Hello everyone. First of all I want to say that I'm new at this but I did a lot of research before taking the plunge. This forum helped greatly. I think I pretty much understand what I have to do when it comes to article marketing, but there's one detail that I'd really like cleared up. I'll explain with an example to make it easier. Let's say I want to promote a product that shows you how to build a dog house (totally random). I do my keywords research and come up with let's say, 10 good keywords. I then decide to build my main landing page built around 1 keyword (like "how to build a dog house") that I chose by including that keyword inside the page as much as possible. Then, I try to build as many backlinks (forums, blogs, comments etc.) as possible with that keyword so I can get my landing page on the first page of Google. Here's my question: If I also make other articles all pointing back to the landing page, does it mean I need to try to get those articles on the 1st page of Google by building backlinks and everything for those as well? Also, do each of these articles promote another unique keyword? For example one article for the keyword "Building a dog house", a second article for the keyword "dog house plans" etc.? And all of those point back to the landing page that has the keyword "how to build a dog house"? I hope I'm pretty clear. Basically I'm wondering if only making a landing page and get it to the first page is enough, or if making those other articles pointing back at that landing page is worth the extra work of backlink building etc. so they can get traffic.
Hi and welcome, Zeta, That is, eventually, quite a good idea, and will help. It's not just the idea of having those articles high in the SERP's that's the point, here. It's the fact that having backlinks out and about to those articles will increase Google's algorithm's estimation of the significance/weight of those pages and hence the links in them to your own site/blog, and will therefore help you to maintain the ranking of your own site/blog. But it's much more important, especially in the early stages, to get backlinks to your property rather than to anyone else's. Don't forget that some article directory traffic will be "subverted" via the Adsense the article directories display. Don't forget that your primary job is to build your sites, not anyone elses. Don't make the mistake of giving your articles to directories before putting them on your own property (I think this is probably the single commonest mistake that people make with article marketing). And specifically don't let anyone tell you that "Ezine Articles will publish only original content", because that's absolute nonsense. (If anyone tells you this, the one thing you've learned is that it's someone who advises people without knowing what he's talking about.) It's enough to get you started. It can be worth the extra work, to some extent, yes; but never at the cost of not promoting your own blogs/sites as the primary SEO function.
Thank you for your answer alexa. My current plan is to get my landing page on Squidoo and write articles (each with a targeted keyword) on Ezine, ArticlesBase and Buzzle linking back to the landing page. I'll also be creating backlinks to Squidoo through popular sites like Digg, Yahoo Answers etc and also forums and blogs. I think I found a really nice product. What's weird (but great) is that I found a really high-traffic keyword that barely has any competition. It seems like untapped potential right there. That keyword wasn't even registered on Squidoo so I already have my landing page with that keyword reserved in the URL. Wish me luck, I'll try to report back from day to day since I'm brand new at all this.
I hear you. I don't say it won't work, and I don't say you shouldn't do it that way. But it wouldn't be my choice at all! If you do this, you'll be doing a lot of work and putting your time, energy and effort into getting traffic mostly for other people: Squidoo mostly, and article directories. It's easy to see how Squidoo and EZA will benefit from what you're doing. It's less easy to see how you will benefit. I don't say that you won't make any sales, but you can do a lot better in other ways. Why do you want to use Squidoo's site as your landing page? It can be good. It can be bad, though: remember that some keywords have high traffic and low competition for a reason (i.e. it's a "browsing niche" and not a "buying niche"). Sorry to sound negative, but be aware of this before you start! Of course I wish you good luck. There are people who have got started and made some money this way, I know. Please excuse my commenting that it's really not how I would want to go about it, myself.
Hmm I see. What is the advantage of having your own site exactly? How would it be better for me to create a webpage called "www.buildingyourdoghouse.com" (going with the same random example) with my pre-sell there, compared to making a Squidoo page about the subject and the pre-sell there? Am I not advantaged in terms of traffic by hosting my pre-sell on an already popular and established website? Another thing of note is that I'm just starting. I like to go a bit slow at first and analyze what's happening. I'm pretty sure if I start making some serious money that I'll opt with things like having my own website etc. Right now though, all of that is almost intimidating!
