Exactly How To Presell With Your Articles And In Turn Make More $$$

[Max Ramocsai]

First of all, I'd like to apologize. Why? Because I'm not sure how long this post is going to turn out. I can only assure you that there will be a lot of content.

What I am about to go over is exactly how to presell your visitors to whatever offer you have using only your articles. I am going to do this by breaking down how I write my articles in order to get the most click thru's and the most sales possible.

But before we get started you need to know one thing. This is how "I" presell using articles. While this method has been proven to work for me I cannot guarantee that it will work for you. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt when reading through this post.

With that said, let's get started with the good stuff...

It All Starts With The Title

Before your potential customers ever see the content of your article they are going to see the title of your article. Therefor, it is very important that you get things right when crafting your title. Many people don't realize this when article marketing and as a result end up not getting as much exposure as they could have.

In order to craft your title in a way that will both get your article the most exposure possible and presell your visitor before actually reading the article you will need make sure you do 2 things:

• Create a title that is enticing and makes the potential reader/customer curious.

• Create a title that leads the reader believe that your article will act as a "gateway" to what they desire.

Making sure that your article does both of these things is essential to crafting an article that gets the most views possible and does the best job at preselling the reader. Here is an example of a title that would most likely perform well taking these two factors into account:

"Pave Your Way To Internet Marketing Success By Following These 3 Simple Steps"

Keep in mind that I literally came up with this title in a few seconds so it isn't quite a masterpiece. With that said, if you look at the title you'll see that it would perform well for several reasons.

The first reason why it would perform well is because it takes a generic concept and presents it in a more interesting manner. Instead of just saying something like "How To Be Successful At Internet Marketing", I created something a little more unique and a little more interesting.

Another reason why this title would perform well is because it leads the reader to believe that my solution will be relatively easy. People absolutely love tips and quick solutions that are easy to digest. And that is exactly what this title leads the potential customer to believe.

The last reason why this title would perform well and why it starts to presell the reader is because I am giving the impression that by reading my article and following my "3 easy steps" that they will be successful. And in order to be successful at internet marketing they must follow what is in my article.

If the reader has gotten this impression and has decided to read my article then I have succeeded at creating a great title. Now, let's get started with the actually content...

First Impressions Are Very Important

After crafting the perfect title you are naturally going to want to start writing the actual content of the article. And the first section of your article is going to be your introductory paragraph.

The intro paragraph is almost as important as the title in that you must sustain the reader's attention. You got it when they clicked on your title and now you have to keep it by gaining their interest.

A great way to do this right off the bat is to ask them a rhetorical question about how things would change for them if they were to get the solution they are after. Have them visualize the solution and then tell them that the will get it in the rest of your article.

Here are some basic things you should try to cover in your intro:

• Why they are looking at your article (remind them of their problem)

• What they need to know in order to solve that problem

• That they can get what they desire by reading the rest of your article and following your outlined steps

Basically, get their emotions going to the point where they want more and then offer it to them by leading them on to the rest of your article. Above all you need to reiterate that if they read your article and follow the outlined steps that they will get what they want.

After that, you'll need to move on to the body paragraphs...

Prove Yourself

The body paragraphs are probably the most important when it comes to preselling your readers. You need to prove to the reader that you are a trustworthy source of information and advice while convincing them to take advantage of what you have to offer. Of course, doing these two things is a lot easier said than done because you can't just come out and tell the reader that "I know what I am talking about" and "You should take advantage of my offer".

What you will want to do is first choose your first two steps. You will want to make sure that these steps are NOT generic and are of HIGH quality. Next, you will want to create attention grabbing headlines for each. Don't just come out and say what your step is. Make the headlines off beat and have them relate to the step in a unique way.

After this you will want to start writing the steps and include whatever you know. It is very important to include quality information and come across as an intelligent source of information. But at the same time you absolutely need to connect with the reader on a personal level.

The last body paragraph and the last step is where things get a little tricky. This is where you will doing most of the preselling and as such you need to get things right. This last step needs to be about what you are offering and what you want the reader to do after completing the article and moving on to the resource box.

What you want to do is tell the reader while they can get the solution they are after by themselves, that taking advantage of your offer will be their best bet. However, when I say "your offer" I am not talking about exactly what you are offering.

For example, if you were trying to market an internet marketing system you might say something like:

"Yes, you can learn the ins and outs of creating your own profitable internet marketing business. Tell me something though, why would you put yourself through dozens of hours of tedious research that may not even yield results when you could follow a proven system? An internet marketing system may cost you more up front but it is going to save you a ton of time and a ton of money in the long run."

