Article Marketing & ClickBank - My Documented Journey

"Part 2" refers to an old technique when you write a 2-part article. In the author's bio at the bottom of the first article you refer to the 2nd part and say something like this:

"... Part 2 of this article is jam packed with <insert lots of enticing benefits here> which you can read free of charge - Click here <your web address/Part_2.htm>"

This would drag readers by the ton into your website. Great stuff but as always it got totally abused all over the place.

So editors have banned what they now collectively call "cliffhangers". They say your article must stand on its own merits, no exceptions.

I recently had a war of words with one editor ... I submitted a 3-part article. All 3 parts were submitted at the same time to the same directory. So I wasn't trying to drag readers to my site using a cliffhanger. They objected because one article referred to another with something like

"In part 1 I explained what to do about <whatever>, now I'm going to show you how to do <whatever>"

and

"... in the next part I'm going to show you the results of <whatever> .."

Long story short, they said that the only linkage allowed is to mention in the title some thing lile:

"The Truth About <whatever> - Part 1"
"The Truth About <whatever> - Part 2"
etc.

They said if the readers like what you're saying, they'll go and search for the other parts. You can't even say "part 1 of 3"!

Strict? Yep. But they have good reason and want to protect the readers from trickery. Fair enough I suppose.

To be fair, I've found that the directories who don't have stringent protection don't get much traffic coz the readers get burnt, run away and never go back. Those directories often get into other problems and soon get sunk by the search engines too. So you really don't want to waste your time with them only to find they're gone in 3 months time.

Instead of the Part-2 method check out my next post entitled "Tip: for maximum click through results"

Samo


While cliffhangers aren't allowed in articles, you can do a "one-two punch" (my terminology ).

What you do is plan your article to write it in such a way that you explain "subject X" in the article body. In the author's bio, you refer to a tool or info etc that make doing X easier, faster or cheaper etc.

Do you see what's happening? There are many simple variations of the one-two, for example:

Explain how to do something, in the article, then offer a tool to do it with, in the bio

or

Explain what to do and then offer info, a product or support etc that shows them how to do it.

or

write an article about some tools in your niche, then offer a guide or video or other product that shows them how to use the tools.

This works really well. OK, now you know about the one-two punch I hope you can see this is much better than using/wasting the bio with "Joe Smith is an expert in ...".

Always think about your readers and see if what you write passes the "So what?" test. Readers don't care about your particulars. Well, not in an article anyway.

If you have a salesletter about a product of your own, then it is in there that you need to layout your credentials. But that's another story altogether.

In an article bio, focus on giving the reader a reason to visit your site. You being an authority on X is comforting but not a compelling reason.

Offering a free guide relating to your article content, on the other hand, is a great hook. See my other post in this thread which includes tips on creating a free report from your existing articles. (I don't yet have the right to insert http links in my posts).

You can extend the one-two puch to selling more products (affiliate or your own), as well as increasing click-throughs. A fabulous way of doing this is:

Write your article about "subject X". Then in the bio refer to a free in-depth review of "Y" at your website. Make sure the link takes the reader directly to the review.

Y's are tools, software, books, services very closely relating to X.

Now, do an honest review of just two or three Y's. Think about it, if you're looking for info on X, wouldn't you wnat the easy way out if someone is offering a review of the best three competitors (3 Y's) in that subject!

The final step is to make sure that you have your affiliate links in your review to all the Y's. So whichever the reader goes for, you get paid.

OK, one last super-tip before I go:

Offer the reader of your review (on the review page) a free report etc, for opting in from your review page AND buying one of the Y's. Tell them they'll get the download link as soon as you validate their purchase via your link and no later than 24 hours from them emailing you their reciept. Check the recipet against your sales.

This increases your optins thus building your list faster and of course increases your sales dramatically.

Good luck

Samo

 

wow Ponynugget your hard work is totally inspirational. Hope you make lots of sales in the future. Just keep at it and keep us posted with your progress.

 

Very good stuff samo. Great tip.
Stan

 

Thank you Samo, nice knowledge

 

Stan & Ritu

You're most welcome.

It seems that many people including Ponynugget struggle to monetize their traffic.

In the next few days, I'll post a no-fluff and free report here that describes the entire process including a few insider tips.

I say "insider" because 99.99% of the time we, the public, only see the sales letter. What we don't see is the critical process behind the scenes where the successful online marketers make all their money.

Did you know there are people who give 125% comission to their affiliates and still make a huge income! Yes 125% - that is not a typo! I'lll try and explain how that worsks too.

The insider tips show you the multiple monetization points that "the public" fail to monetize and more stuff.

Watch this space.

Samo

 

You have a very good work ethic, I don't think you'll fail in very many things you do.

 

There are a few things I hate about article marketing...
1. You create content for an other site owner.
2. Your article maybe ranks high in Google for a certain keyword.
3. There will be some visitors from the search engine to the article on the article site.
4. Some of the visitors will click on the Adsense ads on the article site, and the site owner will make money from this, NOT YOU.
5. Some of the visitors who clicked on the Adsense ads will buy the product and the advertiser of the product will make money, again NOT YOU.

