12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Some questions from a beginner

by DoktorKubik
10 replies
Come one, come all!

Hey there, I'm Doktor Kubik and I'm a born-again rookie at this online marketing thingamabob. I used to enjoy deep-diving into the world of SEO and article writing back when I started studying at the university back in 2005, but it seems a lot has changed since then (unlike my status as a student, I'm going for my Ph. D so I'll be poor forever). Not at all surprising, of course, but it's the reason for my starting this thread.

What I have are a series of questions along with some information about my personal style (which you are more than free to critique, of course, if you feel there are aspects I should change in terms of my attitude towards all of this), what I would appreciate are good answers, and what I would love are tips straight from the horses' mouths. The horses being you experienced forum-dwellers. Don't be a neigh-sayer, people! Okay, sorry, done with the puns.

First off, my attitude and situation:

- As a poor student, cheap is good and free is better. I'll gladly spend earnings on working towards improvement, but my starting funds are low.
- Not looking for a quick fix (though, if you want to send me money in the mail, feel free!) but more of a solid trickle, if you will.
- I'm not the "hard sell"-kind of guy, I'd like to build solid content and have that pay off rather than, say, spamming people with some crummy landing page hoping to score a few randoms.
- I enjoy writing and don't see writing a lot as a downside, quite the opposite. Being an aspiring author, I enjoy all opportunities to hone my craft, I just have no clue how to channel this energy in a way that will actually build up momentum rather than just get stuck in the mucky bottom of the barrel.
- I really appreciate you taking the time to help me, it means a lot.

Okay, on to the questions:

I'll give an example after the questions to further explain which specifics I'd like answered. Stay tuned, kids!

1. What is a good way to get started? For instance, I have been thinking about article marketing, but I have no clue how to go about it. I believe I have the skills to write, but I there is so much knowledge I lack that the empty space could fill over 9,000 donut holes. Website or blog? Do I need to buy domain and hosting right off the bat or can I wait and use future earnings for that?

2. What are some effective article marketing techniques? Let's say I each day try to write a really interesting article filled with knowledge and wit and attractive facial features and everything else I am so well-known for, how do I actually make any money off of them? How do I get them syndicated, and where? How do I turn traffic from article syndication into cold, hard cash? As I said, I'm generally not a fan of the "hard sell", so I hadn't planned to include, say, a link to a splash page or anything like that in the articles.

3. In your experience, what are expected returns for a beginner such as myself? Let's say I've written ten articles and submitted them for syndication, what kind of traffic is possible? Just a ballpark. One visitor per article and month? Ten? A hundred? Twelve billion? I realize this depends on quality, but just so I have a clue about the volume I need to produce vis-à-vis the expected return in interested traffic to my site.

4. What are reasonable earnings? How much, roughly, did you make after a month? Six months? A year? How much time did you have to spend to make your first dollar? Your first hundred dollar? Your first thousand? What kind of effort and skill-level am I looking at if I wanted to make, say, $100/month? $500? $1000? $5000?

5. Any do's and don'ts? Examples of good niches and bad niches? I'll probably go for something that interests me and that I have (or am willing to acquire) some knowledge about, but it's good to know the pitfalls beforehand. With my luck, I'd otherwise spend a year writing 400 great articles about how to kick a sponge against the wall, earning precisely nil from my efforts.

Concretization

Let's say I'm a huge fan of card games. I want to write articles with tips on this, and feel I have a lot to say and teach. For the record, I know next to nothing about this stuff, I'm happy if I don't lose all my juice money playing NL Hold 'Em with the guys. Okay, so in this hypothetical scenario, I'm a bit of a wiz at this. How do I approach it? Do I start a free blog named "Doktor Kubik's Card Games Tips and Tricks", write a million articles and submit them, then just sit back and wait for people to come by and donate money? (<- joke) Do I register a website that I personally own? Do I put affiliate links on it? Where? Which kind? Do I have a hundred pages with all the great articles I've written on them, and then add affiliate links... where? On a special page? In the articles themselves? In a widget to the side? In my bathtub? I have no clue here. Even if I can write something interesting that people will hopefully want to read, I have no clue as exactly how to:

- Gather my information in one place in a meaningful (read: lucrative) way
- Attract traffic to it
- Convert this traffic into sales for my affiliate products (preferrably not by hammering home a sales pitch)
- How many articles, websites, pages, visitors, months, niches it takes to earn any given sum of money. I'm not talking about $9000 a month, I just want to have some fun and make a decent income from my efforts. Looking at it like an extra job, basically, where I'd like to eventually make a decent extra income per invested hour. Not millions, but not two cents per day spent working. If you understand what I mean.

