I have been Writing Articles/Content for a lot of clients for well over two years. Ive gathered a lot of experience and knowledge and now know what all niches I enjoy writing upon. Also, these days, people prefer picking those writers who claim to do good at cheap prices. Due to this, I am not getting constant work as I used to get earlier. Hence, I was thinking of earning from my own content. If any one can explain me how I should go about it, and where all I can post my articles and earn from them, I would really be very greatful. Thanks for your time.
Shouldn't you know this already??? Submiting them to sites with a lot of traffic is a good and intelligent start. Stay away from article dumpers, like ezine. They are overrated. Submit to such sites like About, online magazines like Yahoo and Askmen.... Do a search for such sites. Don't forget offline newspapers and magazines. Many throughout the country are looking for fresh reading material. Call the right department on how to submit it to them, and what they are looking for, or possibly may interest them at that time.
With all due respect, I completely disagree. Chances of you getting picked up by About.com or Yahoo.com are slim to none. It's a completely unreliable way of trying to make money through writing articles. Here's how I'd do it. I've personally used this method to make about $200. I didn't stick with it afterwards however, but it did prove to be profitable while I was using it. Step 1 - Create a Blog Step 2 - Pick a ClickBank product Step 3 - Write 10 informative posts on your blog, use Wordpress to drip-feed the content 1 post per day. 7 Posts should be informative, 3 should be sales oriented. Provide good value, then sell them on the product. Step 4 - Write 10 Articles and submit them to Ezine Articles, promoting your blog. Step 5 - Contact other website owners and offer to write for their sites for free, in exchange for a backlink. The best sites to contact are those between position 30-500 on Google for your main search term. Enough to get traffic, but not big enough to be hard to contact. It's that simple. I actually only made about 5 blog posts and submitted maybe 5 articles and made $200. That's about $20 an article, which is way more than you'd get for your rates here. Keep in mind that the profits from this strategy take a little time. It'll take a few weeks for your first purchase to come in. My 2 cents.
The whole article writing thing for me was pretty much a waste of time. I don't know of anyone who picked up my ezine articles or traffic they provided. '
In my opinion, article writing is to gain potentially loyal readers. People who actually read a site's contents and seeking answers. I believe article marketing is only good if you have the right niche for it and if you are interested in writing long paragraphs, other than that, it's not one of the most effect methods to use to generate loads of traffic.
Start your own blog and write for yourself. Then submit articles to Ezine and such to promote your blog.
You could also use this strategy, but rather than directing them to a blog, you have your signature link in your article send viewers to a squeeze page where you capture their e-mail address (in exchange for a free report or download, for example). This way, you can continue to promote related offers to the list of people that you build, whether they come back to your site or not. Or you could just put an opt-in form on your blog, though a squeeze page would likely convert better initially.
You are fortunate in that you have a big head start compared to most other people when to writing articles, so it's not a big task for you. However, your focus may have been in producing the content rather than using it for marketing so you'll have to change your focus slightly. I recommend you also get into affiliate marketing and use your articles as way of earning extra money with commissions from affiliate programs. Figure out what niche you plan on getting into. If you like Bollywood films, look for an affiliate program that pays for Bollywood films. Check out the competition because if Bollywood films can be downloaded 100% free elsewhere, then you're kind of hosed. So look for niche, preferably something that you also like as well, that has a decent demand of 10,000 quoted searches or under on Google, make sure there is a reputable affiliate product for it that will actually pay you, then choose targeted keywords and write your articles with those keywords sprinkled in there as well as your affiliate links (if the directory allows). If the directory doesn't allow that, you'll need to have your own website or blog with those links on it and note that website or blog in your resource box. That's not a problem with Squidoo or goarticles. But it is an issue with ezinearticles so keep that in mind. After you've written your article, draw traffic to it through places like DIGG, Stumbleupon, or any other social bookmarking sites. Someone mentioned associated content, helium or triond. Those are other ways to market your articles which have your affiliate links in them as well as picking up a few dollars here and there as well just for the popularity of your articles.
Ok, so what I gather from there is that: 1. I need to start my own site/blog. 2. I should use my area of interest (niche) to promote and sell a product through clickbank or whatever. 3. Apart from affiliate marketing, can I also make money just from the visitors...like use CPM and CPC programmes along with affiliate marketing? I got that, however, I am having a little trouble understanding how to get traffic to my site. Can someone explain to me how promoting on Ezine articles will help me? Will people there read my promotional article (according to Derek Pankaew) and then visit my blog? Can I also be explained how to use other avenues to get traffic to my site? I don't have a budget to work with, I just have my content writing skills and a somewhat advanced web designing experience to work with. I need to know techniques which might take effort, but I cannot afford techniques which involves payment. Someone please give me a few tips on how to go ahead with affiliate marketing and how to get some traffic to my site. I know there are hundreds of articles out there explaining just that, but I'd like it straight out of the horses mouth...what personally worked for you guys. Thanks for all the replies, your help is much appreciated.
