.

TheAtHomeCouple.com has been up and active for roughly a month and we’ve already had over 500 unique visitors, 10 subscribers via RSS, and new friends passing by every single week.  SocialMarker is one of the main reasons why we are doing so well so early on and if you’re really serious about your blog, and already use social bookmarking and social networking as means of promotion and traffic, than this is for you.

If any of you already use it, I’d love to hear some feedback.

Cheers,

Elijah

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 1

Article marketing has always been one of my favorite ways to get free targeted traffic to a blog or affiliate website, and all though the majority of people who use this method have no idea what they are doing, it’s really not that complicated.

This video ended up being longer than I anticipated – as I started to rant and jabber – but I promise the next 2 videos will be more focused, and full of secrets and techniques that I’ve learned over the last 8 months of Internet marketing on a low budget.

Watch the video until the very end as I do hit some great tips, and I also have a special guest stop by for some final words – you won’t believe who I paid to come over and share his ultra money making secrets.  So get used to seeing my ugly mug because I am using these videos as an experiment with the effectiveness of video marketing as well as providing you guys with some great content at the same time.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Elijah

The Pressure Of Writing Unique Blog Content

The Pressures Of Writing Useful ContentFor those of you following us on Twitter, we were away at a wedding over the weekend for a friend of the family.  We had a great time, despite the rain, and returned home feeling somewhat refreshed and ready for a new week – or so we thought.  I had the most unproductive day today (well technically yesterday at the time of this post) and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get into the groove.

When we returned on Sunday I immediately went to my white board and jotted down my goals and priorities for this week of blogging, which is becoming normal as the weeks pass, and I felt completely ready to conquer another list of tasks.  Man was I ever unprepared.  I spent the majority of today working on a new RSS/email subscribe form – which is something I didn’t want to spend more than an hour on – and questioning whether or not I liked our new WordPress theme.  I can’t even count how many times I changed the theme on this blog today, and I don’t even know why I was tripping out.  I wanted to write 2 posts today on top of Veronica’s Groundhog Theory post, and at various points throughout the day attempted to focus and write a “killer” article – that was not happening.  I starting thinking about what you guys want to read and began getting caught up in the cycle of jotting down post ideas and titles without committing to any of them or following through.  I felt so indecisive that I started to get frustrated at myself for being completely useless and wasting time “thinking” rather than “implementing” and everything hit the fan from there.

Man… blogging can be stressful.  Not from the pressures or demands of your audience – at least not in the early stages – but the pressures from yourself.  I have a tendency to set my goals super high and strive for greatness, so therefor I find myself to be disappointed on a semi-regular basis.  This is not always good.  When it comes to the premature stages of developing unique, useful content for your blog or website it’s important to write as much and as often as you can – but on the same note it’s just as crucial not to burn yourself out or focus too much on what you should be writing about.  Instead, just write and everything will work itself out just like I’m doing at this very moment.

With the pressure to be different always sitting on your shoulders, it’s easy to forget to just be yourself – because that’s what makes you unique in the first place, right?  This make money online niche can be stressful, so don’t be too hard on yourself and fixate on writing “top ten” articles and pillar style content because you will lose hair.  Just write about what you know, what your doing, and what you love.  If it doesn’t fit into an existing category on your site, then create a new one.  Simple.  As much as we read about writing great content and how important useful content is to Google and the search engines don’t forget to remind yourself of this one point – there are no rules when writing content for your blog.

It’s your blog, containing your thoughts, and there will always be people who feel the same as you.  I feel much better now.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings 🙂

Cheers,

Elijah

10 Facts Internet Marketing Guru’s Won’t Tell You

10 facts internet marketing guru's won't tell youGotta love the Internet marketing Guru’s, right?  Us newbies look to them for tutorials, up-to-date industry happenings, and everything related to making money online – and we trust their words as much as they trust our wallets.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ve all learned some valuable information from the John Chow’s and the Shoemoney’s of the blogosphere, but did you ever stop and think “Why the hell would they be telling me everything I need to know?  Wouldn’t that create more competition for themselves?

Call me paranoid, call me delusional, or tell me I smell of cheap scotch and aftershave – but don’t tell me the thought has never crossed your mind.

Throughout this absurd and exhausting quest for financial independence I’ve absorbed approximately 24 ebooks (I just counted), The Four Hour Work Week and a slew of special reports and make money email courses.  While a handful proved to be uber-resourceful – like Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint or Ken Envoy’s Affiliate Masters course – the majority of them were bland and lacked innovation.

