7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Steps to set up Article Syndication Business

by PhilipT
5 replies
Hello

I am about to gird my loins and fling myself into setting up an article syndication business. I have read through a large number of threads on article syndication on the WF. I am especially grateful for the contributions in numerous threads on this subject from Alexa Smith, AnniePot, myob, Joe Robinson, John McCabe and Tiff Lee. Indeed Tiff Lee has written an excellent free ebook on article syndication available here

Forgive me if I have omitted anyone who deserves a specific mention.

I thought it might be helpful, both for me and for others, to set out what I see as the steps you need to go through to get your article syndication business up and running. Anyone is welcome to chip in and tell me where my thinking has gone wrong. I also have a few questions, in italics, which will appear as I go along.

I hope others find this exercise useful.

1. Select Clickbank niche
Both Alexa Smith here and Tiff Lee (in her ebook) have set out excellent lists of criteria to use in selecting a CB product to promote.

Choose a niche in which you have a real interest and some expertise.

Apart from IM are there any other niches to avoid? For example I have some knowledge and interest in a particular aspect of weightloss. I realize that weightloss as a whole is a very competitive niche but could it be worth exploring in certain specific sub niches?

2. Buy domain
The domain name should be niche specific and not product specific. While Google ranking is not a key feature of article syndication it is considered useful to include a well ranked keyword in the domain name.

Is this correct?

3. Free Report
Write a good quality free report (10 to 15 pages?) related to your niche which can be downloaded from your forthcoming website for those who opt into your mailing list.

4. Sign up for an Autoresponder service
The one I use is Aweber. The cost is about $20 per month.

5. Set up Wordpress site
Include in a prominent position an opt-in form at the top of the sidebar. The opt-in form can be created on the Aweber site and then inserted on your site.

Question: Should the home page (also the landing page) be be a static page or a blog page?

An excellent suggestion from Joe Robinson is that the content of the home page could be a juicy extract from the free report which will encourage readers to learn more by signing up on the opt-in form.

Have no reference at all on your site to any specific CB product you are planning to promote. The purpose of your site in not to SELL anything, but rather to get people to sign up to your list, so that you can subsequently write to them with more solid info to build up trust and, from time to time, to promote an offer.

Is this correct?

5. Write some articles on the niche and upload to website
The articles should be niche specific and not product specific.

How many articles should you put up to start the process? How long should each article be - 1,000 to 1,500 words?

The articles should be high quality in content and presentation with the intention of helping you to define yourself as an expert in that field.

Should the articles on your website include the possibility of visitors to the site putting in comments, or should comments be excluded?

How important is humour in your writing? Wit and humour are not my strong points in my writing. My strong point in my writing is clarity of expression.

6. Wait for your articles to be indexed by Google
How do you know when Google has indexed your article(s)? How long does indexation normally take?

7. Send articles to EZA once Google has indexed the articles on your site
In the Resources Box of each article include a short call to action with a link to your home/landing page on your site. Do not refer to any CB product or include any link to any CB product in your article or Resource box. Any reference to an affiliate link in your article will put the kibosh on your attempts to get the article syndicated.

It is vital that you get your article indexed by Google from your site before you submit it to EZA. You don't want the EZA version ranked higher than your website version.

8. Passive syndication
You hope that some authority sites will notice your EZA article and will want to reproduce it on their sites, with the all important Resource box link included. This is passive syndication.

9. Active syndication
You contact the webmasters of appropriate authority blogs and ezines asking if they would like to publish your article on their sites with the Resources box intact. if the article is high quality some will say yes. This is active syndication.

Some people have recommended obtaining the Directory of Ezines to track down webmasters of ezines. What do people think?

10. Activate autoresponder
You set up your autoresponder to send out a sequence of emails about your niche to anyone who has signed up to your list. The purpose of sending out these emails is to build up trust with the people on your list.

