Article marketing VS PPC - Which is better to Start?

[kkchoon]

Why Article Marketing is my favorite?

I love article, so do Google! You don't need a lot of resources to start making money online, all you need is your PC and Internet connection!

Article marketer can easily tap into targeted Google traffic with minimum effort, all they have to learn is:

1. Keyword Research
2. How to do backlinks
3. How to apply AIDA to articles

You just have to start writing and turn words into $$$, that's all you need! You don't need a lot of money to learn the mistake, all you need is your time.

Article can help you pre-sell your prospect, and the conversion from article is tend to be a lot higher!

With the authority you already established as a writer, most people first impression would think you are the expert of what you write, that makes it easier for you to convince them into your sales funnel!


Why I really Dislike PPC?

I know many PPC marketer would argue about this, but fact is fact!

Let me explain a bit about what I think about PPC:

1. You need money to start, and a lot of it!
2. When you finally learned the mistakes, you would need tons of money to scale up your campaign, and keep paying the money for the rest of the project life!
3. You need to deal with Google slap! Although you can use Yahoo and MSN, the traffic and conversion will be a lot less.

Many would argue that if you put $1 into a money machine, it will return $2, how much money would you put in it?

How about this - If I can make a machine that you just have to put $1000 dollar, and it will generate money for the rest of your life? How's that sound?

If you are new, you should try article marketing, or at least start with it!

You don't need complex tracking software, you don't need a lot of money to start, you don't even need a landing page or website!

- End of 1st Part

P.S. stay tuned for the second part...!

[Amfire]

i like both of them and focus on building a authority site after testing keywords via PPC.

btw, where is part II?

[kkchoon]

I think PPC is good for testing the keywords, SEO and article marketing is a lot better in long term...

As for beginners, PPC is just too risky to start, be prepare to lose money up front! In the other hand, article marketing will help you get the money for PPC, that's why start from article marketing is always better.

The biggest challenge is learn to write may take a bit of time, but once you mastered the skill, even with 1 article, you can drive thousands of visitors every single day!

[JRG]

Definitely both. Many times you should start with PPC because it is instant traffic and really good for testing. Once an article is up it takes time to have effect.

To answer your PPC concerns:

1. You need money to start, and a lot of it!

Not necessarily. You can test a good site sometimes for around $30. If your keywords are researched and you are creating your ads properly it is not hard to achieve. $.10 - $.20 per click. At that price you can have 150 - 300 hits to your site.

2. When you finally learned the mistakes, you would need tons of money to scale up your campaign, and keep paying the money for the rest of the project life!

You can avoid mistakes by just creating an ad at a time and work it til it's right. You do not need to do it for the project life because you NEVER NEVER NEVER put all you eggs in one basket. Even if you are doing ppc you should be doing articles and SEO.

3. You need to deal with Google slap! Although you can use Yahoo and MSN, the traffic and conversion will be a lot less.

Stay current and make changes to make Google happy. Don't underestimate MSN. Bing is growing fast and many studies suggest that although MSN has less search traffic it has a higher buy rate.

But I would definitely recommend that you use as many tactics as possible. That way if Google changes ppc rules you still have article marketing and seo bringing in traffic. and vice versa.

Hope that helps.

[euhlir]

Both are solid options. PPC is harder to get into and has a greater risk of you losing money. Article marketing can be done for free.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

Definitely both. Many times you should start with PPC because it is instant traffic and really good for testing. Once an article is up it takes time to have effect.

Article normally takes 3 days to 3 weeks to rank, if you are doing article marketing, do not wait until it rank, just keep doing 2 things:

1. Writing more articles
2. Building more backlinks

In 3 weeks, you should have 100+ articles posted, and the articles will start showing!

Even you are very bad with keyword research, I bet you will start generating some real $$$ / week! And the best part, this income will continues as long as your article is there!

Repeat this step, and in 3 months you should have $100 / day income, learn a lot of optimization skills, and the income can accumulate every month!

