Article Marketing The Lazy Way

[Vyliss]

Alright, so there's a fair bit of love and hate going around about the effectiveness of Article Marketing. It's not for everyone BUT it is a very effective way to drive (almost) instant traffic to your offer.

I mostly focus on Ezinearticles.com since they drive the most traffic with the least amount of work (don't need to Socialbookmark/ping or anything).

This is the lazy way to get traffic and sales if you don't want to spend hours and hours researching keywords/niches etc.

Remember just get out there and do it.

Step 1.
YOU SHOULD SPEND THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME ON THIS STEP ->

Find a group of people with a desperate problem they need solving. I personally like to stick with the basics, for me it's either going to be (Love, Health or Wealth). Pick one you have some knowledge in already. For example, if your ex husband have cheated on you in the past, you might want to go the catch a spouse cheating route. OR if you are happily married, you can try the how to get your ex back niche, because you clearly KNOW the secret to a happy relationship (get it?)

Or, if you've lost weight and you know exactly how you did it, find a weight loss program that fits as close as possible with what you did.

You can also just look on the first page of Ezinearticles.com and checkout the most recently approved articles for ideas.

Just don't spend forever on this step.

Step 2. Go to Ezinearticles.com, look at the type of articles already out there within the niche you've picked. Scroll down the list of articles and check the Author names. See what names are coming up a LOT!

We're going to steal their ideas cos they clearly know what they're doing more than we do!

Step 3. Pick one Author name that you see a lot, scroll down the list of articles they have, click on a few and see what the average Article views are they're getting. Tip: if they have 100s or 1000s of articles within one niche, you've hit Gold. If they have 10 and the last was submitted a year ago, maybe not.

Step 4. Scroll down to Most Viewed In 90 Days within your category, copy the whole list into Notepad, take note of the article titles and content. These are the type of things people are interested in, so you want to be writing similar content. Click on the number 1 viewed and check how many pageviews this article has had. If it's a huge number in the 5 digits, this is a good niche to get into.

Write one article to model after each of the Top 15 articles under most viewed. Please rewrite in your own words.

Step 5. For more keywords: Go back to the Expert Author you found who has 100s of articles within the niche. Start getting keywords from the article titles - model how they structured the title but don't copy word for word. If the title is "Top 3 Ways to Get a Naturally Huge Penis" change yours to "Top 5 Ways to Get a Naturally Huge Penis"

Step 6. Which leads me to this tip. People want FAST, EASY and SPECIFIC solutions. Make your titles specific, emphasis that their solution can be solved quickly and easily with YOUR solution (your site).

Step 7. Model your resource box after others. Look at 10 different ones, pick the one that you think would get the best CTR.. model it, don't copy.

Where should you send these traffic to?

Step 8. If you have $2 to spare (you should), register a .INFO domain name with one of your keywords. Do a redirect to the affiliate offer you've picked. You can either look it up on Clickbank and pick an offer with high Gravity and at least above $30 payout, or look at what everyone else is promoting.

If after 15 articles you haven't made even ONE sale, go back and look at your stats. WHat is your average pageview? What is your average CTR. How many visitors did you send to the offer.

Some offers convert better than others, but I think 1% conversion rate is the norm. Which means if you send 100 visitors to the offer, 1 should convert into a sale. If it didn't, and I would wait until you at least drive 200 ppl just to be sure, then change the offer and write another 10-15 articles.

You should never be out of ideas as to what to write - there are thousands of articles under ONE category within Ezinearticles, see what others are writing about, change it a bit, get creative. Write and compare your stuff with the best authors on Ezinearticles. Keep doing it until you're making sales consistently!

Once you know your niche converts, take that article approved on Ezinearticles, submit to the following:

Articlesbase.com
Goarticles.com
Buzzle.com

While you're waiting for your first batch of articles to be approved - try a different niche with the steps above. Just don't wait around stressing about when those articles are approved because they could take a whole week!

What else can you do after your article is approved?

- Post it on niche related forums.
- Post it to Social Networking sites.
- Turn it into a Press Release.
- Put it on your blog.
- Go to Yahoo Answers, find related questions that you feel your article helps answer, post a link to your article in your response.
- Keep the really good ones on your Computer so you can later use it as content for your Autorespond series when you start building a list.
- Note down the best converting Articles, start building backlinks to those.

I hope this has helped give you some ideas to try.

[pheonix44]

I love how you laid this out so well. I love step by step plans like this. I actually have a binder I use to store these threads in after I print them and put them in page protectors. I do this so I can read them late at night when my computer is turned off. Could you please explain though how to use social networking sites to market your articles. I am still naive about how to use them to help my article views.

[teamind]

Vyliss,

Thanks for for this really great back door approach to Article Marketing. It's just the kind that makes you go "duh" and thunk yourself on the forehead. And, then you suddenly realize you have ZERO excuses for not just jumping in - the lazy way!