Each person on your list gets the same sequence of emails and every so often you send out an additional informative email to your whole list to maintain their awareness of you.

What is the frequency of emails that you send to your list?

Every so often you send out an email to your list promoting a CB product.

After how many normal emails do you send out the promotional email?

11. Keep on going

Write a new article related to your niche, say, three times a month. Put each one up on your website first. When Google has indexed it submit it to EZA. Undertake active syndication all over again. Build list.

12. Rinse and repeat in other niches
Identify new niches and suitable products in CB and repeat all of the above.

13. Get rich
Buy Italian farmhouse and vinyard in Tuscany


Have I missed out anything vital? Am I talking rubbish anywhere? All responses, both to my questions and any others will be welcome.

I hope this has been helpful to others.

Thanks

Philip
#article #business #set #steps #syndication
  • Profile picture of the author marketinguk
    Are you sure this is detailed enough LOL. Seriously Philip this is brilliantly put together and very well structured although i don't play in this space at all. I like point 13 though, you have to have clearly defined goals at the end of it which i think many people lose track of. One of my mentors told me his aim is to retire as quickly as possible with a certain figure in mind and then he's out. It certainly helps sharpen the mind i find.
    Joel
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6581359].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Nicely done, Philip.

      I only have a couple of things to mention.

      > Once you have a niche-specific list (as opposed to product-specific), you don't have to limit yourself to Clickbank. If it's appropriate to the niche, you can also recommend physical products. Because physical products have overheads, you won't see the 50%-75% commission rates, but you can see additional streams of income.

      > Once you have a list of syndication partners, I would alter your sequence slightly:
      1. Article published on your own site only until indexed.
      2. Article sent to existing syndication partners. Allow a short time for them to post your article and get it indexed (I usually wait 2 weeks).
      3. After the waiting period, then post to EZA or your directory of choice.

      In your online travels, you also want to keep your eyes open for niche-specific directories you can submit to. Good ones can get you more traction than the big boys sometimes.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6581920].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
    Banned
    1. I wouldn't select a niche based on Clickbank. I would select a niche based on what I wanted to write about, and then see if Clickbank has products that will fit my niche.

    2. Yes, Google ranking is considered a nice side benefit of article syndication. Is a keyword based domain name necessary or relevant? I don't know, and haven't worried much about it to be honest. I just pick a domain name that is relevant to what my site is about. Sometimes it will include a keyword, sometimes it won't. No problems either way.

    3. Agree. Make it a great one .

    4. Agree. I switched solely to GetResponse recently, and like them more. Go with what works best for you though.

    5. Personally, I have 4-5 articles ready to go when I launch a site. 1,000 words is my personal minimum, they can go as high as 2,500. Alexa has said more than once 800-1,200 is ideal. Go with that to start off, make sure that you can write something interesting in that word range without having to fluff things up.

    Allowing comments is a matter of personal preference. I don't personally, might as well just ask the backlink spammers to come on in.

    Play to your strengths (humor) but only if the niche content actually calls for it. I said it somewhere else earlier today: you don't want to be making fat jokes to a reader who is sensitive about their weight and trying to find help.

    6. Copy and paste part of your article into Google (put quotes around the text) and see if your website and the article come up. It can take a few hours, it can take a few days. Depends on how long your site has been around.

    9. I'm switching things around, active syndication should be before passive syndication. It's the crux of the strategy, you want your publishers to know they are more important than the article directories. DOE is still a nice supplement, and there is nothing better on the web. I have recommended it to people more than once. It's not as great as it was in the past (I haven't had it long enough to know personally, but that is what longtime subscribers are saying), but still worth having.

    7/8. Same thing, so I'll combine them. Your ideas here are correct though.

    10. I send out an email once every 5 days. That's worked out so far. I just keep feeding more articles into the Autoresponder sequence personally, I don't very much like broadcasts. I'm conditioning my readers to expect certain things at certain times. You don't have to copy that idea though.

