My Step By Step Article Marketing Profit Plan - Nothing Left Out.

86 replies
I recently had to write out a long email to a friend of mine outlining my article marketing strategy. I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about article marketing. I’ve used article marketing as a key part of my strategy to make literally hundreds of thousands of dollars online. I thought I’d share a slightly edited version of that email for anyone who might be able to benefit. I know many fellow warriors have helped me quite a bit when I was just getting started.

Before moving forward, I’m here to tell you that, YES, without a doubt article marketing will drive traffic. The best part of article marketing is that it’s difficult to fail. Even if you do it wrong, you WILL still see it results. Master it and you may never need another traffic generation method at all.

Here is a step by step summary of what you need to do.

1) Keyword research.

Keyword research should be done before beginning any article marketing campaign. If the niche or sub niche has already been determined, it is simple. Start with the most general term within your niche. IE, hot water heaters. Run a search in your keyword tool of choice.

a) Always search in phrase.
b) Once the list of keywords is generated, analyze them and set the maximum amount of competition to 50,000 competing websites.
c) From the list that remains, choose the keywords that have a minimum seot (estimate of clicks per day in the #1 position on google of 10. Obviously the bigger the number, the better.
d) You want to have a list of at least 20 good keywords per site you are promoting or driving traffic to. If this original list doesn't contain that many, look for terms within your initial list that are variations of the original term you used, and run a search on those words using the same process. Do this until you hit a list of twenty good keywords.


2) Writing the articles.


a) The first thing you want to do is download Article Reviser. It's a free tool and you can get it via my sig below. It will help help simplify and speed up the writing process.

b)After you have compiled your list of twenty, you then want to write 3-5 articles for each keyword or keyword phrase. This will give you a better chance of having one of them stick on the first page of google. But as always, the more you write the better.

You should have two goals in mind when writing the content. First, you want your article to be appealing so that your readers make it to the end of the article where you call them to action. Secondly, you want to effectively create your content with a maximum SEO value so that you get good placement on google and your article gets seen.

2A) Writing for SEO value.


a) Include your keyword phrase in the title of your article. If it's possible, try to include it at the beginning of the title, rather than the middle or the end.
b) Use the main keyword once in the opening paragraph. Anywhere in the paragraph will do, just don't use it as the last few words of the paragraph.
c) include the main keyword once in the resource box. This step is important.

Keep your keyword density below 2%, ideally less.

It's very important to use synonyms of the original keyword as much as you can. For example, if the main keyword phrase was “hot water heaters”, use phrases like “water heating appliances” and “water heating unit” without being too redundant with the keywords they have in common. The goal is to pull in random long tail combinations that are the result of unique searches.

2B) Writing for the reader.

This is basically common sense. Write good content that you yourself would want to read. If you can offer value, you will convert.

The short cut to creating good content is to find other articles that are performing well or that you like and use Article Reviser (see my sig below) to rewrite (in your own words) other people’s content. This takes the work out and you don’t even really need to be a great writer.

Stay away from article spinners or PLR content. There is a place for this but if you want to stick to a simple strategy that works, stay away from short cuts. Just my opinion.

3) Submit your article to EzineArtciles.com. Though there is a time and place to submit to other directories.


4) Link Building.


a) You don't want to waste your time with link building unless the article is showing that is has some ranking power on its own. Check your article reports daily and look for articles that are getting good views. Articles with a view count of 50 or more catch my eye if the article has been live for three days or less. If the article is also getting a decent click through rate (you don't want to mess with articles that aren’t' generating clicks), you want to manually run a search on google for the main keyword of that article. You can also use ezine articles stats tool.

b) Make a note of your article’s ranking for a specific keyword and start building links.
c) Track it and look for it to rise. If you are not already holding a first page spot or you do not see any positive change within a few weeks, cut your losses and move on.

Note) I build links for articles using a combination of profile links, link vana, and my own sites. I also use Squidoo, blogger, hubpages, social media, blog comments and RSS feeds. But any type of non-spammy backlink is acceptable.

And that in a nutshell, is it folks. Do this, and you will see traffic. If you have a decent offer, you will see sales. I have had single articles generate as many as 60,000 views. Just think of the equivalent PPC value on that.

Hope some of you find this helpful.

You can do this.

-John
#article #left #marketing #plan #profit #step
  • Profile picture of the author BillyBee
    Thanks, Johnny! Really appreciate this, as I'm just about to start article marketing myself to promote my own products.

    Question for other article experts --- Is this plan laid out by Johnny a good one?
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  • Profile picture of the author mikekim2455
    I just read through this whole post and want to let BillyBee and all others who read this know that this is a tremendous plan. I have been article marketing for several years now and all of the information posted here is accurate and makes good practice. In fact, this is the kind of information that most people charge money for. Great post Johnny O. This is what the Warrior Forum is all about.
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    Good plan, I just wonder about writing 5 articles for each keyword. I've always just written one article per keyword, so I'm curious about ROI for each method. Might have to split test it...
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

      Good plan, I just wonder about writing 5 articles for each keyword. I've always just written one article per keyword, so I'm curious about ROI for each method. Might have to split test it...
      That is a totally reasonable point. I do this simply because there is that aspect of Google's algorithm that we just can't predict. Creating multiple articles increases our chances of having luck fall in our favor. It's not 100% necessary. I simply have found that it helps. Especially if there is a lot of potential traffic there. It would be a bummer to move on from a keyword having thought that the competition was too tough, only to find out that another pass with a slightly different keyword combination might yield very different results.