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

Not necessarily. You can test a good site sometimes for around $30. If your keywords are researched and you are creating your ads properly it is not hard to achieve. $.10 - $.20 per click. At that price you can have 150 - 300 hits to your site.

Yes, unless you are testing it with a small scale, which I doubt there will be much result...?

Isn't $30 a bit too low? How long do you think the newbie can found a profitable product or niche?

I bet he run out of water before earning...

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

You can avoid mistakes by just creating an ad at a time and work it til it's right. You do not need to do it for the project life because you NEVER NEVER NEVER put all you eggs in one basket. Even if you are doing ppc you should be doing articles and SEO.

If this is true, why not start from learning article marketing? All the articles you write and posted will be your cash machine - for life! And it keeps on adding up!

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

Stay current and make changes to make Google happy. Don;t underestimate MSN. Bing is growing fast and many studies suggest that although MSN has less search traffic it has a higher buy rate.

In general - Yes, but MSN only has that much of traffic...

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

But I would definitely recommend that you use as many tactics as possible. That way of Google changes ppc rules you still have article marketing and seo bringing in traffic. and vice versa.

Hope that helps.

Yes, as many as you can, provided you already mastered it. I would recommend one skill at a time, and PPC is just a bad place to start for newbie... unless you have tons of money.

[kkchoon]

FAQ: Someone ask me these, and to answer some of the questions -

1) Why do you think that Article Marketing is easy to start for a newbie? Does it not involved with crazy and elite keyword research to success?

Don't you think PPC need any keyword research? article marketing don't need much money up front, so it is best way to start...

2) How many articles do you write for every day? How many article directories that you actually submit to? and how many articles you need to submitted in the order to see some sales/results?

I don't have to write any articles, because I have the resources to outsource , you need only 1 article to make sales. For newbie, volume is the key, at least you have the time more than money, do it like crazy, write 10 articles / day, do it for 10 days, submit them to EZA, because EZA had strict rules, you can learn a lot from mistake!

However, the real successful article marketer will work smarter:

They know how to find profitable keywords, and they know how to optimize the article to get the maximum click-through rate, plus they know how to rank for more searches but competitive keywords!

3) Is it reliable? According to my sales, the article marketing usually only provide few sales for few days before it completely pushed down by other articles.

Few things would affect your conversion:

1. The product you selected - Try to find proper product using clickbank history tool like cbengine.com, I use it to filter and find some great product to promote!

2. The article you write - Apply AIDA formula to it, see here for more information - AIDA Article. Using AIDA writing, you can greatly improve your click-through rate and sales.

3. The traffic you found with keyword research, many traffic are useless, you need "targeted traffic", and traffic that buy! This is the hard part, it takes time and experience to slowly improve!

4) How many articles you can write for one product? isn't it would be redundant if you keep re-write the same content and then submit it?

Not at all, especially when you need multiple listing!

When you need to dominate a keyword, you can rewrite multiple version and post it to:

1. Ezinearticles
2. Goarticles
3. Articledashboard
4. Articlebase

and many more! If you found the right keyword, even without backlinks, your article would list on the same page multiple times!

If you know SEO good enough, you can just target for more competitive keywords and backlink to them, getting even more traffic with less work!

Feel free to ask anything regarding Article marketing in this thread !

Kok Choon

[JRG]

Yeah I guess it depends on what you are marketing too. Sometimes I will use PPC to test a product or service before I will go forward with it. Then if it proves successful with PPC I will move to other means like article marketing.

But good post and thoughts!

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by JR Griggs

Yeah I guess it depends on what you are marketing too. Sometimes I will use PPC to test a product or service before I will go forward with it. Then if it proves successful with PPC I will move to other means like article marketing.

But good post and thoughts!

Hey Griggs! thanks for sharing! That's a brilliant way to go, but I just use cbengine.com for clickbank product, and I mostly do clickbank and my own product!

[JRG]

Yeah I am actually working on my first product. Up until now it has been all clickbank and other affiliate stuff. Got a few products of my own and will definitely be using article marketing as well as ppc.

