Totally stuck with article marketing - need advice! | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

Mohammad Afaq

14 years ago

You might wanna dig deep and search for better keywords.

Thanks

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Marx Vergel Melencio

14 years ago

Originally Posted by wardo

Hi

Article marketing is not my main way of making money online but I would really like to supplement my income using article marketing and build a reliable income stream using this method - the problem is, I am totally stuck and need help badly.

I have followed some great advice here on this forum and have written about 100 articles so far in very popular niche. My articles are good quality and get good click through rates. my landing page is simple and straight forward and gets good click through rates but I can't see how it is possible to make good money after checking my stats on ezine articles and clickbank today.

Most of my articles have a few hundred views (some with a few thousand) and the click rate on my url varies between 10% to 50%. The two articles I wrote yesterday which I thought were great quality got me 30 hops to my clickbank product with no sales. With these kind of numbers, the amount of articles I would have to write to make just 1 sale seems like a waste of time.

When I break things down, it seems like I am doing each individual thing well but nothing is coming together. I look at the top viewed articles in my niche and they have hundreds of thousands of clicks! I am clearly missing something. The product I am promoting is very popular and well known and I would expect it to convert quite well but maybe I need to promote something else.

Anyway, I am done complaining. I really want to get some success with this and refuse to quit. So, what could I be missing? How do some people seem to do so well with article marketing?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Hmmmn... I for one would study the niches and microniches as well as keywords I'm targeting to see if it has high online buyer activity...

Then, I'd also study the content pages or the squeeze and sales pages I'm leading the traffic I get from my published articles in those top ranking directories.

Finally, I'll study the products/services I'm selling or reselling along with its pricing and benefits plus overall value for buyers so I can get data which I can use for comparative analysis with the data I got doing the stuff mentioned above.

Hope this helps.

Thanks
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Hamida Harland 14 years ago

If most of your articles have a few hundred or thousand views then you're doing okay - very few articles will ever get hundreds of thousands of views. What you should be aiming for is improving your presell or choosing a product with a better conversion rate. Just because a product is well known or popular doesn't necessarily mean it converts well - and if you have alot of competition there's a chance that your visitors will visit a few other sites for more opinions before purchasing.

What you really should be doing to get the most value for your work is sending your traffic to a squeeze page. Build a list of subscribers and put the product in front of them more than once & you WILL improve your conversion rate. Plus you can sell to the same people over and over.
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- OfferJunkie 14 years ago
  
  I would highly suggest analysing your keywords you're targeting more carefully. I've found that to be one of the most important aspects in article marketing. I have to agree with Hamida on the list building strategy as it's ALWAYS a win win situation when you build a quality list not just with the product you're promoting now, but for many future products as well.
  
  Thanks
  
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TimG

14 years ago

Having written thousands of articles and generated close to 5 million page views for those articles and upwards of 500,000 click-thrus to various sites I can tell you that sometimes what seems like the best product won't make you a dime.

Sometimes only a small amount of articles is needed to drive traffic to a micro-niche where you can achieve sales daily and in other cases you need 200 to 300 articles consistently driving traffic in order to achieve the same level of sales for a more competitive niche.

What I have noticed is that some article marketers will target multiple niches and struggle to make sales in each niche where other marketers will focus primarily on one specific niche and churn articles out day and night in support of that niche in order to generate steady sales.

I see this technique in many of the health niches (weight loss, yeast infection prevention).

Take some time to research what your competitors are doing in order to promote the niche you are wanting to profit from. By research I mean look to see what articles they are submitting, where they are sending their traffic, how many articles they have submitted in support of that niche, the date of the first article they submitted in support of that niche, the date of the most current article they submitted in support of that niche and the list goes on.

Once you identify someone who is aggresively promoting a niche you want to profit from with articles you can then begin to emulate (not copy) their techniques....are they sending traffic to a sales page, a squeeze page or some combination.

Once you have identified the systems they have in place you start your own article marketing campaign in a similar fashion.

Respectfully,
Tim

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sydneypm 14 years ago

I keep reading about using "the right keywords," is Market Samurai the only way to determine profitable keywords? Or could anyone elaborate on how to find these? thanks
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- CurtisSWN 14 years ago
  
  Wardo,
  
  Are you funneling your articles through a squeeze page and building a list? Or are you just going for the sale? If you have a squeeze pages you're traffic won't be a total waste.
  
