Can someone help me answer a question, please?

2 replies
Hey, I have a question for the veterans out there... if you contribute to someone's ezine / blog / whatever, and a link you post, or some other method drives traffic from that person's site or blog to your opt-in page, is that kosher, or...?

Let me put it this way: Traffic / "the list" is the gas which powers the IM car. Even though my articles or whatever help the person running the site get free content they don't write, I kinda feel like if their readers click the link(s) I post in the articles, and subsequently sign up to MY list, that I'm siphoning off someone's gas.

Lol I'm rambling, but I hope someone knows what I mean... any thoughts about whether this is legit, or the vilest of thievery?

I'm a relative n00b, and I know business is business, but I'd kind of like to make good karma, not bad.

Anyway, all answers are appreciated.
#answer #list building #n00b #question
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by omdufro View Post

    I kinda feel like if their readers click the link(s) I post in the articles, and subsequently sign up to MY list, that I'm siphoning off someone's gas.
    It's a deal made (albeit often silently) between two parties. They get the content and you get some of their readers visiting your site. If they're not happy with it, they don't have to approve your content (whatever it is) on their site. So don't feel bad about it.

    I get a lot of business from this. I write long, highly informative, often provocative, usually entertaining articles and they get widely syndicated (that's part of the reason I keep them entertaining, because people want that on their sites). After publishing them myself on my own site and having them indexed there, I dump copies of them in article directories and other places. People can take them from article directories (that's what article directories are there for) and re-publish them on their own sites, with my link still showing (that's in the "terms of service"), in front of their own targeted audiences. That's the deal: they get free content and I get free visitors and backlinks, sometimes from high-PR authority sites.

    This is what "article marketing" is all about.

    The same applies to "blog comments", though, when you make them on someone else's blog. When they review the comments made, to see which ones they want to accept and which to decline, the deal is more or less the same, in principle: if you "add value" to their site, they'll let you have your link there. That's the theory, anyway.

    In short: it's their choice to allow your link (with your content) on their site.
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    • Profile picture of the author omdufro
      Thanks, Alexa! Btw, I can't resist pointing out the irony of your name, as it relates to teh interwebs.

      But really, thank you. That's the line of thought I have, but it always helps to get input from someone else. Now, not only can I sleep easy, but my list gets a booster shot.
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