      But yes, might be worth split testing.
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      • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
        Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

        That is a totally reasonable point. I do this simply because there is that aspect of Google's algorithm that we just can't predict. Creating multiple articles increases our chances of having luck fall in our favor. It's not 100% necessary. I simply have found that it helps. Especially if there is a lot of potential traffic there. It would be a bummer to move on from a keyword having thought that the competition was too tough, only to find out that another pass with a slightly different keyword combination might yield very different results.

        But yes, might be worth split testing.
        Now that I think about it, I do something similar. Each article gets turned into audio, video, and pdf; so technically it's in 4 places
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlesThatRock
    It's also important to put the article on your site before submitting it to EZine. If possible, you should verify that Google is indexing your page. Otherwise, Google will give EZine credit as the originator of the article, rather than you. It's easier to move up the rankings if you have a lot of content on your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by ArticlesThatRock View Post

      It's also important to put the article on your site before submitting it to EZine. If possible, you should verify that Google is indexing your page. Otherwise, Google will give EZine credit as the originator of the article, rather than you. It's easier to move up the rankings if you have a lot of content on your site.
      I don't mean any disrespect to your point of view. If that approach works for you then that's fantastic. My approach is just about getting maximum traffic from the articles. This happens because the of the inherent authority that the a directory such as ezinearticles.com has. If my site was to get indexed first it would water down the articles chance of ranking as well on the article directory. The SEO of my site is another matter.

      I am sacrificing the content in favor of maximum traffic value. Of course you could do as you suggested and gain a bit of benefit in 2 places, but I have found it to be more beneficial to create specific content for the directories, and specific content for my own sites.

      But I definitely appreciate the input.


      Just one approach that has worked well for me.
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      • Profile picture of the author ebizman87
        This is a good basic AM plan that can really help people to get traffic to their sites if THEY APPLY IT!

        Of course there're SHORTCUTS that can be used to modify your plan here Mr Johny but still it's very useful for NEWBIES!! It's better to keep things simplified than complicating people with complicated terms and methods.

        I appreciate your effort here and..

        Lastly I'm waiting for "the experts" to comment on this plan and come out with their "theories"
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        • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
          Originally Posted by ebizman87 View Post

          This is a good basic AM plan that can really help people to get traffic to their sites if THEY APPLY IT!

          Of course there're SHORTCUTS that can be used to modify your plan here Mr Johny but still it's very useful for NEWBIES!! It's better to keep things simplified than complicating people with complicated terms and methods.

          I appreciate your effort here and..

          Lastly I'm waiting for "the experts" to comment on this plan and come out with their "theories"
          Agreed. Like anything, this requires action to work. There are short cuts that can sometimes help but they can just as easily muddle the process and it's success. Particularly for newbies.

          This approach is meant to be a straight forward approach that will get results, that anyone can follow. I am no newbie and this is still the same process I follow. I do some other things as an adjunct to the process, but this is the nuts and bolts of it and this is the exact process I hand over to my outsource team.
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    • Profile picture of the author scrofford
      Originally Posted by ArticlesThatRock View Post

      It's also important to put the article on your site before submitting it to EZine. If possible, you should verify that Google is indexing your page. Otherwise, Google will give EZine credit as the originator of the article, rather than you. It's easier to move up the rankings if you have a lot of content on your site.
      That is completely false. You can put articles on ezinearticles first or last. It doesn't matter. Yes you should have a lot of good content on your site, but it does not matter where you upload your article to first. The whole idea is to increase traffic. If you have a link in your sig box on ezinearticles back to your site, that's all that really matters.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Enlightenment
    Great advice and a solid plan!
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  • Profile picture of the author CharlieDewitte
    It's a good wireframe but I can't imagine getting 60k views from 1 article.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
    This tool (the software in your sig) is a real time saver especially for non-native English speakers like me

    thanks a lot

    Quick question: If I publish an article on my site first will Ezine Articles accept it as well?
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by AlexBarboza View Post

      This tool (the software in your sig) is a real time saver especially for non-native English speakers like me

      thanks a lot

      Quick question: If I publish an article on my site first will Ezine Articles accept it as well?
      Thanks Alex. Glad you like it. That's one of the reasons I created it. It has served my outsource staff well.

      As far as your question goes. Yes, they will accept it, but occasionally it will raise a flag and you may need to explain to them that it is your site.

      However as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I don't recommend doing this. At least not for traffic generation purposes. I prefer 100% unique content on my own site. It will make it harder for your site to become an authority site if all of your content is posted elsewhere on a directory with even more authority than your site. Make sense?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
        Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

        Thanks Alex. Glad you like it. That's one of the reasons I created it. It has served my outsource staff well.