Cheers,
Kelly

UPDATE: Jumped over to EZA and got stuck on your Step #4 - I don't see the "Most Viewed in 90 Days" option at the bottom of the page. I tried looking for it both in the CATEGORY and with the specific AUTHOR. Did something change, or am I temporarily losing it? Maybe it requires being a member/logged in??

ANOTHER UPDATE: Found it! The option only appears when you are viewing a specific article.

[SurviveUnemployment]

Sounds meticulous to me, not lazy. Thanks for the good advice!

[Vyliss]

Originally Posted by teamind

Vyliss,

Thanks for for this really great back door approach to Article Marketing. It's just the kind that makes you go "duh" and thunk yourself on the forehead. And, then you suddenly realize you have ZERO excuses for not just jumping in - the lazy way!

Cheers,
Kelly

UPDATE: Jumped over to EZA and got stuck on your Step #4 - I don't see the "Most Viewed in 90 Days" option at the bottom of the page. I tried looking for it both in the CATEGORY and with the specific AUTHOR. Did something change, or am I temporarily losing it? Maybe it requires being a member/logged in??

ANOTHER UPDATE: Found it! The option only appears when you are viewing a specific article.

Sorry, should have made this clearer. You need to be viewing an Article first that is in your niche. At the bottom of that Article scroll to this part:

Most Viewed EzineArticles in the Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues Category (90 Days)

Substitute Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues with whatever Category you're viewing the article in.

[Vyliss]

Originally Posted by pheonix44

I love how you laid this out so well. I love step by step plans like this. I actually have a binder I use to store these threads in after I print them and put them in page protectors. I do this so I can read them late at night when my computer is turned off. Could you please explain though how to use social networking sites to market your articles. I am still naive about how to use them to help my article views.

You can do this in 2 Ways:

Go to SocialPoster.com or OnlyWire.com, submit to the most popular social bookmark sites there (or if you have SocialBot, USE IT!). I don't suggest doing this for every article you submit, pick your best ones instead.

The other is:

Where it is allowed, some places like Propeller, will allow a long Description, you paste your article in here and direct the FULL story to your website instead (just be mindful about submitting your affiliate link over and over, that might be seen as spammy).

[Doctor Article]

Hi OP

I know this is a bit off track, but you mentioned something about getting your domain to redirect. Excuse my ignorance, but how would I do that. I'm a writer myself, working for a site which offers content writing services and now that I've been writing for them for more than a year, I've just joined their affiliate program. I do have my own domain name so it would be great if I could simply redirect to the site I write for. At the moment visitors simply end up on my site and then I have to hope like hell they'll click one of the links....lol.

Like I say, while I may be able to write content, I know nothing about affiliate marketing.

[kendrickyi]

Hey Vyliss

Do you consider keyword density when writing your articles?

[Doctor Article]

Absolutely. In fact, I would say that approximately 95% of clients request keywords in the articles they request, although different clients request different keyword densities. There also seems to be quite a bit of interest in using LSI.

[vs8598]

I love this wonderful ideas! As a newbie but not lazy I would definitely try this lazy way. Thanks a lot!

[peetred]

I am seriously going to try this. I have never tried linking straight to a redirect url in my EZA articles. Is this okay with them?

[FifthDimension5]

Good writeup about lazy & cheap article marketing!
Basically the points are
a) learn from other article writers to see their articles on ezine
b) copy same formula
c) write and submit your own based on similar route.

[Tomwood]

This is all good stuff the only bit I don't like is the advice on niche selection I quote "YOU SHOULD SPEND THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME ON THIS STEP" this is the most important step.

Get this bit wrong and everything else is for nothing

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by Vyliss

You can do this in 2 Ways:

Go to SocialPoster.com or OnlyWire.com, submit to the most popular social bookmark sites there (or if you have SocialBot, USE IT!). I don't suggest doing this for every article you submit, pick your best ones instead.

The other is:

Where it is allowed, some places like Propeller, will allow a long Description, you paste your article in here and direct the FULL story to your website instead (just be mindful about submitting your affiliate link over and over, that might be seen as spammy).

my domain redirects and I promote affiliate products through clickbank...

so does this work as well for using this kind of submission?, because you said direct the FULL story to your website... whereas my website just redirects...


so does that mean you create like a blog or something and add the articles there as well?


regards-

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by kendrickyi

Hey Vyliss

Do you consider keyword density when writing your articles?

I do this, and it helps for SEO and also for people to find your articles from online sources...

It works especially well in Ezinearticles ...

[desmond11]

Ezinearticles are great and all serious article marketers use them to get top rankings. However, simply building links back to one of your articles on this site in my view isn't the best option.

Vyliss, I think your theory is totally correct and I'm not dissing it in any way. But I think you need to spend equal amount of time trying to build backlinks to your own site. Preferably a wordpress blog (which Google loves). There's a lot of distraction on Ezinearticles with google ads etc as well as a nice list of other articles that may grab their attention.

To make it work you need dominate your niche in your chosen category. By dominate I mean have the most articles within that category and only write about 1 topic per author. Don't write about "yeast infections" one minute and "how to fix your xbox 360" the next. Use different author names for each topic if you're just testing. This will show you as an expert in your field.