Because it's your site. You own it. You control it. Squidoo can't suddenly say "No thanks, we don't want this lens any more" and make it disappear (as they've been doing recently to very large numbers of affiliate marketers!). You're not bound by someone's else's terms of service (which can suddenly change, as Squidoo's recently have done). It's your business, not someone else's. You don't get your traffic distracted by someone else's advertising and lose half of it that way. And it looks far more professional! (How many different reasons did you want??? ) I don't see why. Why should your lens there be already popular and established? You're not comparing ease of getting traffic to abcxyz.com with ease of getting traffic to Squidoo. You're comparing it with ease of getting traffic to squidoo.com/abcxyz. I hear you there. But what you're analyzing will be of limited value to you if it's on someone else's site with someone else's advertising there. You can't learn much that signifies much in the long run this way. The fact that you're just starting off, in my opinion, gives you a real incentive to set things up properly for the long term right from the start rather than having to change everything, learn everything again, and so on. This is a fallacy. Because your proposed "temporising measure" is itself one that reduces your chances of making some serious money. You're coming into something (affiliate marketing, in its broadest sense) which has a low success-rate. The overwhelming majority of people who "try it" in fact don't succeed and don't pursue it long-term because they get disillusioned and give up at some point. Why? Because they start off trying things like this, in other words, they stack the deck against themselves. Just my perspective. I hope that it comes across as helpful to you (my intention) rather than negative/critical.
Squidoo used to be a GREAT promotional tool (like 2 years ago). But it has gone downhill since and as Alexa said, they can get rid of your content/traffic/revenue without a moment's notice.
Yes, focus the majority of your backlinking efforts on building links to your sites, rather than your articles on other sites.
Absolutely. I focus my effort and energy on my online property. I'll use other people's (including EZA's "Adsense-festspielhaus") if it benefits my blog/site (which it does), but I'm certainly not sending my traffic to Squidoo!
Okay, then let's say I decide to make my very own website. What is better: A big general website that will contain all my articles, a bit like my own personal article directory (the website could be called something like "tonsofproducts.com")... or a webpage for each product I'm promoting. For example one webpage called makedoghouses.com, then loseweightnow.com, etc. Until then, would you guys say that ArticlesBase is actually a better place to build my landing pages than Squidoo? Thanks for all the replies, I appreciate it.
Don't use Squidoo, just don't .. They've pulled down a lense of mine once that was making me enough money to live on at that time.. without any notice. It was on weight loss, featured first on google.. at that time hoplinks weren't forbidden within the lense .. There was a top affiliate promoting fat loss 4 idiots, that's actually a buddy of mine that had 5 lenses pulled off and he had to change his 1000 something articles bio boxes back at ezinearticles.com.. Squidoo in my opinion is a no-no for several reasons.. and one of them is the ads that are all over the side-bar and top and footer of each page which is simply distracting the customer.. P.S. Use the lense to link back to your articles, landing pages.. just pre-sell. Al./
The general consensus is certainly that the latter (a page/mini-site/blog for each product) is better. I've always assumed that, too. I'm not certain it's true. The "tonsofproducts" approach may, for some people, have something in it, actually, I suspect, depending on how you do it. It's kind of ambitious. Because I have another online career as an article-writer myself, I'm actually planning to try something similar early next year, combining advertising my writing services with sort of multi-affiliate marketing (lots of "specimen articles" on different subjects). Everyone tells me it's a very bad idea (and they may well be right!), but nobody can actually give me convincing reasons, and that strengthens my determination to try it, because I'm bloody-minded that way and enjoy proving everyone wrong. I'll let you know how I get on!
Interesting! Okay, some other questions now. By the way sorry if I ask a lot of questions, I'm just really in the learning process right now and I need to absorb as much as possible so I thank you all. First of all when it comes to using Squidoo, ArticlesBase etc., you guys told me that they generally don't allow hoplinks and can take down your hard work for it. If I use a simple solution like TinyURL to mask my hoplink, will it work? Now for website creation, I'll probably start by using single domains (and try that "tonsofproducts" later, who knows!). How would I do that? Where do I go to buy the domains and how much should I expect to pay, do you have recommendations? Once I have my webpage, can I automatically put some AdSense on them and should I do that? Or should I focus on the product and not put any other ads.