[affiliated survivor]

PPC can bring traffic quick. And if you make money what does it matter that you paid for the traffic?
But I agree that it´s a risk. I´m trying to get into PPC. So far I only do articles. If you have a high ranking website it can make you money for many years. But in most cases the buyers keywords (trademark keywords and so on) are quite competitive, difficult to rank for and also do not have very much visitors. Not very attractive for SEO. Or there are products with a new model coming out every few months (like netbooks for instance) By the time you finally rank for a given model, there is already a new one. Therefore I think that for some things PPC is a much better solution.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by affiliated survivor

PPC can bring traffic quick. And if you make money what does it matter that you paid for the traffic?
But I agree that it´s a risk. I´m trying to get into PPC. So far I only do articles. If you have a high ranking website it can make you money for many years. But in most cases the buyers keywords (trademark keywords and so on) are quite competitive, difficult to rank for and also do not have very much visitors. Not very attractive for SEO. Or there are products with a new model coming out every few months (like netbooks for instance) By the time you finally rank for a given model, there is already a new one. Therefore I think that for some things PPC is a much better solution.

Hi, welcome to the thread!

PPC is the fastest way to bring in traffic, but you may lose a lot of money doing that...


The Myth of Buyer Keywords

Buyer keywords... many people fall for that! The real profitable buyer keywords is not the product name, not buy XXX, not discount XXX, not XXX coupon...

I redefine the buyer keyword - Any keyword that resulted in more conversion is buying keyword!

We need to think out of the box, think about the relationship and 5 W:

1. Who want this product
2. Where can I get this product
3. Why do I need this product
4. When do I need this product
5. How this product would help me


Think Out of the Box...

Like in panic attack niche, if you rank for product name, you might not get much sales unless that's a very popular product.

But compared to the real profitable buying keywords, this is nothing!

1. Who want this product? Panic attack sufferers, Phobia Sufferers...

2. Where can I get this product? buy, discount, coupon all in here.

3. Why do I need this product? To cure anxiety, to recover life..

4. When do I need this product? During panic attack, before panic attack...

5. How this product helps me? Relief anxiety, reduce anxiety, eliminate anxiety...


Think You Know Keyword Research?

You can get tons of keywords just to expand them! Pick those keywords with less competition, and send the traffic directly to the affiliate product!

Even better, you build a strong list, establish yourself as authority, and pretty much sell what you want to your list, and the conversion will be very high!

Not too carry away here, PPC or not, keyword research is the most important thing you need!

I can sit there for 12 hours just doing keyword research and organizing thousands of profitable long tail and main keywords!


PPC Easier to Compete?

If you have such thoughts, please remove it. Same like SEO, you need to find your keywords through research tools, and you'll be shocked how much competition in PPC!

When you think PPC is just paying the money and get your Ads shown, while you are wrong!

To compete in PPC, you need good tracking tools, close monitor of your campaign and fine tune it before you see real profit!

Mastering PPC requires a lot of up front money, to test, to buy tools or services, to spy on competitor and to bid for keywords.

So think again... non of this is easy.


Conclusion

PPC is a big no no for beginner, unless you have some money to spend, and you risk losing all if you don't insists and do it persistent.

While Article marketing can reduce the risk and generate income for you, you can use the returned income and learn PPC later!

Anyway, if I've more money to spend, I build more authority sites and articles, backlinks them and get FREE traffic for the life of the project!

Kok Choon

[Desmond Ong]

I hate to argue but I'm on PPC's side.

First of all, the statement about Google loves articles is wrong. The reason Google ranks articles so high is because they want to provide a good user-value -- but that doesnt mean that Google loves them.

A chunk of Google's business is from AdWords and there's no reason for them to not love AdWords over articles.

Sure, many article marketers might think that articles are for the long-term, but imagine the big article directories got closed down or Google penalized them for something or whatever. IT CAN HAPPEN.

Don't get me wrong. 70% of my traffic is from SEO and I love these traffic because it can be automated and very high conversion as well -- but it's too slow, take up too much time, hard to geo-target and hard to track the profitability of a new niche market.

I've seen many $100/month websites turned into $10,000 websites by scaling up using PPC and they didn't bother using article marketing at all.

