Posted by paul novak on August 7, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Put simply, article marketing is the process of providing content to the public via the internet which in turn results in exposure and traffic for its provider. The most common form of article marketing involves creating articles and submitting them to various directories. The premise here is to get your content published, and receive links from the publisher back to your site. While worthwhile, this is only the most rudimentary basics of article marketing. Think of the links you receive this way as “gravy” on the meat.
The real benefit comes when bloggers and websites reprint your articles to their own sites, post links to them, or even just circulate them via e-mail or forums. The reason they do this is because they find the material interesting, relevant, and complimentary to their own subjects. Thus, the exposure and links you receive from these “organic” reprints are much more valuable in terms of SEO and page ranking, as Google and other search engines place much higher value on natural linking.
Remember, to use your articles, they must credit you and cite the original source thereby providing you with the exact marketing you were seeking. Targeted, relevant, organic links that cost you nothing more than the price of the article. Compared to the price of paid advertising or SEO, it’s an unbeatable bargain.
The benefits don’t stop at simply gaining links.
Regularly submitting articles to free article directories is one approach that can be effective. But it is not the only one. You can also target well ranked websites relevant to your own and offer the use of your articles in exchange for a link back to your site. Success in getting your article on the right website can cause major increases in your traffic almost overnight, and is a valuable resource that should not be overlooked.
Of course, not to be forgotten is your own website content. Not only do your visitors want to be greeted with fresh content when they visit, the major search engines also factor in how often content is added when they calculate ranking. Nothing will do more to increase your organic traffic, and KEEP it, than to have fresh con
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Posted by paul novak on June 29, 2010 at 8:18 pm
In my previous post I told you what you probably already knew or suspected. Lets consider that gotten out of the way and move on to something more helpful now shall we? So let’s say you’ve busted your butt and have some good traffic coming in. Congratulations. Give yourself a pat on the back and an extra shot when 5:00 comes. You’ve earned it. Now what?
First and foremost make sure that you have a good about page on your site. Spell out who you are, your experience, your sites purpose or goals, and keep personal details light unless your site is geared towards a more personal niche’.
Make sure you can be easily contacted. Have an e-mail address located where it is easily found and a contact page set up. Avoid free e-mail services if possible to help promote a more professional appearance. When possible advertisers visit your site you want to provide them with the info they’ll need to consider approaching you worth the effort and a way to be easily reached. Needless to say, return all contacts promptly and stick to pleasant yet formal language in your replies until you have a rapport established with a contact. No “Omg it is so cool that you contacted me! I’d love to promote your ****!”.
Approaching potential clients
Target a company or individual who has a product that is relevant. Don’t be afraid to contact a company or individual you think would benefit from exposure on your site even if you think you are too small for them to be interested. Chances are, if you have the traffic and audience they’ll be very interested. Always remember, the worst that can happen is that they’ll just decline your offer. Make sure you research their product or services even if you think you already know all about them. Attention to detail can make all the difference and potential clients will appreciate that you took the time to learn about them before making the decision to give them a proposal.
When contacting them be sure to be positive and promote yourself as a solution to their needs. You’re there to help them and advertising on your site would be a great benefit, so make sure that is the impression you leave them with. Think about products you prefer to use or that relate strongly to your audience. If you spend a lot of time talking about website design, why not approach a few producers of web design software? Write about child rearing a lot? Approach some parenting resources like clubs or websites devoted to the subject; you get the idea.
Show them some proof
The most important factor to the majority of potential advertisers is how much traffic your site has. As I said in my last post, “if you don’t have a decent volume of traffic, your sales if any are going to be dismal.” This applies to gaining direct sponsors and advertisers every bit as much as joining affiliate programs. 90% of the time, the first thing a potential client is going to want to know is how much traffic your site receives. Put together a file containing a compilation of relevant traffic data for your site like unique visits, total monthly visits, daily visits and monthly averages and bounce rate. Keep the file updated at least once a month so if a potential client is in the works, you can quickly provide them with evidence of your sites strengths. If you are a small niche’ site and have modest traffic you can try selling them on your ability to provide highly targeted advertising, but expect this to be more difficult.
Put together a form letter
Putting all of your information into an easily modified form letter can speed things up and allow you to effectively approach several prospects in a shorter amount of time. Put together a letter with your name, contact info, proposal, supportive information like a short teaser or summary of your traffic data and a closing that expresses your willingness to negotiate and appreciation for their time. Don’t be completely lazy and put together a generic form then shoot if off to anyone you can find. Spend some time tailoring the proposal contained within it to each prospect. This will give prospective clients an easy to review source of information that can save a lot of time and simplify the decision of whether or not to engage your services.
Have several options available
There are many ways to sell advertising or promotion on you site or blog. Banner ads have lost some favor in the last few years, but are still an effective advertising tool and command a decent price on a well ranked site. Offer rates based on different promotional methods. Put those methods together in a list and be ready to present them when the time comes to discuss advertising options. Banner ads, side bar buttons, text links, are all good sources of monthly revenue and should be included. Personal reviews and promotions command the highest prices and should be kept negotiable. Have a list of options and average rates, and make certain it is clear which ones are non-negotiable and which are open to haggling.
A side note about text links.
There is some controversy over paid text links to be aware of. My suggestion is to avoid any problems and make sure text links are directly relevant to your audience and that they are geared more towards selling a product rather than selling your sites ranking. It’s up to you to decide how to handle selling text links, but keep in mind that there is a slight chance the search engines could ding you for selling links if you don’t make them no-follow. You really shouldn’t have problems if the links are highly relevant and reputable however. Just be responsible and do not let the lure of income compromise the ranking and traffic you have worked so hard to build. The controversy over paid links is complicated so let it suffice for now to say stick to directly relevant text link ads and make sure they are clearly labled as advertisements if you’re a novice. Include nofollow with the links if you are really worried, but make sure the advertiser is aware of this. This leads me to my last bit of advice on finding clients.
