Article Marketing & ClickBank - My Documented Journey

You would be surprised...

I disagree with their landing page being "stupid", it's one of the best on CB.

 

Day 12 - September 11, 2001



1000 article views!

I woke up to seeing 13 articles approved, with another 6 just being approved in the past hour. Unfortunately one article was placed in the problem category due to "keyword abuse" -- it was completely unintentional. I decided to just delete the article instead of fixing it, but I fear that this mistake will result in my account being denied Platinum status once again. It'd be a real shame if I don't get Platinum. I've put a lot of hard work into my articles and they are all of high quality.

Moving on, the articles attracted a whole heap of views and clicks (no sales though). The article's resource links are all pointing to various landing pages through a redirect from top-level .info domains. I figured I'd try my luck without building a blog around the product this time... we'll see how it goes!

 

Just registered on DP today and found this thread. I'm into bum marketing myself, so thanks very much for documenting your work!

As your bio box click-throughs seem low, I'd like to reiterate on what one member said on how to write your bio box. He recommended the "Part 2" technique but mentioned that EA's ToS do not permit this.

I'm new to bum marketing, so I'm not really in a position to give advice. So I'll just give you some numbers and what I did to achieve them.

Rather than writing the usual "Mike Whatshisface is an expert on..." yada, yada, yada, I began my bio box with a question that built on what I was writing about in the article.

The article was about fixing a specific problem and where this problem originated from. I didn't give the solution to the problem in the article, as that's what the product I was promoting is supposed to do. So I'm informing the reader where the problem comes from, what NOT to do etc, etc. And when he's at the bottom of the article, sufficiently informed that there IS a solution to his problem, I ask him "How about fixing your problem right now?" From that paragraph I linked to a PREsell page that was essentially a comparison ("review") of two CB products.

The numbers surprised me. From 128 views I got 42 clicks (roughly 33% CTR) and 1 sale the day the article was accepted. Since then the views have fizzled out, as the article only ranked for a day or so in Google (at #2 for the keyword phrase I optimized for).

Anyway, you might want to rethink your bio box strategy. I believe the usual "expert" bio box doesn't work really well. I don't say this from experience (I don't have enough data for that), but from how I myself would react if reading the article.

The bio box is in reality a mini salesletter where you can entice the reader to click your link. And even if EA do not like the "Part 2" strategy, there are subtle ways of making your article "useful, but incomplete" (as John Reese puts it). And the incomplete part should be adequately fulfilled by the product you are promoting.

HTH
Tom

 

I think the number of clicks also relates to the topic. I submitted an article to Arts and Entertainment recently and received a 4% CTR. The resource box is similar to my others. I usually get 12% - 30%. The "Part 2" strategy owns everything I've tried.

I was wondering how you people make your landing pages. Is it just 1 page full of information, and a link at the bottom, or is it a chain of pages, with an affiliate link on each page, and you keep providing more information? Are your landing pages "purchase this product or leave" type of pages? I think I'm getting few sales (1 in 100 people) b/c my landing pages aren't convincing, so I need help.

How many article views are you averaging? I get roughly 300 - 500 before each article becomes dead. It seems the articles that say "XXXXXX doesn't work" "2007 Worst XXXXX" get a lot more views and clicks. Anything negative receives more clicks for me. So far I'm at 6 articles, 1,607 page views, and 378 clicks, 3 sales.

Kromit, I liked your strategy.

 

Good Luck! I really hope that this will pay off for you. I'm pretty sure that the book you read was "Affiliate X"

Anyway, your a bit more then 1/3 done .

 

Uhm, 1% is extremely, extremely good.

 

Neat thread.

Keep up the good work. I'll keep reading.

 

Thanks for the info kromit - I'll definitely be taking on a new resource box approach once I'm able to submit more articles.

Day 13 - September 12, 2007

The 5 remaining pending articles were approved by the time I woke up. The rate of which my articles have been reviewed is phenomenal -- I had wrote a few articles and 3 hours later they were approved! Since all my submissions have been used up, I've submitted my request for upgrade to Platinum status. Fingers crossed!