Also, as an aside, English is my second language and I live in Sweden. I'm not sure if this is of any importance or relevance to the subject at hand, I'm just putting it out there as an FYI. Try our meatballs.

Thank you so much for reading through all my ramblings, I really appreciate it. I'll appreciate it even more if you give me some tips and share some of your expert knowledge so that I can make a few bucks a day.
#advice #article marketing #beginner #marketing #questions
  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Hey dok,

    You have asked a lot of very good questions and obviously you're an intelligent person that has already thought through a lot of this IM "stuff."

    Can I make a suggestion to you at the outset?

    It is best to ask one specific question at a time in your thread. In fact, I think the forum rules also suggest this (I could be wrong as I read them a long time ago).

    If you don't and ask a whole bunch of things, most readers will be overwhelmed and not answer simply because it takes too much time and effort to explain all the details of multiple questions.

    Anyway, that's how I would approach your long list of questions. They are all good. You have multiple questions within each of your main five questions which makes answering difficult and lengthy. Just pare them down to bite sized chunks and you'll get a lot better response from the busy folks who can help you.

    Good luck,

    Steve
    Signature

    Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
    SteveBrowneDirect

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286422].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author DoktorKubik
      Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

      Hey dok,

      You have asked a lot of very good questions and obviously you're an intelligent person that has already thought through a lot of this IM "stuff."

      Can I make a suggestion to you at the outset?

      It is best to ask one specific question at a time in your thread. In fact, I think the forum rules also suggest this (I could be wrong as I read them a long time ago).

      If you don't and ask a whole bunch of things, most readers will be overwhelmed and not answer simply because it takes too much time and effort to explain all the details of multiple questions.

      Anyway, that's how I would approach your long list of questions. They are all good. Just pare them down to bite sized chunks and you'll get a lot better response from the busy folks who can help you.

      Good luck,

      Steve
      Hey, Steve!

      Thanks for the input, I did not think about that. I suppose I am a fan of the long-winded approach so I sometimes forget that others are not. I suppose the main reason for my shotgun burst of questions is that I'm not quite sure which question I should be asking first. If you were to pick out three of my questions, which would you say are the three best ones to start asking? I'm feeling a bit like I'm stumbling in the dark with this stuff, so I'm not sure which foot to stand on!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286456].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    Also, as an aside, English is my second language and I live in Sweden. I'm not sure if this is of any importance or relevance to the subject at hand, I'm just putting it out there as an FYI. Try our meatballs.
    I tried them once, in the café at Ikea. (Probably not the best place to try them? :p )

    Nice to meet you. I'm also a (very, very part-time) Ph.D. student who might eventually graduate, one day. And I'm an article marketer.

    Your English looks fine, by the way.

    I can answer some of your questions ... enough for you to know what to read, to learn what you need to know about article marketing to get started. (You'll still need to choose a niche, and all the rest of it, of course!).

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    I have been thinking about article marketing, but I have no clue how to go about it.
    I recommend starting off with a clear appreciation of the fact that article marketing has nothing intrinsically to do with SEO and keywords.

    Here's a one-post overview of how article marketing really works.

    And here's a one-post overview of how article directories really work - clearly not, in itself, the most interesting or relevant of subjects to article marketing, admittedly, but that particular post happens to contain a fairly substantial list of links to other threads which collectively provide some orientation in the basics of article marketing.

    And here's one little tip which it may help you to be aware of, even before you start reading: article marketing isn't about "how many articles you have" - it's about "who reads them", i.e. where you manage to get them published in front of the already-highly-targeted traffic you want to attract to your site, to build your list.

    And for later reference ...

    This post comments on how to write articles which other people will publish, and ...

    This one explains how to find those places where the right people are already looking, and ...

    This one offers suggestions on how to ask people to publish them.

