Are publishing articles on directories a waste of time compared to publishing them on your own websi

(i) It just isn't (that's to say: it might be to you, but if so, you're really misleading yourself. What determines whether someone buys an "affiliate product" is typically the pre-selling, meaning "the strength of the relationship someone has with the person recommending it". Even if you had some magical post-Panda way of getting traffic to an article directory which had eluded everyone else, it wouldn't be a worthwhile thing to do because those clicks wouldn't turn into buys anyway).

(ii) Nobody's making many affiliate sales without building a list, and you can't build a list without having some sort of site, even if it's only a free one-page blog on free hosting.

That's why there isn't any help anyone can give you which will lead to your making income from it.

If you're not set up for that, you need to get set up for that. Otherwise you'll be here again in another 3 (6?) months' time asking the same question.

Obviously you already have some articles, so there's no reason it would take you more than a few hours (I'm being generous) to get set up for that (and no need to spend any money, to do that). I'm an incompetent technophobe and even I can get set up for that within an hour or two.

Not to click on it, perhaps, but to buy through your link, that's exactly what they need to do. They need to have a relationship with you, and trust the strength of your recommendation.

There's just no intelligent or reasonable answer to this unusual perspective that won't come across as somwhat impolite, I'm afraid.

No, I didn't say that here, and I didn't say it in any of the links to which I referred you, and neither did anyone else. It could possibly be true, I suppose: please excuse my putting it bluntly, but I neither know nor care. The point is that people clicking on a direct-link from an article directory aren't going to buy it. Even if you do have a way of getting traffic there.

As explained in such detail here, if your traffic goes to an article directory instead of to your own page, you lose most of it.

Far higher, actually, if you accumulate initial indexations, but even that isn't the point, here.

No comparison at all.

Google has almost killed the article directories.

But even if they hadn't, at all, what you're suggesting would make very little sense, I'm afraid.

This question is unanswerable because it rests on assumptions that may not be true and have no relevance anyway. Sorry!

It isn't about better CTR's in one place than in another.

It's about effectively having far more traffic in one place than in another, and being able to do better pre-selling in one place than in another. To put it very mildly indeed, these two factors together far outweigh anything to do with a difference in CTR.

If you go about it the right way, you get far better SE results, yes.

Are you absolutely determined, even though you're planning to use articles, to be dependent on search engines for your business's primary traffic?

I don't know about everyone elses experiences with this, but when I use articles from article directories to publish on my own sites, the articles seem to easily rank better than they do on the directories where I found them, where they were published initially.

personally speaking

placing the article on your website/blog would help it rank better, depending how well your site is optimized etc. Plus it's a good way of building a relationship on your blog/site.

The click thru rate would depend on how much the customer trusts you, and how well the article is written, in order for the customer to really buy from you... im guessing the traffic will come from the search engines as your site is ranked.

But alot of good affiliate marketers have a list, thats why they make alot of money and it's repeat because their list of buyers, trust the marketer enough to buy from them.

I would say test both methods, an article on your site and one in a directory and see which converts better. But i still say build a list so you can promote affiliate products to them then it becomes a more long term affiliate business.

Birdi