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paolo83

14 years ago

Hey Wardo!

First I would like reference to the avove replies as they hit the nail on the head.
You know you are generating traffic (loads of it!) and most important you are monitoring an awesome conversion rate.

Clearly there is an issue with the product that you are promoting, but to tell exactly what it could be it's hard as there are many factors to consider. Anyway generally speaking to increase your sales you must focus on building a list so that you can follow them up over a period of time.
This will also give you the chance to survey your list and to create a relationship with them, thus you will know in specific detail what They Are looking for. You will know if the product that you are trying to promote actually matches what they a need. If it doesn't you go and find one that does.

The other big thing that you can do to improve boost even further your conversion and get those sales (while building a list as well as...) is to actually focus on PRE-selling while building a trustworthy online presence. If they like you right off the bat you stand a better chance in selling your raccomandation.

The way i go about it is like this:
1. conduct a long tail keyword research, obviously

2. create a site or a blog where i post my content and articles which i'll syndicate afterward. (Obviously i put an opt in on the site or blog.)
The aim is to give value and build trust with your visitors, while building your list.

3. The articles that you put out on articles directories and so on will link back to your site/blog.

4. When you think the time is right, create a post/article where you promote the product (and email your list about your post) and you should see some results.

This is a strategy i use to promote specific products, expecially continuity products. It take a bit of extra time but it will build you a real affiliate Business, and not only some checks here and there.
You are great at writing, and you are having great results with traffic, so i'm sure that if you review the strategy you go about monetizing that traffic you'll eventually see sales coming in !

Kudos to you for the hard work you are putting into your project

Hope this will help,

paolo

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Your approach it wrong. Each article should be made to last, not just get a few click and then dissapear.

The way I do it is have 2 domains, my blog domain and my money site domain.

The article gets posted to the blog domain and I backlink to it so that it ranks for the low competition keyword I have chosen. Once its indexed and ranking and sending a continuous stream of traffic to my money site, I then submit it to all the article directories with a light rewrite purely for a traffic boost. I have already written the article so its no big deal to submit it to a couple of sites.

I am finding it hard to get long term rankings these days with EZA even with lots of backlinking so I put it on my domain first and do some SEO.

This is watered down technique of what I do. In reality I am doing several domains on several IP's and interlinking them. I also outsource all the writing. At first it was difficult to take an outsourced article and even get it to pay for the cost to have it written, but now each article is covering its cost within 1-2 months. That may not sound amazing but it is scalable and consistent which is nice. In a years time the money being made will be noticable

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paolo83 14 years ago

GuerrillaIM,

Thank you for the further explination...writing articles it's a valuable asset if used to build a long term business.

I agree with your startegy.

paolo
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TimG

14 years ago

Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM

Your approach it wrong. Each article should be made to last, not just get a few click and then dissapear.

The way I do it is have 2 domains, my blog domain and my money site domain.

The article gets posted to the blog domain and I backlink to it so that it ranks for the low competition keyword I have chosen. Once its indexed and ranking and sending a continuous stream of traffic to my money site, I then submit it to all the article directories with a light rewrite purely for a traffic boost. I have already written the article so its no big deal to submit it to a couple of sites.

I am finding it hard to get long term rankings these days with EZA even with lots of backlinking so I put it on my domain first and do some SEO.

This is watered down technique of what I do. In reality I am doing several domains on several IP's and interlinking them. I also outsource all the writing. At first it was difficult to take an outsourced article and even get it to pay for the cost to have it written, but now each article is covering its cost within 1-2 months. That may not sound amazing but it is scalable and consistent which is nice. In a years time the money being made will be noticable

Great laydown on your method - I'm using something similar where I have a base website which is surrounded by other websites I own which I refer to as my forward operating bases (FOBS).

The FOBS are then further strengthened with a perimeter defense system (PDS) that I design all with the intent to drive traffic to my base website and increase its search engine status/ranking in the organic search results.

What I've described is essentially my internal linking structure (although the FOBS and PDS are external to the base website). My extrenal linking structure is where all of the article marketing comes into play.

Very organized and very effective much like your method is GuerrillaIM.

Respectfully,
Tim

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Originally Posted by TimG

Great laydown on your method - I'm using something similar where I have a base website which is surrounded by other websites I own which I refer to as my forward operating bases (FOBS).