    That should get you started, and keep you off the streets.

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    Website or blog?
    That one's answered in this thread, from yesterday: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8283079

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    Do I need to buy domain and hosting right off the bat
    Yes. You need to start building a list right off the bat, and to all intents and sensible purposes you can't really do that without a site. And if you're going to do article marketing, you need a site to publish the articles on, anyway, of course!

    You can get free hosting (Byethost, or 000WebHost, or Freehostia, but not Blogger or wordpress.com) but paid is better, and it's only about $5/$6 per month.

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    I'm generally not a fan of the "hard sell"
    That's lucky, because article marketing traffic and hard-selling don't mix.

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    I hadn't planned to include, say, a link to a splash page or anything like that in the articles.
    You mean "squeeze page", not "splash page".

    I happen to agree with you. (Others may not). This might interest you, especially the links in it: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7939758

    Understand this next part clearly: the purpose of having your articles syndicated is to attract traffic to a page on which you collect the visitors' email addresses. Without this, you have nothing. That's the whole idea. (It doesn't have to be a squeeze page, though: not all pages with an opt-in are squeeze pages).

    Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

    Let's say I've written ten articles and submitted them for syndication, what kind of traffic is possible?
    Ten articles is a huge amount! Let's say three articles, in the first month.

    However many/few articles there are, the answer depends on where you get them published.

    And your income depends on how you communicate with the people whose email addresses you collect after they've read one of your articles. This is the "income source": http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982

    Don't imagine that you can use articles to attract to your site people who will just happen to click on a link and buy an affiliate product. That isn't how it works (except very, very occasionally, as a random fluke).

    Enough, already: those threads linked to above will keep you busy for many days, I think. Good luck!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286588].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Victor Edson
    Article marketing has changed a lot from what it used to be. Gone are the days of writing content on ezine and getting traffic back to your site from those articles.

    If you're looking to earn online, I'd recommend creating a product in a niche you're familiar with, and spending your time networking, recruiting affiliates, and optimizing your conversion rates. Your best bet is to create a series of products and put them all into one sales funnel upselling buyers of your first product.

    I'd look into product creation & launching and less into blogging and article marketing.

    You might as well start selling something if you want to make money.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286685].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author DoktorKubik
      Originally Posted by Victor Edson View Post

      Article marketing has changed a lot from what it used to be. Gone are the days of writing content on ezine and getting traffic back to your site from those articles.

      If you're looking to earn online, I'd recommend creating a product in a niche you're familiar with, and spending your time networking, recruiting affiliates, and optimizing your conversion rates. Your best bet is to create a series of products and put them all into one sales funnel upselling buyers of your first product.

      I'd look into product creation & launching and less into blogging and article marketing.

      You might as well start selling something if you want to make money.
      Thanks for the response! Can you mention some products one can make? Are you talking about stuff like e-books? Because I'm not much of a carpenter.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286770].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Victor Edson
        Originally Posted by DoktorKubik View Post

        Thanks for the response! Can you mention some products one can make? Are you talking about stuff like e-books? Because I'm not much of a carpenter.
        Absolutely! Creating an ebook isn't much different from writing articles... you just write more and go more in depth and cover more topics for the readers with a focus on entertaining readers just as much as you educate them.

        An 8-10 page report can be very profitable, and how long would it take you to write 10 pages... a few hours?

        You'd need a sales page, but after that you could focus on networking and finding affiliates to promote your product for you.

        There's other great ways to get started online, but if you don't have as much time... creating your own product and then finding a few good affiliates to sell it is a great method to making some side income online that could grow to a full time income.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8299873].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    My approach to business (offline and online) has always been as follows:

    1. Decide on a market to serve
    2. Find a desire or need
    3. Match that desire/need with a compelling product or service
    4. Determine the best (meaning largest scale, most profitable way) to reach your market

    So, when I see people talking 90% about a way to market online (article marketing for example) without really having decided what their business IS - it makes me want to ______ (insert expletive here). Not because I blame the person making this mistake, but because so much misinformation exists that leads people to believe that a certain technique or tactic for marketing IS a business.

    The fact you like writing is great - that should definitely be a consideration into the type of products and services you want to offer along with the determination of which market you will serve, what desire you will address and what unique value you will bring to the table.