Do you see what I mean when I say to tell the reader that your offer is the best way to get the solution they want? You want to get the point across that your offer is what they want but you don't want to do it in an outright way. You want to be subtle about it and come across as though you are merely passing along knowledge.

This is what you want to achieve with your last body paragraph. You want to convince the reader that your offer is their best bet without them knowing so that you can set them up for your resource box.

Speaking of resource boxes...

The Beginning Of The End

Alright, you've finally finished writing the meat of your article and are now ready to wrap things up. It is now time to craft your resource box.

This is where so many people fail at preselling the reader and getting them to click through. I really don't know why though because all it takes to succeed at creating a resource box with a high CTR is...creativity.

Seriously, as long as you don't follow the template that so many use then you'll be fine. This means no more talking in the third person and bragging about what you've accomplished or why you should be taken seriously.

If you want to get the reader to click through then you need to grab their attention. Create a sense of urgency by saying things like, "Pssst...I forgot to tell you something" or "Wait just one second!". These may seem ridiculous but believe me when I say that they work.

After getting their attention make it clear to them that you have done all of the hard work for them and then allow them to take advantage of your hard work by clicking whatever link you are offering.

Most importantly though, be creative! Don't be afraid to try new techniques that may seem stupid or ridiculous because more often than not they will work much better than the "norm".

Always At Your Service

I think I'll end things on a (hopefully) good note by wrapping up the post right here. I really do hope that you could get something out of it because I sure did put a lot of effort into making this thread helpful.

Anyway, if you have any questions or any feedback please do post. It's always nice to see people respond to something you've done.

Ok, I'm really ending the post now. To your success!

-Max

[Max Ramocsai]

One more thing that I forgot to mention.

I have successfully made sales straight from the article just by preselling in the article. Basically, I just purchased a cheap and relevant .info domain and then redirected it to the affiliate product. If you do a good enough job at preselling in your article then you can direct the reader to the merchant page and make a sale. Some might disagree with this technique but it definitely can be done.

With that said, using the preselling method in the OP can be used to either make a direct sale or send the reader to a landing page. Either way it should work just fine.

[Janos]

Thanks for your good advice. Your post showed me that I need to work on my article writing skills, especially writing eye catching titles.

[tommygadget]

That post is very good. Most people go with the "throw crap on the wall and see what sticks" method of writing articles.

TomG.

[skyjoe76]

Thanks, that's good sharing form you.

I've learn a few points from your sharing.

[Charles Butler]

Nice post max. I have a question for you...

If the article is outside of the IM niche, whats the best way about giving out the "steps" without giving the reader too much so they wont want to click through to see the product?

The health niche is a perfect example. Could you provide an example of providing 3 steps while not giving away TMI and still want the reader to click through to the product? I would really appreciate a tip because if it isnt obvious by now, my CTR is atrocious because I gave readers one little tip and I'm sure they ran with it without wanting to find out the complete system.

I'm having trouble finding that "sweet spot" of being "useful, but incomplete" that makes readers want to open their wallets and buy the product Im leading them to. What's your advice for this?

Once again, great post but I've seen this information floating on the forums too many times and I would like to ask you for a little more clarification

[Max Ramocsai]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I appreciate it and would love to hear more.

And @Charles, you are going to have to give me a little more info as to your niche and what you are trying to get the reader to do. Also, I'm not sure what you mean about this information "floating around the forums" because I can assure you that this post is unique and comes from my personal experience.

[Janos]

If you don't mind I have a question. Is it better to use an affiliate link, or another page?

[zistix]

Great post. I learned from you as well.

In my own works, I have a pretty even mix of either an affiliate link or myown page. But, I usually do both anyway. Double attack, and double saturation seems to work for me.

Thanks again Max

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by zistix

Great post. I learned from you as well.

In my own works, I have a pretty even mix of either an affiliate link or myown page. But, I usually do both anyway. Double attack, and double saturation seems to work for me.

Thanks again Max

Glad I could help. It's definitely a good idea to test and see what works best for you and then to capitalize on it. Or, as you are, do both and diversify.

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by Janos

If you don't mind I have a question. Is it better to use an affiliate link, or another page?

Sorry for not answering sooner. I didn't catch your question the first time.

To answer it for you, it really depends on a lot of things. If you would like to try and make some quick sales then using a cloaked affiliate link might work out for you. However, if you would like to presell the visitor even further or build a list then you should direct them to a landing page.

If you give me some more info as to what you would like to achieve then I could probably help you further.