The FOBS are then further strengthened with a perimeter defense system (PDS) that I design all with the intent to drive traffic to my base website and increase its search engine status/ranking in the organic search results.

What I've described is essentially my internal linking structure (although the FOBS and PDS are external to the base website). My extrenal linking structure is where all of the article marketing comes into play.

Very organized and very effective much like your method is GuerrillaIM.

Respectfully,
Tim

Yes, this is a great method. Becomes tricky to manage though when it becomes large and multiple IP addresses can get pricey. I am planning to bump my network to 100 class C ip's this year which will not be cheap but I am setting up an adsense/EPN network on the back of it to cover the costs from the existing overhead. So if I play it right next year I will have a mahoosive network promoting my main products, and a big adsense/epn network paying for all my overheads.

Thanks

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JHandy

14 years ago

Optimized articles will bring you traffic for years. Don't be short sighted, think long term. Also the advice about having a squeeze page/lead capture page was spot on. If you think driving them to a website and you make the sale on day one is going to always work, you're deceiving yourself. Get the lead, follow up via autoresponder with a compelling message and you should start experiencing some sales. Rinse and Repeat...

Jerry

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Branlan17

14 years ago

This can be a frustrating reality and I know first hand that even with a good squeeze page/email series it can take A LOT of article volume to get your sales. My suggestion is making an authority site of your own and ranking its pages for long term SEO.

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mlord10

14 years ago

If you really want to see long term success with article marketing you need to get into the micro niches, and choose keywords carefully. Keyword tools are great, but if you really get to know a niche then you can uncover some keywords that do not even register with keyword research tools.

I focus most of my efforts these days on my offline consulting business, but before that I did a lot of affiliate marketing. I was able to get these campaigns on autopilot by targeting the proper keywords, as well as building lists in certain niches.

By building a list in your niche you will separate yourself from your competitors and get more sales long term.

Thanks
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orkut7 14 years ago

This can be a frustrating reality and I know first hand that even with a good squeeze page/email series it can take A LOT of article volume to get your sales. My suggestion is making an authority site of your own and ranking its pages for long term SEO.
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- oregongal 14 years ago
  
  You've gotten a lot of good replies already and I would think on all the good advice. My thought would be to take a really good luck at your sales page, blog or whatever you are sending your traffic to. Does it do a good job of preselling? Maybe have some people critique it for you? Spend some time studying good preselling techniques.
  
  As already mentioned, the product or merchant's sales page may not be helping you - maybe you want to test sending some of your traffic to a similar product and rewrite some of your resource boxes to link to it (if you don't want to write additional articles in the same niche just yet).
  
  Another thing to consider is if you are using "buying keywords" and not just catching the eyes of those collecting information. I'd spend a little time reading some posts on the forum about that. Also, maybe you need to delve into your long-tailed keywords some more with additional research. Then look at the sites on the first page of Google that come up for your keywords and see how many backlinks they have and what their page rank is and decide if it looks to hard to compete with them. If so, you may need some different keywords or a different product.
  
  Then, of course, you can always build links to your articles. Articles from ezine and other major directories often end up in the first few results in Google and will often even outrank authority sites. So, building links to a couple of your key articles will help them rise in the ranks.
  
  Lastly, I highly recommend that you do a search for Google Predator on the forum - it is a WSO that offers a very comprehensive plan to help you gain high ranking in Google. There are several methods outlined that you can use to do that. I'm not sure how much longer it's going to be offered as a WSO, so you may want to check it out soon.
  
  The best of luck to you.
  
  Thanks
  
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JAIDEEP2959 14 years ago

1) You need to select niche which is profitable i.e. people are desperate to buy those products.

2) You need to use proper keywords which gives most traffic to the relevant niche website.

3) You can put Amazon products' links along with Clickbank products' links on your website.

4) Put opt-in form on your website to collect leads.

5) Copy what successful competitors are doing.

Good Luck.
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kenetra

14 years ago

Someone mentioned Market Samurai which is very good keyword tool.

They are golden tips mentioned in this thread...

But my answer may not be the one you are looking for. If your ultimate goal is to create an empire then you should not be writing articles AT ALL but paying someone else to do this and other tedious tasks for you.