I agree with Vyliss here, if you find a topic that works (made a few sales), rinse and repeat. But, spend equal amount of time promoting your own site as well as Ezinearticles. You have a lot more control once they visit your site on where they click next. In essence, you want to guide them to your "money page" at all opportunities.

I've done some research on bookmarking your articles and you're far better off bookmarking over a period of time rather than bookmarking them all at once. It will seem more natural and less spammy.

I've found the best bookmarking site for traffic is stumbleupon. Yeah, the others send you a bit of traffic, but nothing like this beast. I've now started adding a stumble button on all my opt in video pre-sales as my visitors seem to use them. I'm toying with the paid option since it has been sending so much traffic.

Great post Vyliss.

Just adding my 2c.

[sergo]

A very good description of how to make money with article marketing. The only thing I would change - I would delete the word "lazy" out of your title!

[Sarge]

Thanks for this awesome freebie!
Just another example of how we get into a routine of doing something only to be reminded to keep constantly looking at what it is we are trying to accomplish...make money!

[DyLan Lee]

Thanks for sharing. Might try out..

[geoffcruz]

Yes its ok with EZA as long as it is a top domain. I do this everytime because im too lazy to create a pre sell page lol. Go to godaddy and buy a cheap .info domain and in your account you can use the redirect option.

Originally Posted by peetred

I am seriously going to try this. I have never tried linking straight to a redirect url in my EZA articles. Is this okay with them?

[everlonglp3]

Yes, very good information indeed. But if you're just creating a link to hide the affiliate link then you don't need to create tons and tons of back links to your site anyway. Because you can't really optimize the site as you are only forwarding that link to the site. Just thought I would clear that up.

[geoffcruz]

That's right everlonglp3, so what the marketers need to do is to build links to their articles and make them rank.

Originally Posted by everlonglp3

Yes, very good information indeed. But if you're just creating a link to hide the affiliate link then you don't need to create tons and tons of back links to your site anyway. Because you can't really optimize the site as you are only forwarding that link to the site. Just thought I would clear that up.

[Vyliss]

Originally Posted by kendrickyi

Hey Vyliss

Do you consider keyword density when writing your articles?

Well, I don't really concern myself too much with this, I just make sure to have the keyword in the TITLE, INTRO and CONCLUSION/Resource box, that's all you need for a 250-350 word article.

[Vyliss]

Originally Posted by Tomwood

This is all good stuff the only bit I don't like is the advice on niche selection I quote "YOU SHOULD SPEND THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME ON THIS STEP" this is the most important step.

Get this bit wrong and everything else is for nothing

Well what I mean by this is people spend WAY too long thinking about what niche to get into. Really, use your common sense, you can get into any of the Big niches (weight loss, dating, making money online, or just any high gravity product on Clickbank) and make money, don't stress about whether it's the right niche or not, if you see all the signs point to "THERE'S MONEY HERE", jump straight in and find out for yourself!

[Vyliss]

Originally Posted by Doctor Article

Hi OP

I know this is a bit off track, but you mentioned something about getting your domain to redirect. Excuse my ignorance, but how would I do that. I'm a writer myself, working for a site which offers content writing services and now that I've been writing for them for more than a year, I've just joined their affiliate program. I do have my own domain name so it would be great if I could simply redirect to the site I write for. At the moment visitors simply end up on my site and then I have to hope like hell they'll click one of the links....lol.

Like I say, while I may be able to write content, I know nothing about affiliate marketing.

I'm sure there's a way to do it through your Domain registar... I usually do it from my Web hosting acc because it's just the way I'm used to.

In Cpanel, you just go to Domain -> Redirects and set where you want your top level domain to redirect to.

[fxmmorale]

Vyliss,

This is a good simple step by step plan of action that's great for testing out niches and affiliate offers before you go full out driving traffic to an offer that doesn't convert.

I'm glad you mentioned list building and how to use your winning content in your autoresponder series, because it would be a shame to not capture leads after all that hard work.


Good Stuff and thanks for sharing

[Warrior Markets]

Again, a very well laid-out plan - thanks. I think where most people fail is when the articles they have written don't lead to many views; this is where promoting the specifc articles comes in handy.

-WM

[Koos-K]

Well I always like to outsource hehe But thanks your info is great!

[bertuseng]

Thanks for the great post. It really sets out everything nicely, especially for people who are not so experienced in article writing.

I try to search long tail keywords on google key word tool and see which ones get about 200-500 searches per month and then I "" search the phrase on google and see how many hits. If it is about 5000-10000, i can probably get google page 1, so then I write a keyword rich article on it. I got some good page 1 ranks for my articles this way.

hope that also helps.

[kevinfar]

Hey Vyliss,

thank you for this excellent post. A lot of golden nuggets in there and I will try a lot of those tips myself.

Thanks once again,
Kevin

[feefondo]

Vyliss,
I wouldn't call it lazy but productive. Awesome ideas here. Thank You.