[affilcrazy]

Originally Posted by Charles Butler

Nice post max. I have a question for you...

If the article is outside of the IM niche, whats the best way about giving out the "steps" without giving the reader too much so they wont want to click through to see the product?

The health niche is a perfect example. Could you provide an example of providing 3 steps while not giving away TMI and still want the reader to click through to the product? I would really appreciate a tip because if it isnt obvious by now, my CTR is atrocious because I gave readers one little tip and I'm sure they ran with it without wanting to find out the complete system.

I'm having trouble finding that "sweet spot" of being "useful, but incomplete" that makes readers want to open their wallets and buy the product Im leading them to. What's your advice for this?

Once again, great post but I've seen this information floating on the forums too many times and I would like to ask you for a little more clarification

Hey Charles,

This is something that i have tried with relative success.

One thing that seems to go down well within in the health niche is "Top Tips". For some reason Top Tips seem to work well with the numbers 3, 5, 7 or 10.

So at the beginning of your article you tell your reader that you want to save the best for last, so Top Tip number 1 will be at the end of the article, this ensures that your reader either stays engaged and reads through the whole article or even just scrolls straight down to the bottom.

Or another way is to give your tips in reverse order, so first at the top of the article is Top Tip 5, then 4, then 3 and so on!

Then Top Tip number 1 is mentioned within your resource box (without actually telling your reader what it is) with a direct link to your site, blog, lens, etc and this will lead them to a page to discover exactly what your Top Tip number 1 is!

Then once you have reader on your main page, your Top Tip number 1 will be more in-depth than the other tips provided in your article as it is your number one and best tip (think blog post!) and you will already have your readers where you want them anyway!

i've just read this back and the words "Top" and "Tips" are ringing in my ears and have confused the hell out of me!! If you are confused about what i have written, let me know and i will try a simpler method of explaining!

[epicbob]

Thanks for this thread Max. I realize now that I have to work on preselling in my articles. That's probably why I get no sales from my articles.

[Roy Carter]

Good post Max.

Worth a mention also that you should always try to ensure that your title is not only intriguing but should also include your main keyword phrase for seo purposes.

Roy

[NaturalStyle]

Originally Posted by affilcrazy

Hey Charles,

Or another way is to give your tips in reverse order, so first at the top of the article is Top Tip 5, then 4, then 3 and so on!

Then Top Tip number 1 is mentioned within your resource box (without actually telling your reader what it is) with a direct link to your site, blog, lens, etc and this will lead them to a page to discover exactly what your Top Tip number 1 is!

Counting top tips down instead of counting up is a great idea. Regarding having the last one as a link in the resource box: this idea is very sweet, unfortunately EZA seems not to allow this. Whenever I play around with things like that, they remind me that my article has to live up to the promise made in the article's title. So if I have "top 5" in the title, there need to be 5 points in the article's body.
But maybe you have less demanding reviewers :-)

[MosaicDan]

Hi,

To the questions about how to create a desire to click over to the presell from the article with health products, I have a lot of experience there.

In fact, I run an entire private training service just on this.

One powerful method I use is to give information about specific ingredients, but leave out a lot of ingredients as a teaser.

For example, I promote a line of lifetime income paying skin care products with all natural ingredients. There are several exotic ingredients in this product that have been clinical tested for various things like reducing wrinkles, hydrating the skin, stimulating collagen and elastin production, and so forth.

I realize that most of the readers of the articles will never have heard of any of these ingredients, so in my articles I will introduce them to a couple of them, which really peaks their curiosity.

I tell them what the ingredients are called and what they have been clinically shown to do.

Then I will end the article with a teaser, something along the lines of "To learn about more natural ingredients just like these that I use daily myself, visit...."

It works. 200 students and thousands and thousands and thousands of articles written by my students and submitted to the article directories and a flood of sales daily proves it works.

In any case, this is just one method you can employ when you are dealing with a health product that has multiple ingredients in it (skin care, supplements, etc).

Regards,
Dan

[Max Ramocsai]

Awesome feedback guys! Keep it coming.

[Janos]

Originally Posted by Max Ramocsai

Sorry for not answering sooner. I didn't catch your question the first time.

To answer it for you, it really depends on a lot of things. If you would like to try and make some quick sales then using a cloaked affiliate link might work out for you. However, if you would like to presell the visitor even further or build a list then you should direct them to a landing page.

If you give me some more info as to what you would like to achieve then I could probably help you further.

Thanks. I am trying to promote a couple of ClickBank products and I have a website too.