So what have I learned you ask?  Let me break it down and save all you guys starting out a shit-load of time – here are the 10 Facts Internet Marketing Guru’s Won’t Tell You:

  1. You will not make any money within the first 24 hours – I don’t care what auto list-building software you just bought, or how many ads you put up on Craigslist, If you’ve never made money online and have no experience you will NOT make money over night.  Plain and simple.
  2. Site builder programs are a single tool within your toolbox – While programs like Build A Niche Store and XSitePro 2 are great weapons to have in your affiliate arsenal, they are merely tools to be used in conjunction with the core elements such as keyword research, list building and search engine optimization.  If you ever run across a sales page claiming to have the one program you will ever need to make money online, it’s a lie – because there is no such thing!
  3. Affiliate networks will drop you if you under achieve – Surprised?  Don’t be.  Commission Junction dropped my butt about 2 weeks ago because I didn’t generate enough “revenue” to keep their advertisers satisfied – and rightfully so.  The last thing you want to do is sign up for every major affiliate network because you’ll spread yourself too thin, and if you’re just starting out that will do nothing except crowd your inbox and give you a false sense of urgency.  Start out with one or two networks, find your groove and duplicate.
  4. Clickbank is 90% garbage – There I said it.  While there are some great info products with killer landing pages provided, the majority of products sold on Clickbank are poorly developed and outdated.  I know we’re all told to go with the products that have a high gravity score, but I much prefer the “would I buy this” or the “do I like this landing page” approach.  Choose your products by putting yourself in your customers shoes, and if you like what you see there’s a good chance other people will too.
  5. You will loose money with PPC before you make anything – Now my experience with pay per click is limited, so take this point with a grain of salt, but I know at least 3 full-time Internet marketers who will back what I’m saying here.  PPC is competitive and requires deep keyword research, constant testing, and a significant investment to generate a substantial return.  I’ve heard some horror stories of people blowing their kids college fund on PPC with only a few hundred bucks to show for it.  Start off small, take your time and more importantly – go with your gut!
  6. Obscure keywords are useless – I’m not going to cover this in great detail, but after you’re done reading this post, and sharing your valid opinion 🙂 please stop by my friend Alan’s Affiliate Confession blog and read this post.  He covers this exact point perfectly and I couldn’t have put it better.
  7. An autoresponder is absolutely necessary – I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying “the money is in the list” and in many cases this is the absolute truth.  As aspiring Internet marketers, one of our ultimate goals should be to eventually launch our own course or product that will provide us with a long term reoccurring source of income.  The only way to do this properly is by building a list, and the key to successful list building is automation – this is where autoresponder services come in.  Regardless of what the Guru’s say, you need to be building lists from each and every blog or niche site you own, and though products like Aweber or GetResponse may seem pricey, they are absolutely necessary for residual success.
  8. You need HTML, CSS and basic graphics/photo editing skills – I fully understand with sites like eLance.com and ScriptLance.com we have the ability to outsource a lot of our grueling and time consuming tasks like building landing pages or creating custom opt-in forms, but the fact of reality is that most of us don’t have the know-how or finances to even go about doing this – especially when we’re first starting out.  I’m a firm believer in the “teach a man to fish” saying and share that same mentality when it comes to developing any craft.  Take some time to learn the basics of HTML, CSS and Adobe Photoshop and you will be in a much better position as the months go by (you will also have more skills and services that you could charge people for).
  9. Joint ventures bring in the big dollars – If you type in Mass Control Million into Google you will find over 5,000,000 results yapping about Frank Kern’s Mass Control launch and how it generated over 23.8 million dollars in 24 hours – pretty unbelievable right?  Frank is a genius and an innovator in this industry, but what he won’t tell you is that the only way he was able to generate that much income in such a short amount of time was primarily due to strong joint venture connections with HUGE lists of hungry affiliates.  It’s the only way any launch of that magnitude could exist.  Make your connections early on, go with your instinct and stick with individuals whom you connect with on a personal level.  If that person lands a JV opportunity with an industry player down the road, you are now in the pocket to reap those benefits and vice versa.  Individually we are vulnerable, but in numbers we are a force to be reckoned with.  The power by numbers rule.
  10. It will take 6 months to a year before you can quit your job – This fact isn’t set in stone, but I know you know what I’m saying.  For the average John or Jane simply gripping the basics of making money online will take 3 to 6 months minimum, and then follows the 3 to 6 months of trial and error, research, and development.  The first time most of us type “make money online” or “work at home” into Google is because we’re currently at a job, or in a financial position that we are not happy with.  Learning the ropes usually occurs on a part-time basis which will increase the amount of time before the implementation stage takes place.  In my case I was fired from a job and had Veronica holding down the fort until I found a replacement gig – which gave me 6-8 hours a day to learn what I know now, therefor speeding up the process of learning.

Set goals for yourself, be realistic and treat this opportunity like any other business.  If you are looking to get rich quick you’ll be disappointed to discover that your dreams of fast cars and Peruvian hookers are often interrupted by episodes of insomnia and countless hours of hard work. Guru’s are great, but common sense is better.  Any points I missed that you guys would like to add?  I’d love to hear some of your experiences.

Cheers,

Elijah