OMG It Works!

[dclodge]

First off, I want to thank everyone that has ever offered information, help and advice here in WF.

I have had problems getting traffic to my sites. After reading about article marketing and the how to's that members have written about, I have started to see success. It's amazing what happens when you follow guidelines that work!

An article I posted (and waited about 10 days, ugh, to get posted) went live today and within the first hour (or less) I already had readers AND a URL click that led to a sign up!

Holy Cow!

Thank you again for your inspirational stories and help - they truly help you one in the game when it seems that nothing is working!

Still a IM in training, and a true newbie
Dean

[Jose Delgado]

don't stop submitting articles.

try to submit at least 1 a day and you'll get amazing results and free traffic for month maybe even years.

[dclodge]

Originally Posted by Jose Delgado

don't stop submitting articles.

try to submit at least 1 a day and you'll get amazing results and free traffic for month maybe even years.

Well I am at that 10th article on EZA right now (a couple still pending)...anyone know how long it takes to get approved to the next level?

[Zeus66]

Hi Dean,

It's exciting when you start seeing the fruits of your labor with article marketing. I still get a surge of adrenaline when a new article goes live at EZA, and I've been doing this for years.

The beauty of it is in the repeatability. What I would strongly urge you to do now (other than continuing to regularly write and submit those articles) is to concentrate on improving two things (primarily): your author resource box at the end of each article (where you links are); and the conversion rate of your landing page/squeeze page/sales page.

That's where you go from decent article marketing results to awesome article marketing results.

I have a link to a free article writing and marketing report in my signature below that is great for newer article marketers. Probably worth a read.

John

[Jamie Stewart]

Hey Dean,

When I went to expert author on Ezinearticles I waited about 24 hours for approval, but that was a good while ago now so it may have changed.

It's good to hear your enthusiasm. I've found article marketing to be effective in both getting free targeted traffic and boosting search engines rankings, it's great for one way back links.

[ivana]

Congrats! It is really a great feeling isn't it! Just keep writing, give people good tips with them wanting more, they will love your articles, and you will get more traffic and more sales! Stick to one niche, 30-50 articles per niche, see if it works and if it does, write some more

[depotgang]

Article are great, so are blogs. You really learns what it takes around this forum. I have publish over 1,000 articles in 3 year under different pennames.

It drives my business more than anything else I do, except blogging.
Once you get a big email list you will find profits come from it, but building it is easier with article. Good luck!

[Marhelper]

Great job, now keep doing it! Excellent work.

[Andy Fletcher]

Congratulations! That first sign up is really sweet

[zephyrwriting]

Nice going.

Now that you've popped your proverbial cherry, I guess you're going to keep going? Always good to see people use what they learn to their advantage.

-Vish.

[Sarah_Lyle]

I use Submit Your Article.com makes things alot easier and you can submit to tons of sites automatically.

[dclodge]

Originally Posted by zephyrwriting

Nice going.

Now that you've popped your proverbial cherry, I guess you're going to keep going? Always good to see people use what they learn to their advantage.

-Vish.

Of course. I have been plugging away at this for a few months now, not with a whole lot of success yet, but I know that it isn't an over-night thing. You really get to know what your patience threshold is!

In another thread I mentioned that I felt that I spend too much time here reading, and not enough time IM'ing...I still need to work on that balance.

There are still a lot of grey areas for me with IM, but a little bit at a time, things are starting to get clearer. Last night I think I finally "got" the whole keyword research stuff...when you read different ways that people research, it gets a little out of focus, but i muddled through all the advice and found what works for me.

And I think that is important: Not every technique is going to work exactly the same for every person - you have to find what "clicks" with your own goals and vision.

[Ken Leatherman]

Congrats on your success, it's a great rush to see your work bring the result you were aiming for.

But you know, you are teaching others right here, right now with your post:

There are still a lot of grey areas for me with IM, but a little bit at a time, things are starting to get clearer. Last night I think I finally "got" the whole keyword research stuff...when you read different ways that people research, it gets a little out of focus, but i muddled through all the advice and found what works for me.

And I think that is important: Not every technique is going to work exactly the same for every person - you have to find what "clicks" with your own goals and vision.

You have shown them that persistence prevails when you focus on reaching your goal. Keep up the good work and keep posting your lessons learned, as other folks will benefit from your knowledge.

Ken

[Dana_W]

I have also had good success with Associatedcontent.com, another article directory site.

And I was thinking of signing up to write articles for ehow.com, because they have a PR 7. Haven't tried it yet though.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

I have a link to a free article writing and marketing report in my signature below that is great for newer article marketers. Probably worth a read.