        As far as your question goes. Yes, they will accept it, but occasionally it will raise a flag and you may need to explain to them that it is your site.

        However as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I don't recommend doing this. At least not for traffic generation purposes. I prefer 100% unique content on my own site. It will make it harder for your site to become an authority site if all of your content is posted elsewhere on a directory with even more authority than your site. Make sense?

        Yes it makes a lot of sense. thanks for the quick reply
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      • Profile picture of the author ActionToCash
        Some really really great information. Thanks for sharing!

        Randall
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        Happy Marketing!!!

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      • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
        Great plan, Johnny! However, I would definitely suggest submitting to more than just EZA. They may be the biggest, but there are plenty of great article directories out there. You never know which one is going to give you the best success.

        Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

        I prefer 100% unique content on my own site. It will make it harder for your site to become an authority site if all of your content is posted elsewhere on a directory with even more authority than your site. Make sense?
        I totally agree with this. To me, if someone reads your content on an article directory and likes it enough to click on the link in the resource box, you shouldn't be sending them to a site that has the same exact article on it. If you don't give them anything new, visitors are just going to leave. Instead, post original content on your site, so that visitors see that you have alot more to offer than just 1 great article.

        If you've got great topics that you absolutely want to include on your website and on article directories, rewrite the article, so that you have 2 unique versions. That way, visitors won't feel like they're looking at the same exact information.
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    • Profile picture of the author scrofford
      Originally Posted by AlexBarboza View Post

      Quick question: If I publish an article on my site first will Ezine Articles accept it as well?
      Yes they will
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      • Profile picture of the author BillyBee
        Is it okay if I put the article on EzineArticles and my website and it's the exact same article?

        Or should I rewrite it so that it's not seen as duplicate content?

        Not sure if that's important or not.
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        • Profile picture of the author scrofford
          Originally Posted by BillyBee View Post

          Is it okay if I put the article on EzineArticles and my website and it's the exact same article?

          Or should I rewrite it so that it's not seen as duplicate content?

          Not sure if that's important or not.
          Duplicate content isn't the fact that the same article is on different websites. Duplicate content would be the same article on the same website. So if you were to post the same article in two different places of YOUR website for example, that would be duplicate content.
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        • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
          Originally Posted by BillyBee View Post

          Is it okay if I put the article on EzineArticles and my website and it's the exact same article?

          Or should I rewrite it so that it's not seen as duplicate content?

          Not sure if that's important or not.
          It's okay to do it but in my opinion there is little reason to do so. The point in creating content from a traffic generation stand point is to get a good search engine ranking. Unless you have a huge authority site, ezinearticles is likely to get the ranking rather than you.

          The reason you would create unique content for your website is not because of a duplicate content fear but rather because you would want the search engines to view your site as unique and not just a site full of content that appears elsewhere. In other words, an authority site.

          Posting the same article in two places is sort of like competing with yourself. There are better uses for your time.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheAnnoyingOrange
    Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

    I recently had to write out a long email to a friend of mine outlining my article marketing strategy. I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about article marketing. I've used article marketing as a key part of my strategy to make literally hundreds of thousands of dollars online. I thought I'd share a slightly edited version of that email for anyone who might be able to benefit. I know many fellow warriors have helped me quite a bit when I was just getting started.

    Before moving forward, I'm here to tell you that, YES, without a doubt article marketing will drive traffic. The best part of article marketing is that it's difficult to fail. Even if you do it wrong, you WILL still see it results. Master it and you may never need another traffic generation method at all.

    Here is a step by step summary of what you need to do.

    1) Keyword research.

    Keyword research should be done before beginning any article marketing campaign. If the niche or sub niche has already been determined, it is simple. Start with the most general term within your niche. IE, hot water heaters. Run a search in your keyword tool of choice.

    a) Always search in phrase.
    b) Once the list of keywords is generated, analyze them and set the maximum amount of competition to 50,000 competing websites.
    c) From the list that remains, choose the keywords that have a minimum seot (estimate of clicks per day in the #1 position on google of 10. Obviously the bigger the number, the better.
    d) You want to have a list of at least 20 good keywords per site you are promoting or driving traffic to. If this original list doesn't contain that many, look for terms within your initial list that are variations of the original term you used, and run a search on those words using the same process. Do this until you hit a list of twenty good keywords.


    2) Writing the articles.


    a)The first thing you want to do is download Article Reviser. It's free. Get it in my sig. It's a simple piece of free software that really helps the process. It also comes with a free video which I made that covers many of the points here and shows you how to use it.

    b) After you have compiled your list of twenty, you then want to write 3-5 articles for each keyword or keyword phrase. This will give you a better chance of having one of them stick on the first page of google. But as always, the more you write the better.

    You should have two goals in mind when writing the content. First, you want your article to be appealing so that your readers make it to the end of the article where you call them to action. Secondly, you want to effectively create your content with a maximum SEO value so that you get good placement on google and your article gets seen.