[Guitarnut]

The reverse order of tips is an awesome idea! Thanks for that one!

As for using it in EZA, you could get around that by still giving the number of tips in the article that your title claims but then use the resource box to offer them a "home run bonus tip" if they click through.

It's worth a test run anyway.

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by Janos

Thanks. I am trying to promote a couple of ClickBank products and I have a website too.

It might be worth it to split your efforts up. What I mean by this is write half of your articles with the intention of directing visitors to the merchant's page and write the other half with the intention of directing visitors to your own landing page/website.

If you already have a website then it might be best just to think about the long term. Again, there are a lot of variables to consider.

Hope this helped. Feel free to ask any more questions.

[moneytize]

great post!

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by moneytize

great post!

I appreciate the fact that you liked the post but do you have any more input? You're obviously new around here so I'd love to give you some good advice if need be. I just need you to give me something to work with.

Anyway, I guess I'm saying that I hope you aren't just trying to inflate your post count.

[louisekasemeier]

This was really useful. I have 19 articles up on EZA and their performance have been really diverse. Some have had pretty good views and clickthroughs but others have just sucked. This is has helped me figure out some of the reasons why.

A problem I have is trying to balance quality and preselling with keywords. Some of the keywords I have targeted are very 'longtail', six words in one case. It never seems natural to include it and to me that detracts from the article and makes readers less likely to read to the end. Should I stick with shorter keywords?

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by louisekasemeier

This was really useful. I have 19 articles up on EZA and their performance have been really diverse. Some have had pretty good views and clickthroughs but others have just sucked. This is has helped me figure out some of the reasons why.

A problem I have is trying to balance quality and preselling with keywords. Some of the keywords I have targeted are very 'longtail', six words in one case. It never seems natural to include it and to me that detracts from the article and makes readers less likely to read to the end. Should I stick with shorter keywords?

I'm glad you found it useful. As far as including your keywords in the body goes I would just do it naturally. What I mean by this is don't force yourself to include your keyword phrase "x" amount of times. Instead, focus on the readability of your article first.

If you feel that the density is a little low then you could always go back and do some editing but making the article informative and easy to read should come first.

Hope I could help.

[currencyschool]

I wrote an article on how to properly embed an affiliate link within an another article so that flows naturally within the overall content of the article. Many have told me that they found it helpful. The article is posted on Mooker and it is in the online marketing section

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by currencyschool

I wrote an article on how to properly embed an affiliate link within an another article so that flows naturally within the overall content of the article. Many have told me that they found it helpful. The article is posted on Mooker and it is in the online marketing section

If you getting results and good feedback then you are right where you need to be when it comes to article marketing. It is all about catering to the needs of your readers while getting them to do what you want at the same time.

[mocapital]

really really great post...thank you

[JEL0221]

Thank you for the great info. For someone like myself who plans to write his first articles in the next day or two this helps a ton!

J

[Joe Stewart]

Good post Max! I've used some of these same techniques in my articles too.

It's amazing how many different authors have had success by writing articles using different methods. Some people will swear that the article must have real substance, a minimum amount of words and identify themselves in the resource box. Others may write their articles at exactly 250 words (the EZA minimum), not worry much about substance in the article, but use a strong call to action in the resource box. There are many more ways too, of course. :-)

I've had a bit of dialogue with some of the top writers at EZA, Tim Gorman, Sean Mize and Lance Winslow, to name a few, and all three of them have completely different styles, however what they're all doing is still extremely effective.

I'm always looking to learn stuff from others that are having success with article writing.

Thanks for sharing!

Joe

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by Guitarjoe

Good post Max! I've used some of these same techniques in my articles too.

It's amazing how many different authors have had success by writing articles using different methods. Some people will swear that the article must have real substance, a minimum amount of words and identify themselves in the resource box. Others may write their articles at exactly 250 words (the EZA minimum), not worry much about substance in the article, but use a strong call to action in the resource box. There are many more ways too, of course. :-)

I've had a bit of dialogue with some of the top writers at EZA, Tim Gorman, Sean Mize and Lance Winslow, to name a few, and all three of them have completely different styles, however what they're all doing is still extremely effective.

I'm always looking to learn stuff from others that are having success with article writing.

Thanks for sharing!

Joe

You're welcome. And yes, there definitely are a TON of ways to go about preselling the reader with article marketing. However, there are also definitely some core techniques that are somewhat standard when trying to presell the reader.

[sarasayshi]

Wow, thanks for this post. I am always struggling with my bulk affiliate content posts and and I think this information has greatly changed the way I wrote in the past.

