Article marketing Works!
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Article marketing absolutely works to bring in that initial bit of cash to make you stay the course on your online journey.
Even better, you don’t need to buy “spinner” software or submission services or anything else. This is all free.
In July of 2009 (so not even a whole month has passed), I started a new site in a legal related niche.
The Site
The site uses a basic wordpress theme optimized for high adsense CTR rates (the CTR so far on this theme is about 4x my SBI site’s, with an ECPM over $100).
I wrote 5 pages for the site and uploaded them right around the holiday.
I also put Google analytics on the site to track where traffic was coming from and more importantly what traffic resulted in adsense clicks/affiliate sales.
Marketing With Articles
Then I published 2 articles on ezine articles. They had good headlines, used good but somewhat incomplete information to encourage people to click the resource box below. For example, I would talk in the article about the risks of using a fly-by-night online company to draft your legal document, and then direct them to check out my site for recommended providers.
The day the articles were approved by ezinearticles (which takes up to a week if you’re not a platinum member), I started getting traffic. Between 4-10 visitors a day. Not a lot, but these are true visitors, and not spider visits as SBI’s internal numbers often show.
Monetary Results
So far this month, the site has made $17 and change with adsense. Almost all of it from ezinearticle referrals.
It has also made a $17.00 affiliate sale for [legal document] making software.
The month isn’t over yet.
So, about $35 so far this month on a brand new site. Spent nothing on promotion, and did not link to it from any of my existing sites. From pure typing on the computer (and using a $17 theme, which I can re-use on as many sites as I want). Site hosting on a shared hosting account I have for other non-SBI sites, so no additional cost there either.
There has been no significant search engine traffic so far.
Why did I try this strategy?
There was a site for sale on sitepoint (now flippa) which claimed to be making $1,000/mth and it was only a couple months old. I started emailing the owner and asking him how he did it. He was real nice, and even made some screen capture videos to walk me through his income proof. He basically did what I outlined above, but instead of 2 articles, he wrote and submitted about 200 (spent almost $1000 outsourcing them).
The fact is that system really does work. If 2 articles made me $35 in the first month with no SE traffic, I could see how 200 articles could make $1,000.
It’s important to note that these sites used high CTR themes (2 column, adsense right below headline, navigation to the right–very simple blog theme); and we picked high adsense payout topics. His was related to mortgages, mine to the legal market.
How it fits into SBI
I’m not telling anyone to abandon SBI or anything like that. My SBI site makes as much in a day as that new site makes in a month, and my SBI site has hardly been updated in the past couple of years. SBI works.
I’m just saying that adding simple article marketing, particularly for new sites, will help a lot.
From the frustrated posts I see from newbies, many would be happy to just make back their $25/mth SBI fee during the first year. That first real check from Google is awesome–proof that “this internet thing” actually works. I want SBIers to experience a check in hand during the first 3-6 months.
Writing a dozen articles or so as outlined above will result in targeted traffic.
Bottom line:
Don’t buy any software/services yet. Learn how to do it manually and see how it works first.
Write some articles for ezinearticles. The important thing is to have a good headline, give some good information but leave out the ultimate solution (they need to come to your site for that).
Don’t worry about “keyword stuffing” your article. Just write naturally.
Your resource box at the bottom of your article should sell the click. If the article is about a topic that is better covered by a specific page on your site, then direct link to that page as well as your homepage.
You probably “know” that articles generate targeted traffic.
However, there is knowing something because you read it in the AG or on a forum, and KNOWING it because you took some action and at the end of the month saw $30, $40, $50 in your bank account. Big difference.
Try it out.
Related Posts: Definition: Substantive Articles - Articles that contribute to your niche. These include suggestions, ideas, sources of information, insights into the A tool that is used in order to increase the If you know how to utilize it the world wide1. Capitalize the first word of every sentence. 2. “I” is always capitalized, along with all its contractions. Example: I can doWriten by Jeanette S Cates, PhDOne of the phenomena of the Web is that it all looks so easy. After
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