    2A) Writing for SEO value.


    a) Include your keyword phrase in the title of your article. If it's possible, try to include it at the beginning of the title, rather than the middle or the end.
    b) Use the main keyword once in the opening paragraph. Anywhere in the paragraph will do, just don't use it as the last few words of the paragraph.
    c) include the main keyword once in the resource box. This step is important.

    Keep your keyword density below 2%, ideally less.

    It's very important to use synonyms of the original keyword as much as you can. For example, if the main keyword phrase was "hot water heaters", use phrases like "water heating appliances" and "water heating unit" without being too redundant with the keywords they have in common. The goal is to pull in random long tail combinations that are the result of unique searches.

    2B) Writing for the reader.

    This is basically common sense. Write good content that you yourself would want to read. If you can offer value, you will convert.

    The short cut to creating good content is to find other articles that are performing well or that you like and use Article Reviser (see my sig below) to rewrite (in your own words) other people's content. This takes the work out and you don't even really need to be a great writer.

    Stay away from article spinners or PLR content. There is a place for this but if you want to stick to a simple strategy that works, stay away from short cuts. Just my opinion.

    3) Submit your article to EzineArtciles.com. Though there is a time and place to submit to other directories.


    4) Link Building.


    a) You don't want to waste your time with link building unless the article is showing that is has some ranking power on its own. Check your article reports daily and look for articles that are getting good views. Articles with a view count of 50 or more catch my eye if the article has been live for three days or less. If the article is also getting a decent click through rate (you don't want to mess with articles that aren't' generating clicks), you want to manually run a search on google for the main keyword of that article. You can also use ezine articles stats tool.

    b) Make a note of your article's ranking for a specific keyword and start building links.
    c) Track it and look for it to rise. If you are not already holding a first page spot or you do not see any positive change within a few weeks, cut your losses and move on.

    Note) I build links for articles using a combination of profile links, link vana, and my own sites. I also use Squidoo, blogger, hubpages, social media, blog comments and RSS feeds. But any type of non-spammy backlink is acceptable.

    And that in a nutshell, is it folks. Do this, and you will see traffic. If you have a decent offer, you will see sales. I have had single articles generate as many as 60,000 views. Just think of the equivalent PPC value on that.

    Hope some of you find this helpful.

    You can do this.

    -John

    Hi there,

    Thank you so much for this valuable information - at the moment I am using Article Marketing -> CPA and write 5 articles per day.

    My question is as follows: Why is it important to include the keyword in the resource box? I have not done this, so would you advise that I edit my articles and include the keyword in each resource box at least once per article?

    Thank You.
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by TheAnnoyingOrange View Post

      Hi there,

      My question is as follows: Why is it important to include the keyword in the resource box? I have not done this, so would you advise that I edit my articles and include the keyword in each resource box at least once per article?

      Thank You.
      This is not something I have heard many people talk about. Its something I have tested and it will improve your article's chance of ranking well in the search engines.

      I AM NOT suggesting that you edit your existing articles. That will likely hurt you more than help you. I am suggesting you do this in the future.

      Long story short, I have tested all kinds of keyword densities and placements and the formula I laid out above is what has gotten the best results.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alan Mc Donald
        b) Once the list of keywords is generated, analyze them and set the maximum amount of competition to 50,000 competing websites.

        Nice post buddy but I don't agree with the above statement, the amount of "competing" websites is not a good indication of how tough your competition is if you want organic
        traffic. You should just be concerned with the
        sites on page 1 of google and how good
        their on page and offpage seo is.

        Just my 2 cents worth

        Cheers
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        • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
          Originally Posted by Pattaya-Addict View Post

          b) Once the list of keywords is generated, analyze them and set the maximum amount of competition to 50,000 competing websites.

          Nice post buddy but I don't agree with the above statement, the amount of "competing" websites is not a good indication of how tough your competition is if you want organic
          traffic. You should just be concerned with the
          sites on page 1 of google and how good
          their on page and offpage seo is.

          Just my 2 cents worth

          Cheers
          Thanks Pattaya,I don't disagree with your point. Looking at the on and off page SEO of your competition is a great way to assess your ability to rank with an article. That being said, the outline was written for someone i am teaching and I needed to give a set of criteria that could be easily assessed quickly. I find that the competition count is a great way to do that. When someone is new to this and doesn't yet have a "feel" for the competition I have found SEO analysis to be a bit overwhelming for many. The competition count is a simple, and for the most part, effective way of quickly building a solid keyword list.

          One other point is that that there are occasions when the SEO analysis suggests a keyword will be difficult to rank for, and yet the article ranks. At least long enough to suggest link building might just be enough to get the article to hold. Combined with the fact that I can write 3 or 4 articles an hour, I sometimes feel it's easier to just write the articles and cross my fingers than it is to and an SEO analysis step to the process.

          But as I said, I think you're ultimately correct that the on and off page SEO of the competition is the most thorough way to assess competition. I guess the question is, would you let that prevent you from writing a few articles for a keyword with a lot of potential otherwise?