No sales today but article views & resource box CTR are up. I'm seeing as high as a 35% CTR for one of my recent articles.

 

Awesome progress man!
I wish you the best

If you keep working hard like this you'll eventually start making consistent sales! If it worked once, it'll work again & again.

I'm doing somewhat the same experiment, probably not as dedicated as Pony-Nugget, as I do this off & on for an hour a day.
http://chrisneedsmoney.wordpress.com

 

I just want to say thanks for posting all this and letting us know about your experiment. I've always wondered what can be accomplished with lots of effort put to article marketing and I'll surely keep reading here to see what you get done.

 

Hi,

I have been an article marketer for quite a while now. What you are doing will work towards achieving the goals of $100 - $150/day you set. But there are more things to learn in article marketing, other than simply increasing the number of article postings.

One big mistake of article marketers is they write ONLY for the readers but not the spiders. Huge mistake! You should always aim to create articles that contain useful information to your readers, presell them and most importantly carry proper keyword density to rank well in the serps.

Do remember to pay attention to:

1. Keyword title - catchy and contains target keyword
2. Keyword density 1 - 3%
3. Article length of at least 300-400 words

I have written a full report which you can download for free that also covers powerful article marketing secrets that work well with Clickbank products. It is in my signature.

 

There is a tremendous amount of great info in this thread, thanks to everyone who has shared so far!

 

Can you expand on how to presell the reader in your articles? That is something I only started doing recently.

Thanks!

 

Day 14 - September 13, 2007

I'll have to make this update really quick as I'm in the middle of doing an assignment for my design & multimedia class (that's, ironically, due tomorrow!).

Article views and clicks were down significantly to yesterday's, so as a result there were no sales. As expected I didn't get Platinum status but was granted an additional 25 submissions. This is likely due to the "keyword abuse" article.

I won't have much time tomorrow to write articles, but I'll probably manage to do 5 or so. Fortunately I do have all of Saturday free so I'll be able to use up all of my remaining submissions then. I've chosen a couple of good CB products to promote for this wave of 25 articles, so let's hope it works!



Thanks to everyone that has provided advice and encouragement -- I really appreciate it!

 

with these many articles, & your worth ethic
if you keep pace, you should start seeing consistent, daily sales.

But this is a fail-proof method.

in other words, if your method doesn't work.
then the internet doesn't work. lol.

just keep fine tuning, improving, and keep typing away.
you'll start seeing some amazing numbers.

Most people don't even go this far when it comes to article marketing.
they just do a couple and call it quits.
u'd be surprised how many failed affiliate marketers don't even read the forums!
so keep working hard. you'll earn cash in due time.

 

You're probably right about that. People get sucked into IM by gurus boasting their big numbers, so everybody thinks they just have to write 5 articles or slap up an Adwords campaign, and they'll see 3 or 4 figures roll in. Then, when the sales don't happen, they think the system doesn't work and quit (I've been there).

The thing to remember is this:

If it's article marketing, PPC, blogging, ebay, whatever... it will work, if you do (I think that's a quote from Ken Evoy).

I admire the OP's work ethic and persistence. Very inspiring!

Tom

 

Keep Up The Great Work And Keep All Of Us Posted!

 

Thanks ExpertForumGuy & kromit, really inspiring words.

Day 15 - September 14, 2007

I'll have to make this a really quick update again -- I'm really not feeling well and haven't been all day. I wasn't able to write any articles as my stomach didn't agree with me being on the computer. Anyway, pretty much the same views & clicks as yesterday's, but it looks like someone has published one of my articles on their site.

No sales today, but I think these stats and encouragement given by everyone in this thread is enough to keep me going for a very long time. Thanks again guys!

 

Keep the updates coming. I hope you feel better.

 

do you have a link in the actual article or just in your resource link?

cheers,