But for newbies, yes, article marketing is great. PPC has some steep learning curves.

[nextdayflyers]

Well if you are really into ppc you may not even be bothering with seo. A lot of top ppc guys just drive ppc traffic and ignore organic seo traffic all together, besides maybe optimizing the site a bit.

Article marketing is more for people interested in organic seo and its good for building a solid base of backlinks, but by no means, should you only use article marketing to get backlinks. You need to get your links from a variety of places including very trusted old sites.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

I hate to argue but I'm on PPC's side.

Hi Desmond, welcome to the discussion!

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

First of all, the statement about Google loves articles is wrong. The reason Google ranks articles so high is because they want to provide a good user-value -- but that doesnt mean that Google loves them.

Not sure I mentioned that, but Google do loves articles as well as other useful content! However, I found Google love links more than anything, and you can affect the result with just links, but this is not efficient way to do it.

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

A chunk of Google's business is from AdWords and there's no reason for them to not love AdWords over articles.

Same reason why Google love content - to provide long term good experience for searchers, so they can sell Adwords!

But we are not talking about Google business, we are talking about our own business, so "PURE" PPC is not an efficient way to build long term business.

Many top marketer use PPC and list building, they capture opt-in for repeat promotion, that is another long term way!

What if I can further optimize this - I can build massive traffic at the same time capture lead and build a big community without continuous spending the money, I can invest more resources to build more business!

When you are serious pure PPC marketer, you need a lot of continuous money to sustain your campaign, unless you already having a healthy money cycle, meaning the money you spend on advertising can sustain long enough till your payment is release.

This is a BIG no no for most newbie!

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

Sure, many article marketers might think that articles are for the long-term, but imagine the big article directories got closed down or Google penalized them for something or whatever. IT CAN HAPPEN.

That is very rare and not likely, because authority site worth certain of value, they will change hands but not entire shutdown.

Even you walk every could lead to falling down, that don't stop you from walking, right?

There many authority sites to put your articles, if you want to minimize the risk, easy - spread them across tons of authority sites, don't just use article directories, use web 2.0 properties!

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

Don't get me wrong. 70% of my traffic is from SEO and I love these traffic because it can be automated and very high conversion as well -- but it's too slow, take up too much time, hard to geo-target and hard to track the profitability of a new niche market.

You just point out the key advantages of SEO!

SEO marketer would not wait until you see traffic, they will continue to build more sites, more content and backlinks, and you know what, all these can be AUTOMATED!

Even the most unprofitable site would sustain themselves with Adsense or Amazon sales, and you can keep building tons of web properties over time! This is a serious business...

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

I've seen many $100/month websites turned into $10,000 websites by scaling up using PPC and they didn't bother using article marketing at all.

But for newbies, yes, article marketing is great. PPC has some steep learning curves.

That's because they don't have a strategy in place.

If you read my post of 2,000 visitors / day in other thread (see signature), you'll know and see the power of articles!

I can easily outsource tons of articles and use automated tools to backlink and get them rank in 3 weeks, massive traffic would flow in from different long tail keywords while I am building my authority site!

3 weeks is not a long period, and I only need to do it once. When my authority site reach PR 5, I will just post more long tail articles and backlink to each of that, keep my site' authority growing and continues to grow my traffic - rapidly!

All these will only add up, and even one day Google decided to temporary drop my site traffic, I still get tons of traffic from my articles.

PPC is not that hard to mastered, you just need tracking tool and some testing money, after that, try to get enough funds to get it rolling, that's all it takes.

People just love money game, PPC is just like a money game to me, if you want serious business with PPC, start building list.

Kok Choon

P.S. Article marketing still the best way to start making money online !

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by nextdayflyers

Well if you are really into ppc you may not even be bothering with seo. A lot of top ppc guys just drive ppc traffic and ignore organic seo traffic all together, besides maybe optimizing the site a bit.

Very true, PPC expert loves the money rolling, and many don't think long term, because those money is just too great!

"Why bother with SEO? It takes time to learn and I can make money just by throwing more money!"