          But I definitely appreciate your input.
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  • Profile picture of the author FusciaPhoenix
    Thank you for this straight to the point information. I'm just beginning my article marketing for my first website. I'll use these strategies and try to let you know how things go. Thank you again.
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  • Profile picture of the author seolbs
    how much traffic do you get from that?
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      The OP left one very important thing out.

      There is no point in writing articles for niches where...

      1. You have no chance of getting any sizable portion of the market.

      2. People don't read articles.

      If somebody is interested in improving their golf swing, they're not going to
      want to read an article. They're going to want to watch a video.

      As to # 1, there are some niches so competitive that if you got 10 views
      for each article you wrote, that would be a lot. You'd have to spend more
      time driving traffic to your articles than actually writing them. For those
      niches, there is no point.

      I learned this the hard way.

      Pick your niches carefully. If you do, article marketing can be VERY
      lucrative.
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      • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        The OP left one very important thing out.

        There is no point in writing articles for niches where...

        1. You have no chance of getting any sizable portion of the market.

        2. People don't read articles.

        If somebody is interested in improving their golf swing, they're not going to
        want to read an article. They're going to want to watch a video.

        As to # 1, there are some niches so competitive that if you got 10 views
        for each article you wrote, that would be a lot. You'd have to spend more
        time driving traffic to your articles than actually writing them. For those
        niches, there is no point.

        I learned this the hard way.

        Pick your niches carefully. If you do, article marketing can be VERY
        lucrative.
        Hi Steven, I appreciate the input. While I'm not disagreeing with you in theory, I would add that the strategy is intended for people who are stuck and just can't generate ANY traffic. There are definitely going to be instances when the ROI from article marketing is not going to be as good as it might be from other strategies. That being said, I do find it gets some ROI on almost everything.

        I absolutely agree that it works much better in some niches than it does others. But for that person who is trying to build that first 100 subscribers to get an initial base, or who is just trying to see that first few clicks or sales come in, I still think it's worth it. At least in the beginning. Even 50 subscribers can be enough to build your own little comment tribe which can snowball into something bigger.

        I too have had campaigns that I have given up on because the ROI was not there, but I can't recall a campaign that go NO results. I think article marketing can be a great tool for people who are stuck, no matter the niche. It can be an exceptional tool (maybe the only one you'll ever need) for those who hit the right niche with the right keywords.

        Thanks though for taking the time to offer some additional perspective.
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by seolbs View Post

      how much traffic do you get from that?
      It completely depends on the niche and the amount of articles I publish. I have single articles that have brought in over 5000 clicks. I have others that have only brought in one or two.

      There are niches that are just exploding with traffic and others that force you to work for every single click.

      But in the end, article marketing is a system that nearly always works to some degree which makes it perfect for the person who is willing to put in time but doesn't have money, resources, or experience. Not to say that it doesn't work for experienced marketers as well. It absolutely does. It's just that when you have control of a market there are sometimes other strategies that have a better ROI. Until then, it's hard to go wrong with article marketing.

      Again, many strategies will work. But what I like about article marketing is that it is one that rarely fails completely, even when it's not done perfectly.
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  • Profile picture of the author SmallFry
    Awesome post!!I love good article marketing tips!
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    • Profile picture of the author smithsam100
      Thanks johnny,this is excellent guidance for a newbie like me.



      Wishing you all I wish myself.
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanSawyer
    Great Post. This is a fantastic article in itself. Thanks for sharing, Johnny. I'll be sure to use most of these tips in my upcoming article.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Johnny, I want to commend you for laying out a logical plan with plenty of room for individual enhancement as people grow in useful experience. I also commend you for not getting defensive when others raised concerns about various points. Good job all around...

      For myself, I tend to put longer, more fleshed out articles on my own sites. What gets posted to the directories are kind of a "value menu" version.

      I was also a little concerned about judging how tough a keyword might be by using the number of competing sites. Your explanation made sense, especially for someone who lacks the combination of SEO skills and experienced feel to judge the top ten results. For many keywords, the number of pages aimed at that keyword can give an indication of competition. One has to be careful, though, to explain that some keywords may appear easy by that criterion but that are much tougher due to the top players.

      All in all, well done...
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      • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
        Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

        Johnny, I want to commend you for laying out a logical plan with plenty of room for individual enhancement as people grow in useful experience. I also commend you for not getting defensive when others raised concerns about various points. Good job all around...

        For myself, I tend to put longer, more fleshed out articles on my own sites. What gets posted to the directories are kind of a "value menu" version.

        I was also a little concerned about judging how tough a keyword might be by using the number of competing sites. Your explanation made sense, especially for someone who lacks the combination of SEO skills and experienced feel to judge the top ten results. For many keywords, the number of pages aimed at that keyword can give an indication of competition. One has to be careful, though, to explain that some keywords may appear easy by that criterion but that are much tougher due to the top players.

        All in all, well done...
        Thanks so much John. You raise a good point. I should have pointed out that the competition count alone is not a guarantee of anything and that the strength, as well as the volume, of the competition is a factor. At the time I was just trying to keep everything as streamlined as possible. I should have mentioned that.

