Make Money with Article Marketing

Article Marketing is now bigger than it ever was but there have been some significant changes with regards to the Google Panda Update. There are some changes to the methods we use now compared to just a few months ago, prior to these algorithm updates.

Article marketing is typically the beginning point for most marketers who want to gain targeted traffic, but what normally happens is they fail at article marketing because they do not understand the techniques behind it that drive traffic. I want to talk about some of these methods that will turn a ‘Fail’ into a ‘Win’.

There is NO EXCUSE to being able to make a descent passive income from article marketing and I will cover everything in detail that you will need to know to accomplish making an income. Making money online takes hard work like everything else, there is no push button magic secret.

I’m going to detail this out as a step by step action plan that is easy to follow. If you want to see success, follow these steps and I promise you results.

Step 1: Keyword Research

This is what I consider the biggest step in all of article marketing, keyword research. New marketers have a difficult time grasping this concept and can lead quickly to failure and ultimately quitting all together. For this method we will be using keywords known as long tail keywords or keyword phrases.

To give you a picture of how to do the research, let’s find an example. Let’s choose a random niche to target, heck let’s get one that’s even highly competitive, the Weight Loss niche.

I prefer using SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool when doing research. (These are free methods that will get the job done, once you start making money I highly recommend buying Market Samurai, it will change your life.)

You next step is to look for long tail keywords, more than one word, that have at least 10 searches per day and less than 10,000 competing sites. (The competition isn’t always a factor, it really depends on who is ranked #1 already, we’ll talk more on this in a bit.)

I entered in the search box, “Burn Fat”, and this brought up a long list of keywords related to burning fat or weight loss. Scroll down to the bottom of the list, here are some keywords that we should be able to compete for.

Found one! does walking on an empty stomach burn more fat? (This is what we call a long tail keyword) This keyword receives 11 daily search results for Google and 16 Results averaged between the top 3 search engines. If we put this keyword in quotation marks, “does walking on an empty stomach burn more fat”, and search with Google, we can see the exact competition, a jaw dropping 6 sites.

There are a few other keywords on this list you should look at after we are done here. I can bet that after writing this post people will be jumping on this long tail keyword and some others in that list.

So with one article we can potentially send 11 people to our site per day, 330 per month. Let’s say your site is selling a product with a commission of $23 and you write 10 articles that have this kind of traffic, that’s 3300 visitors per month potentially. If only %1 percent converted on your product, that’s $759 per month! Not to mention passive income where you are going to set it and forget it.

Step 2: Article Research

This really applies to niches that you are not an expert in. You should have no problem writing articles about topics you’re passionate about. Since I’m not an expert on burning fat I’ll head over to Google and search for “does walking on an empty stomach burn more fat?” and check out some of the sites for ideas on what to write about.

I’d also recommend visiting an authority site that is in the niche you are targeting. There might be some good information that will give you ideas for great content.

Step 3: Writing The Article

You don’t have to be great writing to get into marketing, if you can express an idea or plan to someone verbally, why can’t you do it by writing it down?

It’s best to make the article short, 400 to 650 words, it’s crucial after the Google update to maintain a minimum threshold of 400 words for your articles. You want to write a short article that keeps the reader interested, when they come to your article we want them to think, “Oh, this is short, I can read this.” You want to avoid a high bounce rate (where a user immediately leaves a page they just visited), due to the latest panda update this can affect our Google search rankings.

Here’s a great tip for article writing, Bring up a problem -> Write about the pain or difficulty caused by said problem -> Discuss the solution & lifestyle without the problem. This is a powerful article writing method that will draw readers to your site. Offer part of the solution or a great tip in the article leaving the reader hungry for more.

There is 6 basic parts to an article,

Title or Headline

You must put the keyword here. An exact match is best, so “does walking on an empty stomach burn more fat?” or top lists are great for getting attention. For example, Top 10 Fat Burning Tips, where maybe, Fat Burning Tips is your keyword, will be an attention grabber. The keyword optimizes it for the search engines and the couple extra words spice up the headline to grab attention.

Summary

Your keyword doesn’t have to go here but if you are working with a shorter keyword I would recommend it. This is the part of the article that will show up on the search engine as the description of the article. You want to make this as appealing as possible so you get clicks.

First Paragraph

The Keyword must be in the first sentence of your paragraph! Then, once more throughout the paragraph, don’t spam it. Try to keep this interesting and engaging so the reader doesn’t leave immediately.

Body

Insert the keyword again once or twice in this part of the article. This is the beef of the article, so great content here!

Conclusion

This is where we want to skillfully lead the reader to our author’s resource box, where you will want to promote your website.

Resource Box

The majority of article directories will allow you to promote your website (one or two links) in this space. This is where you must put a call to action to get readers to visit your website. If possible you want to have the link to your site setup with anchor text as the keyword you are targeting. This will help optimize your website for SEO and backlinking.

Examples “If you want to burn fat now visit this website now (Link Goes Here)” or “For more tips on burning fat visit this website now (Link Goes Here)”

Most article directories will not allow a direct affiliate link so you need to have your own website that can be linked, then have a short review of your affiliate product on your site; then put your affiliate link in that review. (You can put affiliate links inside your articles at GoArticles.com!)

Step 4: Article Submission

Great job so far! You should now have a high quality article that we can submit to article directories. Ezinearticles.com is still the best article directory, even after the Google panda update, and right now approval times couldn’t be any quicker. Submit the article to Ezinearticles first, and then once it is approved you can submit it to other article directories. Google has put more of a penalty on duplicate content so it wouldn’t hurt to invest in article spinning software at some point for better results.

Other article directories I recommend are Goarticles.com and Associatedcontent.com

Web 2.0 Sites for submission, Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com

Document Sharing Sites are starting to pull some weight with Google, I recommend submitting your articles to Scribd.com as well.

Step 5: Ranking for Search Engine Position

Since we are dealing with low competition keywords it is VERY easy to rank #1 in the search results. You honestly need just a handful of backlinks to rank this high. Sometimes you will have an article that will rank number one naturally, no backlinks, because there is zero competition. I had an article last week do that!

To get these backlinks you will need to social bookmark your articles. There are various pieces of software and services out there that can help automate this process to many different sites at once. If you decide not to do it by hand in the future there are service here in the warriors for hire section or gigs on fiverr.com.

When creating these social bookmarks make sure that you are using the keyword that you are targeting in the article in the anchor text of the link.

If you have created a high quality, killer article, then your article is likely to get picked up and syndicated by other people providing even more backlinks.

Final Step: Profit?

This last step is where you will see results from your hard work. It all comes down to numbers and how hard you worked. Think realistically about how many articles you can write in a day then setup a plan to write that many every day. Let’s say you can write 3 to 4 articles per day for 30 days, that’s 100 to 120 articles in one month. If each article has 10 people click through to your site per day, that’s 10 X 100 = 1000 visitors per day to your website. These are targeted visitors that are coming to your website, viewing your offer. If just %1 of those people convert into sales, that’s 10 people buying your product every day. Occasionally you will write an article that is just a home run, this is a killer article that will bring in a huge traffic every day.

Talk about building a passive income! Once you have this type of traffic built you can set it and forget it. Move on to your next website or project that you want to promote and start writing articles. Rinse -> Repeat -> Profit.

The example I’ve used is a typical but well below average situation for article marketing. You are likely to see much greater results than what I’ve show above. This method will work for any niche; there are always keywords ripe for the taking. If you have trouble finding some keywords start thinking about sub niches and micro niches. Don’t do just plain dog training, try a specific breed for example. That’s all I have for you today!

Good Luck,

-Jay Vance