    11. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

    12. Swimming! Swimming! Swimming!

    13. That is the end goal, yes .
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6581982].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    I probably can't add much to the posts from the guys above, here, but will throw in a spanner or two, as is my wont ...

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    I am about to gird my loins and fling myself into setting up an article syndication business.
    I wish you very well with it. Especially the loin-girding, which you've rightly identified as a key component to any successful business set-up, these days.

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    Apart from IM are there any other niches to avoid?
    Anything you can't/won't write about?

    Personally, I stay away from "make money online" as well as "IM" itself (over the same worries about being paid, if my customers are themselves CB affiliates).

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    While Google ranking is not a key feature of article syndication it is considered useful to include a well ranked keyword in the domain name.

    Is this correct?
    For me, it's "at the start of the domain-name". None of these so-called "stop-words" before the main keyword. No "best" in front of the keyword. If I add anything to the keyword, I add it after, not in front.

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    3. Free Report
    Write a good quality free report (10 to 15 pages?) related to your niche which can be downloaded from your forthcoming website for those who opt into your mailing list.
    Continuity matters.

    The purpose of your website is to collect the email address. The primary purpose of the "free report" is to make sure that all the subsequent emails are awaited, opened and read.

    It's not just a free report, in other words: it's part of your continuity process <---- big important point

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    Have no reference at all on your site to any specific CB product you are planning to promote.
    I do. I have product reviews, and so on. Not prominent. Not normally on the front page, but I do have them.

    I see that it would be perfectly possible to make the site without them. It would be inconvenient, though. I make sure I always put a link in my emails for people to click on (you have to "train the audience" to some extent), and sometimes things like that are convenient for them to click on. If it's a promotional or partly-promotional email, which, of course, many aren't.

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    The articles should be niche specific and not product specific.
    Definitely.

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    How many articles should you put up to start the process?
    3 or 4? You could start with 2.
    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    How long should each article be - 1,000 to 1,500 words?
    They could be a little shorter, if you want. It won't matter much. I've kind of trained myself to write around 1,200 words.
    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    Should the articles on your website include the possibility of visitors to the site putting in comments, or should comments be excluded?
    Sup chew ... I've never allowed "comments" on any of my sites.
    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    How important is humour in your writing?
    Very. It's my "absolute essential". That's just me. Clearly you can make money from this without having them rolling in the aisles. But I do think it helps to get you syndicated.
    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    How do you know when Google has indexed your article(s)? How long does indexation normally take?
    How quickly Google indexes new content on your site depends on how often you update the site. Search engine spiders go through a learning process. They're slower to index at first. When you update regularly, they re-index regularly.

    I update each of my sites 3 times a month (one new article every 10 days is plenty for all my content needs, in a niche). And Google regularly indexes my new content within 24 hours.

    You can tell when your article's indexed simply by putting a 10-word chunk from it into Google, between "inverted commas": when it shows up in the SERP's, it's been indexed.

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    Some people have recommended obtaining the Directory of Ezines to track down webmasters of ezines. What do people think?
    I like it. You get more than just the directory, for your subscription. There's "support", too. And they're good people there.

    There are some other suggestions, somewhere ... here they are: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6581701

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    What is the frequency of emails that you send to your list?

    Every so often you send out an email to your list promoting a CB product.

    After how many normal emails do you send out the promotional email?
    Answered here: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5300985

    Originally Posted by PhilipT View Post

    Buy Italian farmhouse and vinyard in Tuscany
    Again, I'm going to have to dissent slightly, here. Here's the thing: Tuscany is very fully valued. Overvalued, in fact, my father says (trust me on this: he knows about this kind of thing). Ok, nobody can tell what's going to happen with the Italian economy over the next few years (has there been a time during the last 50 years that that wasn't so?), but personally, I'd really be looking more at Puglia, for many reasons ...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6584977].message }}

Trending Topics