What to promote
What you promote will be based on your sites content. The items you are putting in front of your audience need to be relevant to their interests and credible. You spent a lot of time and effort getting your site well ranked and building your audience, don’t compromise or sell them out by promoting products you don’t have a good opinion of yourself. A lot of bloggers complain that they are not comfortable promoting something if they know nothing about it and that is as it should be. Make sure you have a few guidelines to go by like the following suggestions when looking for products to promote.
Trust*
Your audience is your biggest asset. Sell them on a bad idea and they’ll never forget it. Do your research and make sure advertisers are reputable. It’s your credibility you are selling when you get right down to it and what you sell reflects on you personally.
True benefit to your audience*
Don’t try to force something on your audience they could care less about. Choose items that will help solve audience problems or answers questions that frequently arise. Promote items that will help achieve the common goals associated with your focus and would be of real benefit to your visitors. Remember that relevancy is key.
Use your experience*
Promote items you actually use or admire. Promotion is a million times easier and much more genuine when you can personally vouch for the items you are putting in front of your readers. Try to avoid paid reviews and testimonials if you have no experience at all with a product. If you do promotions and can only rely on second hand information, do the research required to prove why it is a valuable and worthwhile product to have and let your readers know that you’ve done the work for them.
Getting started with monetizing your website or blog really isn’t as difficult as it may seem at first glance. Patience and perseverance will pay off in the long run and you will become more proficient at promotion the more you work with it. Be willing to invest the time required and don’t be discouraged when you receive rejection. Like everything else it is a learning process and the more you learn, the better you will do and the easier it will be. If you’ve got a question or an idea regarding monetization I’d love to hear about it.
~Paul
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Posted by paul novak on June 26, 2010 at 6:59 pm
The last couple weeks have been pretty heavy on the monetary aspect of blogging and writing for me so I figure, what better topic for a post? As well as the ComLuv contest which has consumed a good deal of my time and now suggests giving valuable free advertising to its sponsors in exchange for contest points, I have received a few questions regarding monetizing a blog and how to go about doing it. I empathize with those who are somewhat reluctant or intimidated by the prospect of actually using their blog to create income. It can seem at first glance like a daunting task, as if there is some secret or special method to doing it successfully. The truth is a whole lot different, and I think that after you read what I’m about to show you in the next couple days you’ll not only no longer be hesitant, but eager to give it a shot.
The most fundamental fact first
One of the most important things you must have before you even begin to entertain monetizing your blog is traffic. No matter if it is Adsense or ClickBank, if you don’t have a decent volume of traffic, your sales if any are going to be dismal. Part of the reason for needing traffic is of course just plain exposure for the products you’ll be promoting. Programs like Adsense work best when there is a high volume of visitors to present the ads to, and it is the click through rates that are going to matter most.
Some people will tell you to go ahead and get some affiliate ads posted to your site before you even get it launched, which is fine really. I’ve done it myself. Just don’t expect to see much happen with them if anything. The rationale behind putting up ads from the start is that visitors may be put off by your suddenly adding advertisements to your blog when before it was free of them. The refutation to this rationale is this; if you have good content and you are providing a valued resource to your visitors, they aren’t going to care very much if you include some ads later. As long as your ads are placed with some common sense and don’t conflict with your content, visitors will likely not care that you now have some ads. How many good sites have you avoided because they have ads? Exactly.
My opinion on the matter is that your time is better spent working on your content and building your audience before spending any time on setting up for advertisements. That way, when you do monetize your site, you’ll be better able to test and evaluate whatever advertising strategy you decide to use because you’ll have an audience response to use when gauging results.
What really makes traffic so important
The other reason traffic is so vital is the most important part of the picture. While you can sign up for an affiliate program like ClickBank and make a little money with little effort, to get the really good money that comes from true sponsors you need to have a good amount of traffic in order to prove to them that your promotion is worth paying for. For small blogs and niche’s you should expect to have approximately 300-500 visits a day before anyone is going to be willing to pay you real money to promote their products. The more traffic you have, the more interested advertisers will be in securing your services.
Think of it this way. How much people charge for advertising on their site is highly variable and dependent upon their traffic volume. There really are no set rates. If you have quality traffic and over 3-5,000 visits a month, averages could be $25.00 for a simple text link in a post or carried in a sidebar for a month, or $150.00- $500.00 for a 450 word post promoting a product. A small 200×200 button in your sidebar could fetch $100.00 per month, while a large banner ad at the top of your site could fetch $300.00 a month, while an all out permalinked promotion complete with endorsement and reviews could net you as high as $2,000 if you have some really good traffic. The key is having the traffic that makes asking these prices credible.
There is no easy money, just smart money
Kind of drives home just why so many people seem completely obsessed with getting anybody and everybody to visit their site doesn’t it? So before you decide to begin seriously monetizing your blog, first take the time to get it well ranked and pulling in steady traffic. This takes time and is probably not what most folks want to hear, but it goes back to the very basics of being successful no matter what you are doing. The only way you’ll enjoy lasting success is by putting in the effort.
This subject deserves a great deal more than just one post so I am going to break it up into a few installments. Next post, I will be explaining a little bit about approaching potential advertisers and how to go about promoting them. Till then I invite your comments. I’m always interested in hearing how other folks go about putting their content to work.
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