A Missing Link for making money on the internet?

[Daniel McGonagle]

Please add to this thread if you have anything to share. With all the talk about SEO, linkbuilding, where to submit articles, what autoresponder to use etc... it seems that all those questions obfuscate what's REALLY needed to make money online

The missing link seems to be that people aren't writing well enough to see good conversions.

1. Would you rather spend 15 minutes writing one article that has 15-30% CTR or spend more time writing a whole bunch of articles that get lower CTR?
2. Do you want to write 15-20 articles to generate traffic to your landing pages so you get enough hits to make decent money from it?
3. Or would you rather do more with less effort?

You want your articles to be high CTR traffic generators for your landing pages.

You want your landing pages to be bringing in sales or building your subscribers list

And you also want your highly-ranked-in-the-search-engines sites and URLS to provide more than just SEO bragging right, you want something that actually benefits from high SERPs and decent traffic.

I recently read a decent short ebook from John Taylor (I think it was him) and it said that in order to make your articles effective you need to:

1. present the problem (it's hard to learn the violin - example),
2. then present some information (learning violin - here's everything that involved)
3. then present a solution (quick-start guide teaches you how to play violin like a pro in 14 days or less guaranteed etc...)

That's what a good article would look like, part 1 sets the readers up with a hook (it's hard to play piano) part 2 reinforces part 1, part 3 offers a solution.

But there's more to a good article than just what the body of the article does, but that seems like a good way to write articles, content-wise...

You need good headlines, too

Headlines with keywords in there so you get found and ranked for your chosen keywords and phrases

example boring title -Learn how to play the violin

You want a Headline with keywords in there plus a title that makes the reader want to open and read your articles instead of another person's -

example of better title - Can you learn how to play the violin like a PRO in 14 days or less?

WAIT A SEC... Keywords, what keywords?

Riggghhht, you need to do keyword research or just know your niche well enough to predict that this article will be of extreme interest to them.

What keywords do yo uuse, generic keywords for most amount of traffic, or just foucs on long-tail money keywords?

You figure that out,k?

But what about the landing pages that the articles are linking to?

What converts best here?

The reader already read the article, so now it's time to start selling and converting, right?

From what I've read and done, you should include images of products on your landing pageswhen promoting a specific product or multiple products .

When giving away a report of some kind it helps to have some sort of graphic that visually reinforces what the words on the page say you'll be getting (product, free report etc...)

So landing pages should be more salesy- but also providing enough information to move the reader along to the next step (optin, buy, click Exit)

What if your landing page is on your content site? You can't be too salesy there can you?

For "content site landing pages" I find that the more detailed your article or review is, the better it converts since people like to believe that you've done your homework and will follow you to the end of that article/review/blog post to come to your conclusion.

And besides, the more you write about something on your site the more quality unique content is being genrated, more keywords are bein gused naturally and this has the 2-fold effect of increasing SERPs and conversions (for content sites)

And your summary/conclusion/recommendation on yor content/review sites is your call to action

1. XYX is not recommended, ABC is better. Go here to read more about ABC (ABC review.html)
2. Or ...XYZ gets a 4-star rating, a 2-thumbs-up rating etc... so get it here (send me your payment details or contact me at myemail@myemailaddress.com for your bonus).

I also see people using user feedback as a way to bolster the "expertise" of reviews being written, and this is a good way to seem knowledgeable without even trying the product or owning it...

Also- ever since the PF bloggers started promoting the thesis theme, I have been hacking my WordPress blog to make it look better for my money pages on a few sites and site design is definitely important.

EVERY content site should have some sort of money pages, and for blogs there are certain site design methods that work better for money pages (hint: no sidebars on WP pages, and maybe even no headers, either, see pages in my sig file for examples of this) .

So not only do your words have to be written properly, but your site has to help move things along, too.

If your income is suffering take a look at any of these facets to internet sales and see what can be improved upon...

Anyone else have any tips? I think learning how to write good site copy for the various types of virtual real estate ( articles, landing pages, consten tsites) is something many people are overlooking and returning to a focus on that will help anyone who knows their S**T in this area make more money with less effort.

[CashTactics]

This was an excellent read for anyone jumping in to the affiliate/Internet marketing space.

I will say though I don't necessarily think that this is the missing link. I personally think that the missing link is ACTION. Too many new people to the industry are caught up in reading forums and blogs that they are consumed in a gathering stage. Many times they are afraid to take action OR if they take the action they are afraid to keep up their work for a proper testing period (Mainly in PPC).

When people take action then they can begin the process of split testing ideas, designs, adcopy, etc. I'm not saying that writing skills aren't a missing link cause it's definitely evident that a lot of new people to the industry have por copywriting/sales writing skills, I'm just saying that I think the link is ACTION. Once they begin to take action and begin to split test then they can develop those writing skills by seeing what isn't converting and what is.

This was a good read! Keep it up.

[Paid Surveys]

Interesting post, I totally agree about the need to write puncyh article titles to get people interested.

[Daniel McGonagle]

CashTactics, I agree that ACTION is the first step of course, but I see too many people who write poorly wondering why there's no results from actions taken.

I think having everything spelled out for people in a clear and concise manner encourages action so hopefully this helps someone.

However, when people DO take action they expect results, and i fit took a lot for them to take any action, their mental stamina or lack thereof may cause them to give up.

I NEVER take advice given, like an idiot, and just figure these things out over time but it seems to be true that those elements listed above have been working for a lot of people for a long time.

If you think about it, there can be a lot that goes into each element of the process and a lot that can go wrong (poorly chosen keywords, sub-standard articles, low article CTR, low conversions on the landing page, poor site design etc...) but maybe if people know the general outlines they'll see more results.

Are there any tips that I missed? there must be some!