    I would take your thoughts on article marketing and "park" them for the time being.

    Now, spend the next few days digging into markets, understanding where there is a need and desire that aligns with a market that you want to operate in, get to know WHY that market will buy online and then figure out how you can offer them what they want in a slightly different (better) way than your competition.

    When you have that done, THEN you can begin to think about the best way to market to that audience...maybe article marketing is a key part of that, but perhaps there are other ways that have a better ROI that you should focus on first (building your own affiliate team, paid advertising, video blog....etc)

    Jeff
    Signature
    Turn Your Knowledge Into High-Paying Digital Products To Sell Online
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286855].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jbsmith View Post

      when I see people talking 90% about a way to market online (article marketing for example) without really having decided what their business IS - it makes me want to ______ (insert expletive here).
      Really? Doing exactly that has always worked very well for me, Jeff.

      That's my skill-set. What I earn online depends on my skill-set, and most of mine is writing. So I select niches and business-types in accordance with "what will work well with article marketing".

      It's worked out well for me.

      Originally Posted by jbsmith View Post

      so much misinformation exists that leads people to believe that a certain technique or tactic for marketing IS a business.
      Yes I agree that that's a common problem.

      Originally Posted by jbsmith View Post

      spend the next few days digging into markets, understanding where there is a need and desire that aligns with a market that you want to operate in, get to know WHY that market will buy online and then figure out how you can offer them what they want in a slightly different (better) way than your competition.
      That sounds like good advice, too.

      My reservation about it is that if you're going to be an article marketer (which clearly isn't a bad decision for someone who likes writing so much), you're going to need to know what article marketing entails before you're able to figure out how you can offer them what they want in a slightly different (better) way. I wouldn't really have been able to figure that out, for myself, at all, until I learned how article marketing really works. Because - as you rightly say - there's plenty of misinformation around on that subject (and others).

      Originally Posted by jbsmith View Post

      When you have that done, THEN you can begin to think about the best way to market to that audience...
      I needed to do that the other way round, myself.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8286985].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author katarina1
        I tried blogging many times and I will tell you the way it is. You can have amazing content on your blog and get zero visitors because nobody knows you blogging. Even if you post articles on forums.
        To be success with writing you will need 2 things.

        1.Write and publish press release about your stuff
        2.Guest blogging on popular blogs.

        Huffington blog,this woman Ariana Huffington, she was senators wife,owned radio show,she knew important people,interviewed them and sold here blog for $300 mill. If you go and see it you will notice they publish other peoples stuff with a little comment about it,that is all they do now.

        It's about who you know and who knows you!
        I will PM you one place where you can find nice people willing to work with you.You will have to rewrite your post as they tell you but if they publish your post expect 10,000 people coming your way. I would post it here but I am not sure it's aloud.
        If you want that link let me know here or PM me.
        Kat
        Signature
        We've Uncovered A 'New Secret Funnel Strategy'That Almost Nobody Knows About...
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8287030].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Keokuk26
    Hello Doktor,

    Article marketing is very involved. You mentioned that cheap is good and free is better, and if you want to save yourself some money I feel that it is best to learn the strategies and do the work yourself. Once you determine your niche you'll have to find products in that niche that you'd like to promote. Once that's done you'll have to find keywords related to that specific product or service and get an idea of whom your target market is. That'll give you a foundation or outline of what you are going to be writing about and whom your content is going to be directed to.

    It takes some time to start making money this way, however it can be done. Once the content is created and you've learned how to select keywords and angle it toward your target market then you have to try and get those pages to rank. This takes skill, technique, and time. If this is something that you don't understand you can outsource this and hire someone to do this for you, however it can get expensive.

    The key to success in article marketing is consistency and having a mass amount of good relevant content that is targeted and ranked on the 1st page of Google. After you've accomplished that then it's all about converting that traffic into sales which means you'll need to master that too. I don't know if you are familiar with following up, auto responders, and such but it's something that you may also want to consider learning.

    Wishing you the best! A great thing that you can do once you figure out what you are going to be promoting is to get started with your content writing that way you are doing something and taking action toward your goals.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8299650].message }}

Trending Topics