I can vouch for this part, having downloaded and read it myself yesterday. Thank you, John.

[Chri5123]

Well done!

Keep on wirting articles and if you are getting 1 sign up and probably more from just the 1 article write 100 and see how many sign ups you get!

Good Luck

Chris

[Sevonator]

Originally Posted by dclodge

Well I am at that 10th article on EZA right now (a couple still pending)...anyone know how long it takes to get approved to the next level?

NM found the answer

[Louis Raven]

Have you not tried search engine traffic?

You'll get more bang for buck by optimizing your pages, getting a few high PR links to them using anchor keyword text and letting Google send you visitors.

Standard traffic technique for all sites right?

Good luck with your Article marketing.

Louis

[John Hillage]

Well done for taking action - that's what really counts in this world. Good luck in your endeavors.

[Chris Monty]

Article marketing is the tried and true method of generating traffic. Keep up the good work!

[Ian Jackson]

Originally Posted by dclodge

Of course. I have been plugging away at this for a few months now, not with a whole lot of success yet, but I know that it isn't an over-night thing. You really get to know what your patience threshold is!

In another thread I mentioned that I felt that I spend too much time here reading, and not enough time IM'ing...I still need to work on that balance.

There are still a lot of grey areas for me with IM, but a little bit at a time, things are starting to get clearer. Last night I think I finally "got" the whole keyword research stuff...when you read different ways that people research, it gets a little out of focus, but i muddled through all the advice and found what works for me.

And I think that is important: Not every technique is going to work exactly the same for every person - you have to find what "clicks" with your own goals and vision.

Top man!

I've been going for about 2 years now and have done a sale or two from 50 EZA subs. In spite of much advice, heaps of how-to info, templates, "secrets", etc. I still find writing articles my biggest challenge! but it's free, which is the real sweet spot.

At the start, I often feel it's like animals grazing in the fields; as there's so little nourishment in grass, they have to keep eating and eating to get even the minimal amount. The difference is that for us, writing articles gets easier the more we do - I hope!

[Alex Sol]

Dean, you mention that all it takes is following guidelines that work... I would like to correct that statement a little. You see, most of things work, the big problem comes with the ACTION - that most newbies never take.

Info overload, buying every IM product available - we have all gone through that. However, only those that actually STARTED doing something got results!

Everyday we get threads stating how hard it is to make money online. How hard it is to get started because there are so many things involved... the funny thing is that most of these threads are posted by people who read 1,000,000,000 e-books, yet they do not have a site, blog, squidoo, they never posted one single article, never tried PPC - never did ANYTHING besides just reading and "learning".

You DID put the knowledge to action. You found out about article marketing and actually WROTE and SUBMITTED articles, pretty straight forward, isn't it?

Anyways, I congratulate you on your success, and many more are to come your way!

Alex

p.s. PEOPLE, Take Action!

[Tony_D]

Congrats on your success man! It really boosts your focus and drive, doesn't it?

Originally Posted by dclodge

In another thread I mentioned that I felt that I spend too much time here reading, and not enough time IM'ing...I still need to work on that balance.

I am SO guilty of this! But I've found that over time all the stuff I read and don't understand slowly sinks into my brain and I start to get it. I'll read something once and think "I am so confused" and then a month later I'll read the same thing and it just clicks.

Originally Posted by dclodge

There are still a lot of grey areas for me with IM, but a little bit at a time, things are starting to get clearer. Last night I think I finally "got" the whole keyword research stuff...when you read different ways that people research, it gets a little out of focus, but i muddled through all the advice and found what works for me.

And I think that is important: Not every technique is going to work exactly the same for every person - you have to find what "clicks" with your own goals and vision.

Exactly. Once you figure out what works for YOU you can "rinse and repeat". And over time you'll improve upon your own methods and expand what you do so that other ideas start to make more sense. Plus you'll be able to recognize when a person is using a method that really doesn't agree with your style. Learning what works best for ME has been a struggle for me too.

I'm especially interested in the fact that you feel like you finally "get" keyword research. I am basically at the same point, just a week ago I started targeting different types of kewords for my blog post titles and I am definately seeing the results of that. It's like a huge eye opener, once you learn what's important and what's not, and you feel excited because you see that there literally are THOUSANDS of search terms you can reasonably dominate.

Cheers! *klink*

[dclodge]

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and inspiration.

Getting article marketing right....okay, for now, let's just say getting article marketing better (cause I know that I still have a way to go in getting it "right") has done wonders.