[traces2757]

Originally Posted by louisekasemeier

This was really useful. I have 19 articles up on EZA and their performance have been really diverse. Some have had pretty good views and clickthroughs but others have just sucked. This is has helped me figure out some of the reasons why.

A problem I have is trying to balance quality and preselling with keywords. Some of the keywords I have targeted are very 'longtail', six words in one case. It never seems natural to include it and to me that detracts from the article and makes readers less likely to read to the end. Should I stick with shorter keywords?

Remember that optimum saturation for keywords is between 1% and 2%. Unless a client of mine specifies more or less saturation, I usually stay right with 1.5%. This amount seems to work beautifully for ranking while still allowing for a readable article. Placement can be important too, and though the title should always have the keyword or keyword phrase in it, it isn't part of the overall saturation count.

So ideal placement for a standard 4-paragraph 400-word article is to put the keyword/phrase once in the title, twice in the first paragraph, twice in the second paragraph, once in the third paragraph and once in the fourth paragraph.

Sometimes you have to get creative with longtails. For instance, if your longtail keyword phrase was "lose weight safely", you try to use it in different contexts. In one instance you might say "most people want to lose weight safely." In another instance you could put "this person decided to lose weight quickly and forget about the advice he got to lose weight safely". Later you could put "lose weight safely or lose weight quickly--does it have to be either/or?"

The key is to surround it with diverse context so that nobody thinks they are seeing a redundant phrase.

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by traces2757

Remember that optimum saturation for keywords is between 1% and 2%. Unless a client of mine specifies more or less saturation, I usually stay right with 1.5%. This amount seems to work beautifully for ranking while still allowing for a readable article. Placement can be important too, and though the title should always have the keyword or keyword phrase in it, it isn't part of the overall saturation count.

So ideal placement for a standard 4-paragraph 400-word article is to put the keyword/phrase once in the title, twice in the first paragraph, twice in the second paragraph, once in the third paragraph and once in the fourth paragraph.

Sometimes you have to get creative with longtails. For instance, if your longtail keyword phrase was "lose weight safely", you try to use it in different contexts. In one instance you might say "most people want to lose weight safely." In another instance you could put "this person decided to lose weight quickly and forget about the advice he got to lose weight safely". Later you could put "lose weight safely or lose weight quickly--does it have to be either/or?"

The key is to surround it with diverse context so that nobody thinks they are seeing a redundant phrase.

Some good advice here Tracy. When it comes to keyword density you don't want to go too far over 1% when submitting to EZA.

EzineArticles WILL come down on you if they feel you are "keyword stuffing". So, in order to make your article keyword rich without raising any flags you'll need to be creative with how you include your keywords.

Just like Tracy said, you can include a single keyword phrase multiple times without ever technically using it. Putting the phrase together in a different way or splitting it up with one or two words will allow you to SEO your article without going overboard in the eyes of EZA.

[sajae102]

These are some really good tips. i do that right now as far as preselling articles on a regular basis. All of my articles are prewritten by me! Yeah, but the title is important, but I guess it depends on what niche you are covering. I mean, the niche I cover is health, so I don't know how interesting of a topic you can come up with.

[tpw]

Originally Posted by Max Ramocsai

One more thing that I forgot to mention.

I have successfully made sales straight from the article just by preselling in the article. Basically, I just purchased a cheap and relevant .info domain and then redirected it to the affiliate product. If you do a good enough job at preselling in your article then you can direct the reader to the merchant page and make a sale. Some might disagree with this technique but it definitely can be done.

With that said, using the preselling method in the OP can be used to either make a direct sale or send the reader to a landing page. Either way it should work just fine.

I have also made good money with this method. In one article, I mentioned as an aside to the main story a link that pointed to the landing page of a two-tier affiliate program that the article's audience might find useful. That article was well received on the internet. Since the original distribution of that one article, I have made nearly $5000 from that affiliate program over the last five years.

Bill

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by tpw

I have also made good money with this method. In one article, I mentioned as an aside to the main story a link that pointed to the landing page of a two-tier affiliate program that the article's audience might find useful. That article was well received on the internet. Since the original distribution of that one article, I have made nearly $5000 from that affiliate program over the last five years.

Bill

Great job man! Yeah, there is definitely a lot of potential with direct linking using articles especially if you are giving the reader great content without giving too much and are preselling effectively.

It really all depends on how you want to do it. I mean, if you have the potential customer ready to find out about your solution then staggering the end result might even be less effective.