Find out what your time value is worth and only do those things that equate to that figure or better.

Thanks

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Originally Posted by precious007

I've seen everyone on this thread saying either that you have a wrong approach or you're not targeting the right keywords -- Untrue.

Most articles on EZA barely get 100 views an soon die off, in conclusion your articles are doing amazing. :-)

When I said he had the wrong approach, I meant the way he was looking at his figures. He was upset he wrote an article that got him 30 hops in a couple of days but no sale.

Lets call an article a $5 value. I am sure people will dispute that but if you buy in bulk you can get quality at that rate.

Imagine that the commission value for the product associated with it is $40.

If that article continues to generate 30 hops/month at the end of the year after 360 hops, what are the chances of getting a single $40 sales? I'd say they are pretty good.

Lets say you submit 10 articles per day, and each article only makes 1 sale per year at $40.

In 1 year you would spend $18,250, but generate a yearly income from that investment of $146,000.

You could quite easily outsource all the content and spend your days researching the right keywords and clicking buttons on seo software.

My target for each day is 10 unique articles, with 10 re-writes for each article, and my comission value is much higher than $40. The SEO is all pretty much automated aswell.

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

I am averaging £36/year/article at the moment. Thats rougly $55 at todays price.

That is completely seperate to the articles I use to promote my main business which I am launching in next few weeks so don't have any data on that but I imagine it will be a higher return.

My system for generating that income is not as straight forward as just submitting to article directores, but is not rocket science either. I am paying a lot for SEO costs. I have all the top software and website memberships but by doing enough volume this cost is extremely manageable.

The articles generating me a small amount of income each are just my way of covering the SEO cost of my main venture so I can afford to totally dominate the SERPS in my chosen fields, but given time they will make me a substantial income.

Thanks

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wardo

14 years ago

Thanks for the great replies.

To answer some questions here, no I do not currently capture leads via an opt in, i go for the sale at the moment. The product I am promoting seems too spammy for me to hit my list with good quality newsletters as I warm them up for the sale. I have no idea how I would market to them once they have opted in.

The process I used in the past was as follows:
1) Write an article in a high demand niche (keywords selected based on high ranking articles in same niche). Article would not normally mention the product, but do a good job of getting the link in my resource box clicked.

2) Send visitors to a review page with the top 3 products in the niche and a little bit of a story about me and how the product helped me.

3) Go off to the product landing page when the click the relevant button / link and cross my fingers for a sale.

This was clearly not very effective. I have analyzed my competitors quite a bit and each step in my process seemed to be better. I am a web designer so everything looked nice and professional which i thought would help.

My new method is exactly as above but instead of sending visitors to my review page, I send them to a short and direct page with a few bullet points highlighting what they will get and a big button to go to the product.

One thing I should mention is that my articles only get hits on the day they are published via ezine articles, not from search engines, meaning that each article is basically useless after the first day. Therefore it seems like a lot of effort writing articles that only drive traffic for one day.

I can certainly see the value of outsourcing articles and have tried that briefly (I made a small profit) but I want to be sure my process is good and I can get sales on my own before I spend any more money.

Thanks again for the great replies, looking forward to hearing more...

Thanks
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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Originally Posted by wardo

One thing I should mention is that my articles only get hits on the day they are published via ezine articles, not from search engines, meaning that each article is basically useless after the first day. Therefore it seems like a lot of effort writing articles that only drive traffic for one day.

Do keyword research and build links for your articles and you wont have to keep writing them. I only write articles that are relevant to low competition keywords and backlink every article with that keyword in anchor text.

Thanks

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Nicola Lane

14 years ago

Threads asking how to do Article Marketing come up quite often here - so I have a standard reply - I hope this helps:

Two brilliant threads to read about article marketing are these:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...marketing.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...eza-first.html

Read them both - all the way through - and take notes.

For further information I recommend the following directory - It is education in article marketing - a guide book and monthly newsletters - with a directory thrown in! You can read what Warriors think about it here:
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...alks-walk.html

Promote My Articles Article Marketing Service

also available as a WSO here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...g-service.html

I can also recommend the WSO's from this guy:

View Profile: Zeus66

This guy also has some good stuff - some article marketing some on other things

View Profile: Steven Wagenheim

Hope this helps.

Thanks

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Totally stuck with article marketing - need advice!

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