That's why you see a lot of superaffiliate, but very few Gurus . Having said that, if they start building a big list, relationship, they are just a step behind the Gurus!

Originally Posted by nextdayflyers

Article marketing is more for people interested in organic seo and its good for building a solid base of backlinks, but by no means, should you only use article marketing to get backlinks. You need to get your links from a variety of places including very trusted old sites.

This is just one of the way to use articles. There are many ways you can benefit from articles, and the one I mentioned -

Using Article for direct traffic, it proves itself to work, again and again!

And you are right, links from authority domain with certain ages have more link power. That's why high domain PR backlinks work!

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by Janejon08

For me, it would be easier to start earning from the PPC first because writing really takes a lot of time to produce these potential articles for article marketing. Though both are important, I think payperclick advertising to enhance traffic is the first thing that a writer should do to also gather followers first then know which content can really interest them.

Sure, if you have more money than time, PPC would be your choice! BTW, article marketing is not only content that interest your reader, it should optimize for search engine as well !

[MarketingSPY]

Well, unless you know the "real" secrets of PPC then it's a rich man's game. Article writing is best for those conservative marketers and even the pros. We use both.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by MarketingSPY

Well, unless you know the "real" secrets of PPC then it's a rich man's game. Article writing is best for those conservative marketers and even the pros. We use both.

Haha... there is no secret to this game, I already show you all the "secrets", scale from there and you are rich man!

If you really think article is for "conservative" marketer, please define conservative, and you might want to rethink again !

[keivn2]

So, how many articles should I write for one products before I focus on other product? Assuming that I am extremely sucky writer with no talent. Is it 300 articles enough for me to stop writing the same things?

[Micah09]

I tried doing article marketing before and I'm not getting a good traffic with it. But it helps to improve my SERP. Well, PPC campaign will give you traffic but you just need a budget it.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by keivn2

So, how many articles should I write for one products before I focus on other product? Assuming that I am extremely sucky writer with no talent. Is it 300 articles enough for me to stop writing the same things?

First of all, you should find a good product. If you are promoting clickbank product, try cbengine.com or any similar services.

These services will show you the history of a product, and you would have a good idea if this is a potential product.

After deciding a product, you need at least 100 long tail keywords to test the offer. Starting out by using your normal sense, if those keywords are FREE, Information only, skip it.

Good buying keyword involves solving a problem, or asking a desperate questions - How to cure acne? How to cure anxiety? How to make money?

People will buy stuff that solve their desperate problems, improves their existing condition, make them popular, boost their ego - like some cool magic tricks! make them successful...

Spend 4 to 5 hours straight, just to research for profitable long tail keywords. Why do I love long tail keywords? You can easily rank them for traffic, and when you gain more experience, you can scale up your competition level and get even more traffic.

After writing each articles, post them to EZA, goarticles, Articlebase, Articledashboard. You don't need too many directories, you just need few High PR directories to help you rank your articles.

Please note EZA don't allow direct affiliate link, you need a simple website with simple landing page, after approval, just redirect your landing page with your affiliate link.

Originally Posted by Micah09

I tried doing article marketing before and I'm not getting a good traffic with it. But it helps to improve my SERP. Well, PPC campaign will give you traffic but you just need a budget it.

You can visit my signature link to find out how I get 2,000 visitors / day, there are some posts showing you how to do keyword research and using long tail keywords to write article.

Basically, you just need to find some decent searches long tail keywords, with few profile backlinks and bookmarks using socialbot, your articles will rank well with it's targeted keyword in 1 to 3 weeks.

When your articles are on page 1, you will see some traffic flowing in. Don't write long articles, 350 words should be fine!

Remember to insert keyword in your articles:

1. Title
2. First paragraph
3. Middle paragraph
4. Last Paragraph

This will make your article very easy to rank on page 1 for any targeted keyword. Next, all you need is some backlinks and bookmark to push it, depending on the keyword competition, you might not even need backlinks to rank!

