Hey DPers, Some of you might know me from my posts in the BST category, under "Services" >> "Content Creation," where I solicit my skills to people who need high quality articles written for them. I used to be eager to learn web design, but sort of got stuck on Photoshop 7.0 and Frontpage/Dreamweaver; while I can make a kicka$$ blog or two, I'm not an expert. That being said, given my education and previous experience in writing articles, it's not incredibly difficult for me to get business here. My business model is simple: I have X hours a day that I can dedicate to my freelance affairs, and I charge around $2-$3 per 100 words. When I'm not doing web design or coding, I write content for people who want legible articles from a person who speaks English as a native language. In an hour, I can write a killer 800-word article, so in essence I get round numbers ~$20 for 60 minutes of my time researching and typing away (and because this is a free market, my affairs wouldn't survive at $.02-$.03 a word had my articles not been EZA published and making other people money). While I've experimented with Affiliate Marketing (particularly pertaining to articles), I've never made anywhere close to a good chunk of money from it. I've gotten one $1XX check from Clickbank, but that's about it. While I like the appeal of instant payments that I get for article writing (versus waiting weeks or months until affiliate articles get traffic, let alone close a sale), I'm not in a rush to get paid. Therefore, I would like to expand into the article marketing business more than I have before. My abilities: I can write one killer 800-word article, or two/three shorter 300-word articles. What I'm doing now: getting paid by other people for creating this content What I want to do: get paid by affiliate companies like Clickbank based off of the same kind of articles I make So, right now I can squeeze ~$20 / hr per project. While I don't have work like that EVERY DAY, I generally make mid-$xxx by writing content for others over the course of a month. My challenge is, I want to make at least $1,000 a month via affiliate marketing. If I can get on a level of $600-$800 a month, I will willingly spend 3-4 hours a day doing this. However, I have expenses under me every month, so I can't quit my regular job which pays an hourly rate and helps me make it from month to month. Can I get some advice on how to transition from content creation for others, and swing towards working for myself instead?
Submit your own content to article directories. If you choose to go the 800 word route, do keyword research to rank them in the engines. In addition, these longer, higher quality articles will likely be published by others(they put them own their on sites), which results in more views, and ultimately more sales (auto-sales), for you. As far as instant profits are concerned, you may make a sale or two while these longer articles are still fresh in the directories, but you ultimately need to be submitting (in my opinion) around ten articles a day in order to make better money. So, you can either submit longer, high quality content for the search engines and other publishing opportunities, or you can create a lot of lesser quality, shorter content for instant revenue generation. It is typically better to do both, but with the amount of time you have available, submitting your 800 word articles is probably your best bet. Others please chime in.
I can personally relate relate with your premise, since I arrived here a few months ago with quite a similar background and mindset. As such my best advice is: Content is King, Promotion is Queen. Both are required for ruling. Content creation and keyword research are two different ball games. To make affiliate sales you need to be good at both! The best way to become proficient at anything is by studying the theory and then practice what you've learned. Over and over again. Just roll up your sleeves and get to it - being a content creator you're already halfway through. Of course... don't assume all will be roses. Great content is not always content that sells, and conversely likewise.