 

thank you


and thanks to everyone else who helped with this

 

I understand your frustration, but here is the flip side to article marketing...most article sites have high traffic, PR, and authority. Your site most likely does not. This means the same article posted on your site would not rank highly for anything.

Once you build an authority site, then you can publish your articles on it and skip the middle man. Until then, you should use article marketing to access a bigger audience.

 

Eagle325 has good points.

Also nobody is forcing you to publish your articles on someone else's site.

You can publish on your own site only. But in fact you should publish at least 1 article on your own site for every 3 you publish on the directories. This doubles up your SEO benefits.

Here is a big tip for eveyone:

publish your articles FIRST on your own site then after about 5 days publish in a directory(s). By then most of the major search engine robots have revisited your site.

That way, the search engines credit your site as the original publisher. In time, your article on YOUR site comes up in the search engine results above the article directories!

Duplicate content issues do not relate to the above strategy. Too much has been made of duplicate content issues. But that's another story.

The people who get the sales are 'advertisers'. They are paying for those clicks. It is only right for them to get the income. You too can do some adwords advertising if you wish.

Be positive and get on with it. Article marketing works very well.

Last year I got PR4 for one of my sites in just 4 weeks with only 7 articles. And the site is in the most competitive niche there is: "making money from home"!

All you need is consistency and you'll beat pretty much every site out there coz nearly everyone is inconsistent.

Good luck
Samo

 

I'll be waiting for that tip samo.. This thread is heating up. I may need to go get some water..
Stan

 

I hope you've managed to cool down Stan.

The traffic monetization report is coming soon. It is good for article marketing and many other forms of traffic generation too.

Samo

 

Well, last time I forgot to write about the benefits of the 'article-game' like backlinks etc. Btw I don't think that article marketing is a bad idea, the only thing that I hate in article marketing is the middle man. BUT without a middle man there's no article marketing. Rep added eagles325.

 

I agree Jeremia.

I guess a better way is to think of "middlemen" as the "distribution channel" which is vital in every industry. All the marketers who are making a fortune online, without exception, are achieving this success because they have a huge army of affiliates (middlemen)

Good luck & stay the course guys
Samo

 

The other alternatives are Google PPC and Yahoo Overture.

I never tried it but I prefer article marketing. It's a great way to perform long term advertising.

 

Just a quick tip! I've been an online publicist for 12 years and I have watched article marketing move from distributing directly to editors to simply posting to the article directories. That hasn't been the best trend. Although I'm all for submitting to the article directories, I would STRONGLY urge you to submit your good articles directly to the ezine editors. I handle the articles for some pretty big marketing names on the Internet and I can tell you first hand that these amazing achievers get tons more results by getting their work in front of the ezine editors that will put it directly to their thousands and thousands of readers. A post on a great website is good, your article in an ezine through email or RSS is much, much better. Just ONE of my articles brought in more than $13,000 in business. It's worth the extra effort.

 

Please tell us more on how that works...

So instead of spreading yourself thin. Target a powerful publisher/website/ezine/newsletter ?

I'm just trying to learn more

 

I'm sure you know many with 12 years of experience, but how would an article-marketing-beginner get into contact with publishers of big ezines? Any tips?

 

There are many directories for ezines. Some are free others aren't.

The grand daddy of them all and to date the most highly rated is DirectoryOfEzines.com

It lists a huge number of ezines categorised by several different factors including their niches etc. You can see details like the circulation figure and frequency of mailing and cost to send your solo ad (as an "advertorial", ie an informative article that also somehow promotes your product/service).

There is a charge to use DirectoryOfEzines but by all accounts it is well worth it as it saves you a fortune in reasearch time and effort. The last time I looked (a long time back) their lifetime membership was something like $197 or may be $297 but you can join for short periods too and pay much less until you are sure this site is for you.

As Anne Marie said, just one mailing can make you a fortune. Also bear in mind that even if you don't get ahuge income from that first mailing you will probably pick up a bunch of subscribers to your mailing list (make sure you have one). Iver time, those subscribers will create an excelllent repeat income.

The key/trick is to offer some valuable info in your mailing to the ezine subscribers. Then also suggest they will get further free (& valuable, top quality) info from your site. When they click through to your site, make sure on the landing page you ask them to opt-in to your list before they collect the further info.

Then and only then offer them a product but a significant discount to the normal price. Make sure you offer this product straight after they click "submit" to opt-in. This is known as a One Time Offer (OTO, coz they get a special product or special price that they'll not see again).

You will get a much better sales conversion than from the people who arrive on your site, cold, from the search engines etc.

Q: What do you see above, in my post? A: A process. Every good process has careful monitoring and testing built in too. SO yo must track your success in extreme detail for every headline, every offer, every ezine, the timeing of your mailing to that ezine etc. Check out Google's free tracking tool: "Google Analytics".

My first recommendation is to look up Anne Marie's site, may be PM her and find out what she can do for you - you could land yourself a 12-year shortcut

Good luck
Samo

 

Thanks for all the information. I have some questions, but as this is going very off topic, I started a new thread for it here.