The article I posted - a guess a week ago - and finally went live yesterday, has had MORE reads in less than a 24 hour period than any of the articles that I have written that have been on EZA for 2 months or more!!! Holy Cow!

It it absolutely amazing how when you start to "get it" that you see all those long hours (8-10 a day, plus my 9-10hr day job) really pay off - all the while you get anxious, wondering when something will change, frustration sets in, then BOOM! All that stress and wonder is obliterated by a simple marketing improvement.

So for those out there, like me (still) that are just at the point of getting your feet wet with this whole internet marketing phenomenon, keep a stiff upper lip - take little steps, focus on one thing, BE FRICKIN PATIENT (my downfall at times), and it WILL come.

Listen to the great advice you get in here from these great people that have "been there, done that". As Kiev stated in this thread - its all fine and good - the information is great, but unless you do something with it - you are wasting your time - TAKE ACTION - doing something small, is better than nothing....

Thanks again to all the great words of hope and inspiration...i will keep you up to date on other milestones....i know that when i hear about other people's success, it inspires me to dig in deeper and make it work!
Dean

[GrantFreeman]

Originally Posted by dclodge

First off, I want to thank everyone that has ever offered information, help and advice here in WF.

I have had problems getting traffic to my sites. After reading about article marketing and the how to's that members have written about, I have started to see success. It's amazing what happens when you follow guidelines that work!

An article I posted (and waited about 10 days, ugh, to get posted) went live today and within the first hour (or less) I already had readers AND a URL click that led to a sign up!

Holy Cow!

Thank you again for your inspirational stories and help - they truly help you one in the game when it seems that nothing is working!

Still a IM in training, and a true newbie
Dean

Love hearing stories like this. Nice job Dean!

G

[jedz]

Great to hear about that mate!

Keep it up! Following the advise of our fellow warriors will give us better results.
Hope you can make it more.

[Zeus66]

Originally Posted by alexa_s

I can vouch for this part, having downloaded and read it myself yesterday. Thank you, John.

Hey, thanks Alexa! I'm glad you got something useful from it. If you're still on my list, I just sent out an email to everyone with a free article page maker. It converts raw text to HTML through a really simple process. I use it all the time. I'll be sending out cool stuff like that all the time to people on my list. I like freebies!

John

[camforbes]

Good stuff! Keep up the good work and keep up the article posting!

[pmore]

Congratulations! Keep up the good work, but don't forget to look into other traffic generation methods, too.

[Alex Arseniy]

What is the process of writing articles??

How do i begin??

[Lisa Gergets]

That's AWESOME, Dean! Isn't it amazing once you "get it"...how it becomes so much easier to do? Congrats on your success and keep it going!!!

[um1001]

Seconding someone else said about creating one article per day. I do this for new sites for the first 3 months or so. 90 articles equates to about 300-500 uniques a month for me (I was averaging about 25% click through until recently...I read an WSO and applied a couple of techniques that have brought me up to more like 35%)

A few generic tips for those who may not know already:

• Make compelling headlines. Spend a lot of time on it. This will really increase your views
• Aim for keyword density approaching 2-4% - use LSI keywords for maximum effectiveness
• As always, make a strong call to action in your resource box. I usually use a 'command' ... something like: "Now read about [acne treatment options]" .. don't make the mistake of waffling on about yourself. Seriously, nobody cares. Tell them what to do next.
• Make sure you spend some time promoting your articles - my favorite way is to submit the author feed to RSS directories but you can make backlinks and spend a lot of time on it. I usually have lots of keyworded articles all pointing back to a central theme site. This works very effectively
• DO NOT BE BORING ... nobody likes to read a dry article. Hype it up some but don't go over the top. Be authoritative and interesting. Study and apply copy-writing techniques ... you want to lead them naturally into your call to action.

Good luck to you!

[actionplanbiz]

Thanks for Posting.

I will try to submit an article today

Thanks again

[Mike Hersh]

Things DO work. You just have to believe

Good luck,

Mike G

[1960Texan]

That's great, Dean! Nothing like the thrill of success to keep you going.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Okay so what is your plan for the traffic? How are you going to convert it? You should think about this before you write. Success is measured in different ways, and traffic is good and it feels great to see your efforts turn into reality. But the ultimate reality is the conversion and the sale.

I know a person who posted and article and got an insane 16,000 visitors the first day! But they didn't make any money off the traffic, because they didn't have any plan for the traffic. But they sure were exited about all that traffic.