Anyone direct linking from articles and making lots of money?

I never had much success with that approach, but I don't pretend to be an expert on it. Just a dabbler over the years. What works best for me with article marketing - hands down - is directing readers to a squeeze page to build a list. Get them into your funnel that way and then sell them once you've established some rapport with them. I find article traffic to be some of the best converting in this model, along with forum traffic and video traffic.

John

What Zeus66 said is very true. Article traffic directed to a squeeze page is the way to go.

While you can make money with direct linking, building a list is way more effective.

Define "lots."
LOL!

Regardless whether it's direct linking or not, the question is, Is your article ranked on the top of the SE?

IF you're into multiple niches, it would not be practical to build a list in every niche. A list is worth nothing without relationship building.

But if you're focussing on a single niche, then 'hpgoodboy' suggestion is good, ie build a list. Again, you need to manage the list, ie build the relationship.

I agree 100% with Alexa. Build The funnel and Njoy riches for a long time.

Alex.

I would say there are a few people making 'lots' of money from direct linking (probably very few though these days).

Direct linking definitely isn't part of my business model, and I absolutely agree that traffic should be sent to a squeeze page if possible. However, I'm in a few tiny niches that I have no intention of building a list in (they just don't interest me enough), and because I sometimes use direct linking to test new 'less competitive' niches I do make a nice income from it. I sometimes go on to build niche blogs based on the keywords I'm ranking for with Ezinearticles, but not always.

As an example, I found a product in October last year that I tried promoting by direct linking from Ezinearticles. I submitted less than 20 articles for it, and when I was checking my stats the other day I realised those 20 articles had netted me $5000+ in just 1 year. And that's just 1 product.

In all I make a nice 4 figure sum every month JUST from articles I submitted in the last 2 years that are direct linking (still only a very small part of my overall income though). It's not 'lots', but it's passive income so I'm not complaining.

The trick is to find really small, uncompetitive niches that very few other marketers would even think of. Also avoid Clickbank and the bigger networks, and find independent affiliate programs that aren't widely advertised.

Do I recommend direct linking? No, not really - unless you really know what you're doing in terms of product and keyword research. And only then for testing purposes. It really is better to build a list or an authority site for long term income.

I've heard of people making good money with that strategy, but also what I've heard is that you need to write a ton of articles daily, you have to be consistent. So yes, it is possible if you are prepared to put in the work.

...this has been on my mind for a while...

What if I link from an article to my domain... and I redirect the visitor to some product, then some time later I redirect them to another product. Will that count as a backlink to the old or the new product or to the domain where I do the redirect?

1. My article -> My domain, 301 redirect to -> Product A

and then I change it later to...

2. My article -> My domain, 301 redirect to -> Product B

The backlink from the article will be counted as a backlink to my domain or any of the products?

Sorry if I sound a bit confused about directlinking and all. I am... lolz

i dont think its good for long term biz though for direct linking cos u will want to at least capture leads for all the work u put in... but in the past ive never made a cent thru direct linking though..

If you're linking directly to an affiliate sales page make sure you have a redirect set up ie

article - your site - sales page
If you do then it's very easy to change the page your visitors go to, you can have all your articles going though one redirect then if you want to change the landing page you just have to change one redirect instead of editing every article.

Reasons you may want to change the landing page
The vendor may withdraw the product or change affiliate programs
It may not convert
You may decide to take the advice above and use a squeeze

My advice is try direct linking and if it's doesn't convert use a squeeze page

My experience with this has been that I've made a few sales from a well written and highly targeted article or two with direct linking, but mostly it doesn't work.

Always best to send them to a good landing page.