An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

If you've been searching for the best ways to generate traffic to your Website, you've probably come across the recommendation of writing articles. You'll see this often for a reason. Article writing is quite possibly the best way of generating targeted, free traffic to your site.

If you're trying to make money on the Internet you may be using affiliate marketing as your means, but you might also be marketing your own product. Regardless, article writing is still one of your best means of getting your site 'out there'.

What should I write about ?

Obviously it does matter what topic you write your articles on. If you're promoting hair loss products, you don't want to be writing articles on snowboards. I would guess most people would realize what their article topics should be. Your articles should be based on whatever niche that you're trying to make money in.

I'm not a great writer, should I look for something else ?

Article writing is such a great method or producing traffic that it shouldn't be left out. If you feel like you

really write so poorly that you shouldn't do it, just use a little different method. Instead of just writing from what you know, maybe do a '10 Best Reasons...' type of article or something to that effect. Then you can read up on your topic (niche) and find some (10) things that stand out as the 'best', then write your articel based on that. Just remember, you want to write your own article, don't steal someone else's content. There's times you'll be using others topics, but you must use your own words. Just copying/pasting someone else's material is not only counter productive, it's usually illegal.

What do I do with my article after I write it ?

When you write your article it's not going to do you much good to put it on your niche site if you're not getting any traffic. That's why you're writing the article in the first place, remember ? What you'll want to do is submit your article to article directories or other article sites. Probably the most well known is EzineArticles.com, but there are many more out there. The best way to penetrate the many possibilities is to use an article submission site. There's also software that you can purchase to submit your articles to many directories. For the best service you may want to spend a few dollars, but if you're on a very tight budget it's not mandatory. I'd have a look at iSnare.com first for submission. They also offer a 'Platinum Membership' if you can spend a little money.

Can I use my article for content on my site too ?

No, you don't want to use any articles you write for article sites on your own niche site. There's no way to control how many other people download you article for free to use as content on their site, and that's obviously what you're wanting, but you only want fresh, original content on your site. You're writing the articles for the link(s) that will be embedded, pointing back to your site. Just check the restrictions on what you can and can't include as links in your articles. I know that you can't include a link to your site of eBay auction listings for example.

Does my headline matter ?

Does it ever matter. The headline is possibly as, or even more important than the article. You do need to have a well written, informative article of course, but if no one reads it, it really doesn't matter how good it is. Just as example, would you be more apt to read an article entitled '10 Easy Proven Ways to Make Money Online', or one named 'Internet Income'. Yea, you might read both, but if you were only going to read one, it would probably be the former, and not the latter. Remember, surfers don't hang around for long if they don't get something in front of their eyes that really interest them. You must try and get the readers attention quickly, and (almost) using any means possible.

Okay, I've written a couple of articles, but it didn't help, what now ?

Well, the first thing is MAKE SURE you have something someone will want to read, and also have confidence that you know what you're talking about. If you're uncertain about the quality of your article(s), have someone proof them first. If you misspelling a lot of works and your copy is hard to follow, people won't be clicking the link at the bottom that takes them to your site for more of the same poor information.

Also, just becuase you've written an article or three and submitted them, doesn't mean that you're going to get thousands of visitors to your site all of a sudden. What usually happens is the articles are submitted, they then have to be approved. The site owners obviously can't allow anything and everything on their site. Even after they're approved you'll have to wait (and hope) that users looking for free content for their site start downloading the article(s). When they start getting downloaded you'll start to see an increse in traffic...as long as they were articles of decent quality remember.

Well instead of going on and on about writing and submitting articles, the best thing for you to do is just get started. If you're reading this then you have the skills necessary to compose articles of reasonably good quality. Remember, have a freind or family member proofread the first articles and have them give you an honest opinion. Also, if you read your own articles and they seem amateurish to you, why would you expect someone else to value them any more ?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Website Traffic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.