Yes, once your article is published on say, ezinearticles.com, you get traffic both from the article directory itself, and more importantly from the search engines as people search for keywords related to your articles. Also, you may also get additional traffic from other sites as the articles are syndicated. But mainly search engines, which is why choosing the right keywords (for your article titles, for example) is important as you're brainstorming your articles. As for other traffic generation strategies, it might be easiest to just play to your existing strengths. Since writing is your strong point, you could contact established blog owners in your niche and offer to "guest blog" for them. That is, write a post on a topic that would be of value to their audience, to be published exclusively on their blog. If they'd like to have you write, then you can include a link back to your own site in your blog byline. Once the post is published on their blog, some of their readers will come to your site to find out more about your stuff (assuming they got a lot of value out of the post). Alternately, you could start a blog of your own and offer to interview people in your niche, which would have a similar effect (they tell their readers about the interview, and some of their readers come to check out your blog.) If you decide to go that route, here's a list of blogs that accept guest bloggers. 52 Blogs That Accept Guest Bloggers Hope that helps!
P.S. One reason that I recommended having a mechanism on your site to capture email addresses is that once you have a responsive list of email subscribers, you have a steady source of traffic to your website any time you decide to email them. This won't make other traffic sources obsolete, but it will keep you from having to rely on "cold" traffic exclusively.
How do you know? Maybe, maybe not, but a webmaster will never know unless he tries first. There are writers out there doing just that. Check out such sites as Askmen. There are also many who do newspapers and magazines. It's not great money, I'll agree, but when combined with other methods, it pays their bills, and then some. What are the URL'S that has these 5 articles, and what is the name of the blog? You are pretty close in being right. Though there are those rare few who make a few bucks here and there. The same with submitting to blogs, too. Too overrated, but still used by many noobs. And many of them are amazingly stupid.
@Hagen Doesn't that become like all the spam you receive everyday, even though you may have signed up for it, you don't really ever end up reading it? More like spam maybe? Also, what else do you recommend? Buying traffic? I heard some stuff about lenses and all, are they worth it? I have no idea what they are, but is it worthwhile trying them? Please throw more idea's at me, anything that HAS worked for you. Thanks for all the help really.
Keep in mind that I said a RESPONSIVE list of subscribers. Yes, if all you're doing is constantly trying to sell them stuff, people will tune you out. If, on the other hand, you build an actual RELATIONSHIP with your subscribers by connecting with them and actually providing them with valuable content and reccomendations (free or paid) that you actually think will help them, they'll open your emails while they screen out the rest - because now instead of just being another "spammer", you're that guy who they trust and who always shows them cool stuff. Granted, there's a whole methodology for doing this, but I can vouch for it's effectiveness, both with building my own list and as a subscriber to tons of other newsletters (most of them get ignored, but the few that I consistently open are the ones who've built up a relationship with me and I know it'll most likely be worth my time). As for specific traffic methods...I would decide on what business model you want to use first, then decide on what traffic methods work well with that model (which you can do by looking at sites that already use that business model and seeing how they're generating traffic). The reason I say this is that different methods of traffic generation can work better for certain business models than others. For example, forum marketing (placing ads in your forum signature link) can SUCK for making direct sales through your link, but it can be a great way to quickly build an opt-in subscriber list for free. Likewise, it can be tough to rank on the first page of Google for broad keywords, but easy to rank for specific product-related keywords, so SEO can be great for review sites because they're built around a specific product. Especially if you provide an ACTUAL review and not just a watered-down pitch page. I personally would stay away from paid advertising (if you're talking about Adwords) unless you really know what you're doing or have someone who does and will work with you. Either way, figure out WHAT you're going to do first as far as your business model, then work out the how. That's the best approach in my experience.
You seem like you know what you're talking about Hagen. I'm going to PM you now if you don't mind. Thanks for all the other inputs!
Totally - the method of blog, articles, affiliate product is proven.. but don't forget to think outside of the box at every opportunity. Here's a more long term model to think about.. Create a PLR membership site specializing in 3-5 niche markets.. charge people $9/month, and be sure to have a healthy back end model cross promoting various other related products via the site and mailing list (always build a list)... Every month you provide your members with x-amount of articles, with limited members of course... let's say 25 articles per month, across 5 niches... 5 articles per niche. Your membership site is limited to 100 members, at full capacity earning you $900/month not including back end sales and other cross promotions. Do this with 3-5 sites of your own, all unique to themselves, with their own niches... and you'll have a healthy income running on autopilot.. with your only job being writing 50-100 articles per month, email list management, and cashing cheques... Don't forget that you could also build PLR membership sites in niches that you hate, but where there is a demand, and outsource the monthly article quota to a top notch writer - still creating profit for yourself.. for doing nothing!!! That's my two cents.. membership sites is where it's at.. and if you take a look on ANY forum, quality content is something that EVERYone is looking for... think about it???
I've made some decent money writing about how to get laid using adult friend finder. I would sometimes just make stuff up like how gamers were flocking to AFF for fun and sex, or how orgies were being organized locally for members only (all total BS for the most part). It's called suspension of disbelief; when a guy wants to get laid very badly he is likely to belief anything you tell him.
@ OP: I can tell from your posts and your questions that you really need a beginners course (nothing wrong with that). Start with the basics. You'll never get all of your questions answered by posting in a forum. I'm going to recommend the following blog to you..."Internet Marketing with Josh Spaulding". The guy knows his stuff, particularly in regards to article marketing. I'm just an avid reader of his and have zero monetary interest in referring you there. Also, google "Bum Marketing" and look for anything by Travis Sago. I subscribed to his mailing list and learned a lot about driving traffic and AM with articles. Good Luck