        Thanks again for the kind words.
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      • Profile picture of the author TinkBD
        Originally Posted by John McEachern View Post

        I don't get it.

        Isn't this concept of being able to judge the strength of competition something somebody would want to have a clear understanding of before setting out for the first time?:confused:

        Who really cares about results beyond the first page? I typically don't go beyond the first page for any search engine query I perform.

        And this analyzing of those sites really, to me, seems like something somebody wants to understand and get right from the word go.
        You would think that would be so... but let's face is, folks can find lots of reasons to ignore the obvious... fear, lack of understanding, sheer cussedness, phase of the moon... the list is endless.

        I think that in many instances, if you can distill any method down to its most basic form, and get someone started, you can always come back and refine things... giving them additional or more detailed information.

        Because they are already DOING, the tweaking starts to make sense and become more reasonable.

        I do a lot of offline business coaching with MUCH handholding...

        These are not lazy people -- they already own at least one business offline (most of them have more than one!), they are not uneducated or ignorant -- I presently have a pediatrician, a former nurse with an MBA, as well as a hypnotherapist among my clients...

        However, they find many of the aspects of the internet intimidating. I try to get them started with enough info to see some success, and then help them take things to the next level.

        I think that this approach is what JohnnyO has outlined here. You give them enough information to get started and then once you have them hooked, and they are comfortable with the basics you bring in the *scary* or *boring* stuff and at that point, they begin to see and understand why it is important...

        But you have to give them a foundation to work with first...

        I 'll say that in theory, I agree with you. ;-)

        but, as we all know...

        "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
        -- Albert Einstein

        Tink
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by RyanSawyer View Post

      Great Post. This is a fantastic article in itself. Thanks for sharing, Johnny. I'll be sure to use most of these tips in my upcoming article.

      Thanks Ryan. Glad it helped you in some way. let me know what kind of results you see.

      Cheers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Seant7871
    Great information and I also write about 5 articles for each of my keywords. I spin most of my articles and it's really starting to get me a good ROI.
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  • Profile picture of the author ambitichx
    Thank you Johnny O, your outline is going to help me
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  • Profile picture of the author Enygma44
    That was a very informative post - I appreciate the step-by-step action plan!
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  • Profile picture of the author IMfighter.com
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by IMfighter.com View Post

      Thanks for sharing this great info! I had to press 'Thanks' button
      Thanks IMfighter, I appreciate the "Thanks". Glad you liked the info.
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      • Profile picture of the author BlogBoom
        Nice post Johnny. This should be very helpful. There are a few tweaks that can be made to make it better, which have already been brought up. But the spirit of your post is for the newest of the new and it's a great way to get started.
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        • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
          Originally Posted by ContentBoom View Post

          Nice post Johnny. This should be very helpful. There are a few tweaks that can be made to make it better, which have already been brought up. But the spirit of your post is for the newest of the new and it's a great way to get started.
          Really not trying to be argumentative here and I welcome your (and everyone's) input. I just want to mention that I am NOT a newbie and have been doing this for a while. One CAN definitely tweak, but the steps I outlined come from a TON of testing, and results. After years of advanced experience it's my conclusion that this is the BEST approach for someone who is not already getting results.

          If you are, then by all means, there is room to tweak and improve and customize to your own skill set.

          I just want to maintain that I am not posting this as an enthusiastic suggestion that I "think" will work. It is an iron clad action plan that DOES work.

          Please don't think I'm coming at you or anything. I'm just responding to a number of comments that seem to be assuming I am giving my opinion. I'm not. Everything I listed, I have done, tested, and achieved results with.
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      • Profile picture of the author mikekim2455
        hey johnny o, i downloaded the article reviser and i am absolutely blown away by how much it helped me rewrite just one article so far. so simple an idea, yet so effective. for someone who does no outsourcing and is constantly writing articles, it's great to use this tool and create unique articles - without having to think about it. the sentence by sentence structure is brilliant. kudos on the software and many thanks.

        quick question. have you experimented at all with using the target keyword for an article as the anchor text? i know you mention using your target keyword phrase in the resource box but i have always wondered how using it for the anchor text would affect rankings - if at all. just curious
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        • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
          Originally Posted by mikekim2455 View Post

          hey johnny o, i downloaded the article reviser and i am absolutely blown away by how much it helped me rewrite just one article so far. so simple an idea, yet so effective. for someone who does no outsourcing and is constantly writing articles, it's great to use this tool and create unique articles - without having to think about it. the sentence by sentence structure is brilliant. kudos on the software and many thanks.

          quick question. have you experimented at all with using the target keyword for an article as the anchor text? i know you mention using your target keyword phrase in the resource box but i have always wondered how using it for the anchor text would affect rankings - if at all. just curious
          Thanks Mike,

          Yes, using the keyword as the anchor text is fine. As long as you use the keyword somewhere in the resource box.

          Keep in mind, these things are not absolutes. They are just things that my testing has shown improve results. If one of these rules compromises the quality of your content or your ultimate goals, don't do them.

