Is eZine Articles Worth the Effort?

13 replies
Hi everyone,

I'm a writer and business coach and am trying to get more links to my websites and hopefully opt-in signups.

Several people who are making money online have told me that eZine Articles is a good way to get exposure. Now, I've been able to earn $90 to $300 an hour copywriting, so you can understand that the idea of writing articles for no upfront pay doesn't necessarily wow me.

BUT, is this really a worthy venture? I've published one so far and am thinking I should publish at least a few a month; IF this is a good way to get my site rank higher and also get more people interested in my opt-in list.

Peace!

Stephanie
#articles #effort #ezine #worth
  • Profile picture of the author AFI
    It is not only worth the effort, but you should be posting to MANY different article sites. It's not only a great way to get a backlink, but it's a great way to become an authority in your niche and it's a good way to drive traffic to your site.

    Here is a list of the top 50 articles sites.
    List Of Top 50 Article Directories By Traffic, PageRank
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by StephanieMojica View Post

    Several people who are making money online have told me that eZine Articles is a good way to get exposure.
    What exactly did they mean by "exposure"?

    It's part of a process.

    Submitting articles to EZA doesn't in itself guarantee that anyone will earn a penny.

    Originally Posted by StephanieMojica View Post

    Now, I've been able to earn $90 to $300 an hour copywriting, so you can understand that the idea of writing articles for no upfront pay doesn't necessarily wow me.
    For myself, I look at it the other way round. I write less and less for other people and more and more for my own affiliate marketing business, because it does wow me.

    I admit that if I had all the writing work I wanted, with infinite clients, at $300 per hour, I might feel differently about it. But at $90 per hour I'd be turning them away (and in fact I am) because my own article marketing time is worth more than that to me.

    Originally Posted by StephanieMojica View Post

    BUT, is this really a worthy venture?
    For me, it is.

    The key concept which I think your straightforward earnings-per-hour basis misses is precisely the fact that building an affiliate marketing business through successful article marketing is building a business, i.e. it leads to gradually increasing residual income from work already done. Which can't really be said of writing for clients, whatever hourly rate they're paying: that's a more linear model, in which you do the work and get paid for it, and when you want to earn more money, you have to do more work.

    As long as you build your article marketing on the "syndication" model and don't fall for all the "writing for clicks" nonsense and trying to attract fast traffic and fast sales, of course. Otherwise you will probably end up disappointed. That method ("writing for clicks" and "calling to action" and so on) is what people - even people doing it successfully! - refer to as a "rinse and repeat" model, i.e. the income model it involves is as linear as the one involved in "writing for clients": you have to keep on doing it, or "rinsing and repeating" as people say, otherwise you more or less stop earning. Clearly not what you're looking for, so you need to look to EZA for much more than simply backlinks and fast traffic from the directory copy of each article.

    It's also important to appreciate that EZA is simply one article directory (albeit the one from which literate, informative work is far more likely to be syndicated than from any other), that it has many drawbacks and limitations, too, and that article marketing is about a whole lot more than just "directories".

    Like anything else, there's a big learning-curve involved. Don't start off by assuming that just because you're a good writer, the money will necessarily follow.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
      Hi Stephanie,

      I can personally vouch for the likes of Alexa and others like Bill Platt and Steve Wagenheim to name just three that make an exceptional income through Ezine articles and other directories.

      I've had limited success myself (writing my own articles) but I'm not honestly a great writer, I have however had articles written for me that do make up a good part of my income, by other people. I've often paid considerably less than some of the expert article writers charge and the results speak for themselves.

      For someone like yourself who clearly has a great deal of writing experience, I'd seriously advise you to look at the longer term benefits as opposed to being paid immediately for your efforts. There's a great deal of people here that can guide you in the right direction as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Slin
    Writing for clicks can work.

    You still get clicks later on (not nearly as many as you'd like though) but if you build a list in a niche from the clicks then your on the right track.

    Then you take your list, do list swaps, put up a viral script, and start some JV's.

    Now you don't need to write anymore articles

    I find this works for me, smartest? Maybe not, but it sure gets the job done.

    (Kinda like my van, it's duct taped together, smartest idea? Maybe not but it's held for the last year)
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  • Profile picture of the author vstar00
    Hi Stephanie,

    If your time is worth 90-150 per hour, then it is NOT worth you writing to ezine articles.

    Earn $100 per hour, and pay someone on oDesk $5-10 per article. You spend 1 day working (8 hours), then hire someone to write you 80 articles and submit them.

    Or 70 articles, then buy a months subscription to Uniqua Article Wizard and have it submitted to hundreds of directories.

    If you can earn $90-150 per hour, you should basically be doing NOTING except working and outsourcing.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by vstar00 View Post

      If your time is worth 90-150 per hour, then it is NOT worth you writing to ezine articles.
      This is total nonsense.

      I'm not trying to be aggressive or unpleasant for the sake of it, but it's clear that you have no experience of what you're trying to give advice about, here. There's a whole different world of "article marketing" out there, of which you're blissfully unaware.