ArticlesBase allows hoplinks, you can link directly to your domains without a problem. I recommend www.Namecheap.com for domain registration - under $10 for a .com and solid service/features.
EZA don't allow hoplinks. Article marketing using direct links to vendors' sales pages is a very, very difficult way to make sales, anyway. The easy way round it (for EZA) is to use a top-level domain (usually a ".info" which you can buy at GoDaddy for $1) with masked forwarding to your hoplink. They allow this, in principle. (They don't like it if they also feel that your articles are "derivative"). Probably. But it's also not good, for two reasons. First, many people don't like tinyURL links and feel they look suspicious, as if someone's hiding something, and that can create a bad impression (and cost some sales). Secondly, it's not a good idea to let your whole business be dependent on a third-party service like tinyURL. If they go under, or change their terms, you'll have a nightmare changing all your links. GoDaddy are cheap and reliable. (Don't ever host a domain where you register it). Namecheap are ok, too. The downsides with GoDaddy are (i) that their site takes a bit of getting used to (I use it myself but don't like it a lot, it's unnecessarily messy and complicated but I never had problems: they're good registrars and bad hosts, in my opinion), and (ii) they have a lot of "attempted upsells" in their checkout and you need to take care before paying that you're not buying anything extra you didn't want (they have this in common with VistaPrint - it's not a problem as long as you take care!). No AdSense!! You make only pennies from it and lose customers that way: it's a way for people to leave your site rather than staying there. And it looks unprofessional. Don't even think about it. Just my opinion.
Awesome answers. You're all being very helpful. I think I've been convinced to get my own domains. 10 bucks a year is ridiculously lower than I thought it would be for a ".com". It will be quite challenging to build my own sites from scratch though, the last time I've made a website was 10 years ago on Geocities or something like that, woohoo... It's my first day of article writing today and it's not easy. I wrote 3 different articles on the subject related to the product and I'm already wondering what I could write next. Whew! I'm pretty happy with them quality wise, but I realize the quantity is also important. But if I can write 3 articles a day I think it's not a bad start! I'll just need inspiration. I submit those articles to Ezine, ArticlesBase and Buzzle. ArticlesBase already approved them. I'll just have to change the URLs once I get my own website. Until then, I'm hoping to at least get my first and always important sale. I'll keep you guys up to date and I'll probably have many other questions as I experience all of this for the first time.
I have 2 new questions. First of all, I learned that ArticlesBase use NoFollow links! Is there any reason for me to submit articles there then? I don't understand, I've seen a lot of affiliates using it to create links to their landing pages but what's the point? My second question is about creating backlinks. I've been commenting on blog posts (with my name being the keyword+URL to my landing page), creating accounts on forums where I filled the Website section in my profile with my URL etc. and I was wondering... Do I have to click on my own link to "activate" it in the backlinks? Or can I just post them and leave? I've been posting without clicking on them so I'm starting to wonder.
Yes. There are still two advantages: first, you can get traffic to your site from it; secondly, people can take your articles from that source (this is what article directories are, you know? They're sources for people to take and re-publish articles, and you're consenting to that by putting your articles there) including your link, and you can get future links and future traffic that way. "Do follow" and "no follow" really make far less difference than people imagine. You can post them and leave, as long as they're sites that are indexed (which I imagine they will be). I'm not sure your name is the greatest anchor-text, though.
That is pretty much correct. ArticlesBase is actually my favorite directory, the articles rank well in search engines and can provide significant traffic. Dofollow vs. Nofollow links are totally over hyped (as Alexa mentioned). The only thing I would disagree with Alexa on is that people rarely republish stuff from AB and if they do, they'll probably remove your links anyway. But as I said (and Alexa already discussed), you should still submit to ArticlesBase.