          That being said, including the keyword in the resource box has really helped rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    Focus on QUALITY of competition, not QUANTITY. The fact is, if you're in the results at all, you're competing with a maximum of 999 other pages (pages, not sites) anyhow. A competition number of 50,000 appears to be completely arbitrary.
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

      Focus on QUALITY of competition, not QUANTITY. The fact is, if you're in the results at all, you're competing with a maximum of 999 other pages (pages, not sites) anyhow. A competition number of 50,000 appears to be completely arbitrary.
      The number is not arbitrary. I addressed this elsewhere in the thread but essentially - while I do agree with your point - this plan is laid out to be as simple to execute while getting maximum results. It also comes from quite a bit of testing.

      You're 100% correct that competition analysis can reveal more than a competition count. But it requires a more complex approach, additional time, and a "feel" that many new marketers just don't have yet.

      When I try to teach newbies that step, they often get confused. By the nature of the definition, every "system" needs to be quantifiable. The way I have chosen to do this is with a competition count. It is quick, elegant, and ultimately achieves the goal of isolating a list of keywords that will stand a good chance of gaining some traction.

      There is also the fact that competition analysis can sometimes lead to people disregarding a keyword that might ultimately send them traffic do to unintended long tail combinations and so given that it only takes 15 minutes or so to write an article, I personally have found it better to go off of a the competition count rather than the analysis. If I was creating content for my own site, this would be an entirely different story.

      But what you are saying is valid. There are certainly many valid approaches. Whatever system best compliments our own style and instincts, and ultimately our ROI. I have tested everything i am doing and have found this to be the best approach for myself and my students.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
        Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

        You're 100% correct that competition analysis can reveal more than a competition count. But it requires a more complex approach, additional time, and a "feel" that many new marketers just don't have yet.
        Well, for a post in a forum setting such as this, I can understand why you would simplify the approach. However, as I teach all of my students, in the real world you've got to look at who is occupying the top spots and why. That's the only REAL way to know if you can rank your site where you want to rank it.

        It's like entering a footrace: you can see a race with a field of 1,000 runners and another race with a field of 50. You may immediately think "oh, I can beat 49 other runners" but in reality, those 49 others might all be Olympic athletes, while the top runners in the 1,000 race are simply amateurs who entered because it is a charity event.

        As long as you understand that quality is far more important than quantity, then we're on the same page.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlmkt
    Thank You, John, for such a clear and concise plan for article marketing. Not only was I impressed with your method, also the replies you gave. You took the time to value each and add insight into your thinking.

    When do you suggest using more directories than Ezine Articles? (And when not?)

    Thanks for your help,
    Lee
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
      Originally Posted by jlmkt View Post

      Thank You, John, for such a clear and concise plan for article marketing. Not only was I impressed with your method, also the replies you gave. You took the time to value each and add insight into your thinking.

      When do you suggest using more directories than Ezine Articles? (And when not?)

      Thanks for your help,
      Lee
      Thanks, I really appreciate that.

      Personally, if I am just after traffic and want to keep things simple, as I usually do. I just stick with ezine articles.

      However, I have been in some niches where for some dumb reason or another ezine articles didn't allow articles on my niche. I used other directories in those cases.

      Backlinks is really the only other reason I use other directories. Usually with a little spinning mixed in. But I'm hesitant to mention spinning because as a general rule I don't like it. Time and time again I have had sites penalized as a result. And I think if you stay focused on adding value you really will do much better.

      But there are occasions where I have been promoting something in the early days of a site and wasn't as concerned about the penalty risk and used some spun articles to get some quick exposure, only to see an article or two get a HUGE amount of unexpected views.

      My screen shot is one of those examples.

      But if you do nothing other than submit to ezine articles for traffic and build links on non-directory sites for SEO value, you'll do just fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlmkt
    Thank You.
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  • Profile picture of the author TChiu
    Johnny O, THis is just what i was looking for. Its great to see a step by step plan for this. THanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny O
    it's funny, I've been finishing up the final videos of a course I'm about to release on article marketing and I wrote an article in one of the videos so people could watch over my shoulder as I did it.

    The article was really just a throw away that I was writing for demo purposes. I published the article for one of the videos as well, and then what do you know... the article brought in 2 sales, $50.

    Just shows you how well this stuff works.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    You really outline everything that need to be known here. However, it is important to submit your article to other article directories as this also helps your ranking as well as traffic. Article marketing is becoming really competitive thou a lot still depends on your niche. Nice post up there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Morgan
    Originally Posted by Johnny O View Post

    I recently had to write out a long email to a friend of mine outlining my article marketing strategy. I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about article marketing. I've used article marketing as a key part of my strategy to make literally hundreds of thousands of dollars online. I thought I'd share a slightly edited version of that email for anyone who might be able to benefit. I know many fellow warriors have helped me quite a bit when I was just getting started.

    Before moving forward, I'm here to tell you that, YES, without a doubt article marketing will drive traffic. The best part of article marketing is that it's difficult to fail. Even if you do it wrong, you WILL still see it results. Master it and you may never need another traffic generation method at all.

    Here is a step by step summary of what you need to do.