Kok Choon

[be strong]

ppc is the way to go with instant traffic

seo is way to slowwww unless you pick a low competitive search term... I achieved fisrt page on google with 5k per month search volume in one week with a good seo instructor

with ppc, I can find out faster quicker which keywords are converting or not

so, yes ppc is my vote

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by be strong

ppc is the way to go with instant traffic

seo is way to slowwww unless you pick a low competitive search term... I achieved fisrt page on google with 5k per month search volume in one week with a good seo instructor

with ppc, I can find out faster quicker which keywords are converting or not

so, yes ppc is my vote

Hi, I know how you think about SEO, but this is far from the whole picture !

If you are to build a solid business foundation, I still think SEO is the way to go... Think about this, do you prefer free long term traffic or paid long term traffic?

You still can scale SEO campaign like PPC, the differences is - you don't get instant traffic, but in exchange for long term traffic, even your keywords have extreme low competition, you still won't be at lost because all your effort will eventually pay off.

While PPC will always requires you to pay for it, and you need to control and monitor your campaign, from time to time, or you might encounter some big losses in long run.

SEO will allows you to accumulate your effect, meaning everything you build today, is pretty much staying there, and for every campaign your income will accumulate while keeping your cost low.

PPC is very easy to scale, but the cost will always follow you, in each and every campaign! Do you really prefer paying for it, in long run? Why not consider switching your profitable campaign, invest it into SEO for long run?

If you are to build a business, think long term ...

[IskandarX]

both way is good and I love two of them. They are helping me as long as I'm live as Internet Marketing. Don't you agree with me?

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by IskandarX

both way is good and I love two of them. They are helping me as long as I'm live as Internet Marketing. Don't you agree with me?

Article marketing is the best way to start making money online, PPC requires a lot more money to trial and error before you can actually profit.

[keivn2]

First of all, you should find a good product. If you are promoting clickbank product, try cbengine.com or any similar services.

These services will show you the history of a product, and you would have a good idea if this is a potential product.

After deciding a product, you need at least 100 long tail keywords to test the offer. Starting out by using your normal sense, if those keywords are FREE, Information only, skip it.

Good buying keyword involves solving a problem, or asking a desperate questions - How to cure acne? How to cure anxiety? How to make money?

People will buy stuff that solve their desperate problems, improves their existing condition, make them popular, boost their ego - like some cool magic tricks! make them successful...

Spend 4 to 5 hours straight, just to research for profitable long tail keywords. Why do I love long tail keywords? You can easily rank them for traffic, and when you gain more experience, you can scale up your competition level and get even more traffic.

After writing each articles, post them to EZA, goarticles, Articlebase, Articledashboard. You don't need too many directories, you just need few High PR directories to help you rank your articles.

Please note EZA don't allow direct affiliate link, you need a simple website with simple landing page, after approval, just redirect your landing page with your affiliate link.

Well..That not what I try to say..I mean, when you are promoting one product, how many articles you going to write for one product before you call it a day?

You are not going to tell you going to write the similar article-related-product for your whole life. There must be a number that you will stop writing article for that product at some day, right?

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by keivn2

Well..That not what I try to say..I mean, when you are promoting one product, how many articles you going to write for one product before you call it a day?

You are not going to tell you going to write the similar article-related-product for your whole life. There must be a number that you will stop writing article for that product at some day, right?

The answer for question is very simple, investment vs profit - it all depends on your time vs return. If the time invested into a niche is less than the return, it is time to move on.

I can't tell you how many articles you should write, and if that is worth your time, you will need to decide for yourself.

Usually, I would create few hundreds of articles with outsource. However, as beginner, you just need to create 100 articles for initial test, and refine your skill from there.

I can penetrate a niche with as many articles as I can, and dominate it entirely. However, you don't want all eggs in one basket, that's why you need to expand your niches even before dominating it!

- Start from 100 articles

Kok Choon

[TheBrainchildGroup]

My personal opinion -- PPC is a total waste of time. It has a very limited shelf life and once payment ceases, exposure does too.

On the flip side, SEO and content creation acts in an oxymoronic fashion.

I hope this helps.

-AS