      That's about the sort of hourly price-range that my time is worth to me, and I'm spending plenty of time writing articles and submitting them to EZA. And it's because of that that my "hourly value" rises!

      Originally Posted by vstar00 View Post

      Earn $100 per hour, and pay someone on oDesk $5-10 per article. You spend 1 day working (8 hours), then hire someone to write you 80 articles and submit them.

      Or 70 articles, then buy a months subscription to Uniqua Article Wizard and have it submitted to hundreds of directories.

      If you can earn $90-150 per hour, you should basically be doing NOTING except working and outsourcing.
      Again, utter nonsense.

      What you're saying applies to one, very limited model of "article marketing" (and a comparatively poor one) in which you're depending on article directories as your source of views, clicks and traffic.

      That's not a model of article marketing that has any relevance to someone already able to earn a good living as a writer. :rolleyes:

      Outsourcing that sort of "rinse and repeat business" will hardly be an attractive proposition to someone in that position, will it? Someone who starts off bringing her own writing skills to her own table would be absolutely insane to be outsourcing the writing part of the business, when that's the most valuable component of building up the residual income available.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimG
    Hi Stephanie,
    It looks like you are in a unique position based on your ability to generate income from your writing abilities. Based on that, the ROI for writing your own articles and submitting them to EZA might not be worthwhile for you.

    Instead you might be better off writing for your clients while simultaneously outsourcing your own writing needs. Once you receive the articles you could easily proof them and then submit them with an emphasis on the high quality you utilize for your own clients. Gradually you will find that the income derived from your own articles will rise to a sufficient level where you might not need to write for others anymore due to the ROI from your own articles.

    Of course, you could opt to make the first and last article you write each day your own in support of your online business which could then be submitted to EZA along with other article directories. This way you would have anywhere from 30 - 60 articles working on your behalf at the end of 30 days.

    You might also consider writing some articles for Info Barrel because that would help create some adsense income for you but nothing compared to what you are getting for your current efforts.

    One thing I can vouch for is the long term effectiveness of articles once submitted. Consider this, I recently took almost 4 months completely off due to a rather nasty illness and the residual income from having over 1600 articles published online helped sustain my income during that downtime.

    Mind you I did nothing.....when you are paid by others for your efforts it generally means if you do nothing you earn nothing...just something to keep in the back of your head.

    No matter what you choose to do (either write for yourself or outsource articles on your behalf) you need to have content submitted and syndicated throughout the Internet. You never know when that content and the income it can generate will one day come in handy


    Oh, before I forget...you could also focus on guest blogging for others. I personally guarantee that if you are a quality writer you will find the ROI from writing high quality articles as a guest blogger for others will significantly increase your exposure, the quality of backlinks to your own content and your overall income producing potential.

    Respectfully,
    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      I agree 100% with Tim, Stephanie.

      The amount you command already for copywriting is quite substantial. If you command that much, I guess I would 'assume' that you have happy and loyal customers. Perhaps, somehow, leverage existing customers to spread word of your services via word-of-mouth?

      Perhaps a referral incentive of sorts for those who make a referral? $50? $100?
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      • Profile picture of the author Bingo123
        Yes, without a doubt it is worth it. In an environment where it can be so difficult to get targeted traffic to your site, Ezinearticles offers exactly that and for free.
        You won't find anything that's free out there that beats it.
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        • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
          Originally Posted by Bingo123 View Post

          Yes, without a doubt it is worth it. In an environment where it can be so difficult to get targeted traffic to your site, Ezinearticles offers exactly that and for free.
          You won't find anything that's free out there that beats it.
          If they don't begin sharing revenue in their Adsense premium account, and ensuring greater quality control, this may not be the case for too much longer. The internet is evolving, and EZA has some serious issues to address ASAP. They aren't entirely beyond hope, but I would be cautious to proclaim them as the greatest free resource out there. Better business models are encroaching on them.
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          • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
            I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this but there is no need to write specifically for EZA. If you already have content on your websites, simply take that content and add a resource box and submit it to EZA. Repurpose the good content that you already have instead of putting time and effort into giving EZA unique content.

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  • Profile picture of the author Fun to Write
    Stephanie

    I agree with Alexa, that not only should you place more articles on EZA, but that you should stick to writing them yourself. You are a writing expert and that has earned you some great money.

    However, you can't say that you have reached every prospective client that may be interested in your services. That's the beauty of article marketing. It allows you to spread your message out far and wide, plus provide links back to your website.

    You'll be surprised what happens when you post quality articles. Others want to publish them on their sites. Someone may recommend you as a writing expert on a forum that you've never heard of before, business people will discover your talent and want to hire you.

    All because you posted some articles.

    Just make sure you learn how to use keywords effectively and include them in your articles.
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  • Profile picture of the author djones
    Article marketing definitely has value. It's free (unless you're outsourcing anything), and relatively easy, especially for someone with writing experience.

    I think the key is learning how to do it the right way. Some who have decided article marketing doesn't work maybe weren't using the best approach. Fortunately, there are plenty of threads on this forum that will show you the right way to go about it.
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