    1) Keyword research.

    Keyword research should be done before beginning any article marketing campaign. If the niche or sub niche has already been determined, it is simple. Start with the most general term within your niche. IE, hot water heaters. Run a search in your keyword tool of choice.

    a) Always search in phrase.
    b) Once the list of keywords is generated, analyze them and set the maximum amount of competition to 50,000 competing websites.
    c) From the list that remains, choose the keywords that have a minimum seot (estimate of clicks per day in the #1 position on google of 10. Obviously the bigger the number, the better.
    d) You want to have a list of at least 20 good keywords per site you are promoting or driving traffic to. If this original list doesn't contain that many, look for terms within your initial list that are variations of the original term you used, and run a search on those words using the same process. Do this until you hit a list of twenty good keywords.


    2) Writing the articles.


    a) The first thing you want to do is download Article Reviser. It's a free tool and you can get it via my sig below. It will help help simplify and speed up the writing process.

    b)After you have compiled your list of twenty, you then want to write 3-5 articles for each keyword or keyword phrase. This will give you a better chance of having one of them stick on the first page of google. But as always, the more you write the better.

    You should have two goals in mind when writing the content. First, you want your article to be appealing so that your readers make it to the end of the article where you call them to action. Secondly, you want to effectively create your content with a maximum SEO value so that you get good placement on google and your article gets seen.

    2A) Writing for SEO value.


    a) Include your keyword phrase in the title of your article. If it's possible, try to include it at the beginning of the title, rather than the middle or the end.
    b) Use the main keyword once in the opening paragraph. Anywhere in the paragraph will do, just don't use it as the last few words of the paragraph.
    c) include the main keyword once in the resource box. This step is important.

    Keep your keyword density below 2%, ideally less.

    It's very important to use synonyms of the original keyword as much as you can. For example, if the main keyword phrase was "hot water heaters", use phrases like "water heating appliances" and "water heating unit" without being too redundant with the keywords they have in common. The goal is to pull in random long tail combinations that are the result of unique searches.

    2B) Writing for the reader.

    This is basically common sense. Write good content that you yourself would want to read. If you can offer value, you will convert.

    The short cut to creating good content is to find other articles that are performing well or that you like and use Article Reviser (see my sig below) to rewrite (in your own words) other people's content. This takes the work out and you don't even really need to be a great writer.

    Stay away from article spinners or PLR content. There is a place for this but if you want to stick to a simple strategy that works, stay away from short cuts. Just my opinion.

    3) Submit your article to EzineArtciles.com. Though there is a time and place to submit to other directories.


    4) Link Building.


    a) You don't want to waste your time with link building unless the article is showing that is has some ranking power on its own. Check your article reports daily and look for articles that are getting good views. Articles with a view count of 50 or more catch my eye if the article has been live for three days or less. If the article is also getting a decent click through rate (you don't want to mess with articles that aren't' generating clicks), you want to manually run a search on google for the main keyword of that article. You can also use ezine articles stats tool.

    b) Make a note of your article's ranking for a specific keyword and start building links.
    c) Track it and look for it to rise. If you are not already holding a first page spot or you do not see any positive change within a few weeks, cut your losses and move on.

    Note) I build links for articles using a combination of profile links, link vana, and my own sites. I also use Squidoo, blogger, hubpages, social media, blog comments and RSS feeds. But any type of non-spammy backlink is acceptable.

    And that in a nutshell, is it folks. Do this, and you will see traffic. If you have a decent offer, you will see sales. I have had single articles generate as many as 60,000 views. Just think of the equivalent PPC value on that.

    Hope some of you find this helpful.

    You can do this.

    -John
    Nice post, which will help people start with article marketing.

    You didn't even forget to put the cherry on the top of the cake :p
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  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    I'd like to ask all you seasoned article marketers about a tactic I keep seeing (that seems to have great success in a particular niche I'm in, even though I've read that it's frowned upon). It about repeating the keywords in an article title - especially ezine and prlog seem to rank highly for this tactic. Anyone care to interject?
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  • Profile picture of the author JFalcon
    That Article Reviser is a great little piece of software. A little advice, if you are going to get into article marketing make sure you are half way interested in your subject or you will bore yourself to tears.
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  • Profile picture of the author 1960Texan
    Johnny,
    Thanks for the solid post and follow ups! I second John McCabe's comment about the way you've handled yourself in this thread. For that alone, I admire you.

    Will
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  • Profile picture of the author parg
    Hi Johnny O

    Your free article marketing soft is very useful as I used it to write article as per the guideline you had shown. Looking forward for our other videos.
    Parg
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  • Profile picture of the author ambitichx
    Thank you JohnnyO, very informative
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  • Profile picture of the author BlueLounge
    Good plan Johnny O, many thanks for this. I shall be trying to implement it alot more into the SEO work i've been doing for clients, hopefully also try and implement some blog post exchanges.
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  • Profile picture of the author orioles86
    Best article method I've seen yet.

    Thanks man!
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  • Profile picture of the author cashmagnet
    Good article marketing related layout
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