Article Syndication:Critic me please!

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13
Hi all,

I am working on using syndication to gain traffic.
Spending much time and effort in it, I wanted to be very sure that I am doing everything correctly.

1. How do you write a strong Call To Action? :confused:

2. I am thinking of adding call to action in end of article, and offers solution in resource box. Is this any good?

Example:
End of article: Consider getting yourself a guide to help you on XXX...
Resource box: Tom Potato is an expert in XXX. Click here for XXX.

3. Is a humble resource box better than a salesy one?
I've read that salesy resource box reduces chance of syndication. It'd be great to have some examples of good resource box.

4. I can use some comments. Here's a recent article i wrote:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Surefi...ght&id=7314772

Do let me know if i am doing anything wrong, any comments welcome!
#main internet marketing discussion forum #action #article #box #call #resource #syndication
  • Think of your article as one step in an extended experience. If your article creates a favorable experience, some readers will want to continue it. Your resource box offers readers that chance.

    This can work okay, depending on what 'XXX' is. If it's a free offer and the landing page looks like it will have value, you have a pretty good chance. If it's a straight sales page or affiliate redirect, your chances of using the call-to-action model go down.

    You've read some good advice. An in-your-face promotion is likely to have publishers tell you that if you want an ad, buy an ad.

    One model you could use is something like:

    "Tom Potato has been waging war on garden pests for over a decade, and he's willing to share ten of his best tips at [link]. Join the fight against veggie killers and eat more of what you plant."

    While the article seems to have some decent information in it, I'd reject it for any of my sites or emails. Here's why:

    > The opening paragraph basically accuses readers of being too lazy to burn fat, and trashes some common reasons. This, for normal human beings, will cause them to either stop reading or get defensive. Either way, they won't be happy, and they'd blame me for sharing the article.

    If I publish that article, I'm putting my name and relationship with the reader behind it. Upset readers will think I agree that the only reason they don't lose fat is because they're too busy making excuses. Not something I want to risk.

    > There's no medical warning. What happens if someone reads your advice and gives himself a heart attack exercising to the point of exhaustion? The high-intensity workout might be fine for trained athletes, but most couch potatoes would be putting themselves at risk.

    > Last, and least, the article was obviously written by someone whose native language is not English. Not because of major mistakes, but because of the missing articles and syntax. I can almost hear an accent when I read. Eastern European, maybe? That's something a good publisher would clean up for you, even if it does break EZA'a TOS. I don't have time to edit every article, so if it looks like work, I pass it by.

    The good news is that everything I mentioned is easily fixed...
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    • Banned
      I agree with everything John says above. The kind of resouce box of which he gives an example is particularly suitable, I think.

      It's also possible that some of the links in this post might help/interest you: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7141838

      The "language faults" in the article can easily be fixed (and need to be) by someone whose first language is English.

      I'd like to add a few points, not about the article itself but about the broader perspective of what you're trying to do, here. Please appreciate that I intend to do so helpfully rather than critically.

      I think that, at the moment, this is very unlikely indeed to work out as you intend. I have several reasons for suspecting this, of which the first (on my little list below) is overwhelmingly the most important.

      1. You're not building a list. For many reasons, it's terribly difficult to sell many ClickBank products without building a list. And it would be extraordinarily wasteful of "perfectly good traffic" to achieve article syndication and not even try to collect the visitors' email addresses. I think you need to have a prominently incentivized opt-in on your landing-page. Both because you want to use article marketing, and because of the nature of the product you're selling. And its sales page. And its price.

      This post will help: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7110523

      2. You're limiting your site to promoting one product. (We can see this from your choice of domain-name, which I also don't like). I know you have to start somewhere, and I'm not suggesting that you should start off selling more than one, but what you have there is a "product site", not a "niche site". Even if you make this work and collect targeted traffic through syndication of articles, this is a second-best approach (to put it mildly).

      3. At the moment, you're linking from the article to another copy of the same article. This is a huge "no-no". Most people's reaction, on following such a link, is one of momentary confusion, a feeling of "Hang on, what's this all about? Haven't I just read this article?" followed by disappointment. You need a different landing-page. Another copy of the article won't cut it.

      4. There are some big problems (in my opinion) with the sales page of the product you're promoting. It has autoplay video (never good news). It has leaks (terrible news). And so on. It, and the page after it if people want to see the payment page, load pretty badly even with a hugely fast internet connection. From my perspective as an affiliate, this sales page doesn't qualify under my own selection criteria: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post2161932

      This product does have at least one other sales page available (albeit that it's one with a vendor's opt-in, which is arguably even less suitable). With the one you're using, the customer's payment process is "affiliate-unfriendly": people have to supply their email address before seeing ClickBank's order page. All a little problematic? :confused:

      Most of this is unimportant, though, compared with the fact you need to build a list. Products like this are sold by establishing credibility and trust through an email series.
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  • Thanks to John & Alexa for the very detailed feedback.

    While it seems that my direction is a bit off, I really appreciate the comments.

    This would be a great chance for me to learn about all the missing pieces. While the domain name & product sales page are now too late to change, I've summarized what I can do from here:

    1. Set up an autoresponder & collect emails.
    2. Prepare a report to entice readers to provide their emails.
    3. Prepare the mails to be sent to subscribers once every few days. The mails will have to be value added and helps build trust & credibility. I plan to subscribe to several competitors in the same niche to better observe how to do this effectively.
    4. Work on my English before I proceed to submit articles to any publishers.
    5. Modify my call to action(resource box).
    6. Improve outlook of my site.

    Guess I still have much to learn.
    That article actually took me couple of days to write.
    I do not plan to outsource any article writing as I would like to do and learn everything for my first site.

    Can anyone point out which part of the article I should improve? This will help me greatly in identifying my weakness in article writing.
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    • Banned
      I think this is a really good and perceptive summary, and will be very helpful to you.

      I'm sorry that I can't go through it sentence-by-sentence at the moment (maybe I can later, if nobody else does). There are some general criteria about "making articles worthy of publication" in this thread, if they help: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post3188316
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  • here's how I start my resource box.

    By the way, do you want to learn xxx, if yes, get my free report or video that will show you xxx?

    This gives me good conversion. It seems like I am continuing my article and not putting any advert at the end of my article...
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I've been working on the items i listed in the previous post. I couldn't thank you guys enough for the advise. Can't wait to get more feedback after I have improved my site and worked on building my list.

    Cheers.
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