Saturday, April 12th, 2008
I like to be on gurus’ list to get updates about the latest products in the market.
But to be very frank, the emails used to be so much better. Gone were the days when marketing experts would genuinely share with you real money making tips so that you can make some real money online.
I mean, perhaps having attained guru status, many have forgotten how they too were once struggling newbies. These guys have cleanly forgotten about newbies or marketers who genuinely want to learn some new killer marketing stuff.
Nowadays, all the emails you get are recommendations for ebooks, software and memberships. I mean there is nothing wrong with that but sending your list of loyal subscribers offers all the time without any useful content at all does not really go too well for me.
Do you agree with me?
But one thing I do learn from these guys and am seeing more and more happening are gurus and all the mid-level experts offering bonuses for you to buy from them.
I can only explain the phenomenon in the following reasons.
1. Affiliate marketers are getting really savvy nowadays. If the product is a Clickbank product, affiliate marketers will go to Clickbank, generate their own affiliate link and buy through these links. So the gurus are losing their commissions.
How do I know? Did you know that the affiliate gravities for some of the top ClickBank products are so high because affiliates are buying using their affiliate link?
2. Competition is getting very stiff and they need to offer something better than others. Some are even offering their very own products that normally sell for $97 or more as a bonus if you were to buy through their affiliate links. Others offer valuable bonuses in the form of free reports and even memberships.
Now, this in the end is beneficial to both the affiliate and buyer. For the price of one, you get a bonus that matches or exceeds the value of the product you are buying. For the affiliate, he has nothing to lose as it is zero cost to him or her. After all, it is a digital download and unlike offline businesses, there is nothing to ship or physical product to deduct from the inventory.
This is pretty! An excellent win-win strategy!
I am definitely going to use it to bribe my prospects.
As a start, l want you to tell me exactly what kind of bonus you hope to get the most that will make it attractive enough for you to buy through someone else’s affiliate link. Please be specific, like you would want a free detailed step-by-step ebook on traffic building using FaceBook or other social media, or you want to learn how to build a list and so on. You can get greedy and even ask for bonuses worth $1000!
Post your comment here with your desired bonus. To spice it up, I want to bribe you with a bonus gift. Yes, how about the latest book “Facebook Social Ads”?
Facebook Social Ads worth $37
Facebook is a resource that will only continue to grow in the coming months and years. Facebook’s expansion is predicted to eventually surpass MySpace’s and when that happens, you already want to have your monetization in place. For developers and business people alike, Facebook is an opportunity that is well worth exploring.
Don’t overlook this tremendous untapped opportunity. If you’d like to succeed where so many others have failed, this is your chance.
Sounds good? Now, it is time to hear from you.
All you have to do for me to bribe you with this bonus gift is:
1. Make a comment here and tell me what bonus you want to buy stuff through someone’s affiliate link
2. Enter your name and email address below for me to send you the gift.
That’s it!
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 5 Comments »
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
In the latest news on 04 April, it was reported: Washington (AP) that employers have slashed a total of 80,000 jobs in Mar 2008 alone. This figure is the highest in 5 years and the third straight month of losses. National unemployment rate in USA rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1 percent sending a strong and obvious signal that the economy is entering recession.
You may be wondering what this has got to do with Affiliate Marketing.
Firstly, a shrinking US economy means that people are tightening their belts. If the consumers do not consume as much, it can mean slower sales for you. Bad News!
Secondly, if you are a non-US resident affiliate marketer like me, then the weak economy will mean a weaker US currency against your country’s dollar. This means that you get lesser commissions in dollar value.
So how can you protect yourself and make your affiliate marketing efforts recession-proof?
1. Target the Recession-relevant Niches
The Chinese has a saying: “Every crisis presents an opportunity” How true it is! While the economy is slowing down, services and products like mortgage refinancing, debt consolidation, auctions, etc are booming and seeing a lot more business.
Build more Adsense sites targeting these topics! A case in point: I own a debt consolidation website that pulls in about $300 to $500 a day in Adsense income these days. Before the recession hits, it was earning about $50 to $70 on average daily. The jump in profits is a whopping 600%!
You can also find relevant affiliate products at ClickBank, CJ or other affiliate networks and set up niche affiliate sites to corner these niches. Your prospects tend to be desperate, and desperation can drive you more sales!
2. Find Affiliate Programs that Pay You in Your Local Currency
Perhaps it is time to start scouting around for affiliate programs that pay you commissions in your local currency.
3. Expand Your Virtual Real Estate
People tend to cut down on spending during an economic downturn. This is where the opportunists often strike in one clean sweep. In the offline world, property slumps and a bearish stock market often offer great bargains. Those with deep pockets will take the chance to keep buying stocks and properties with inherent value. When the market turns around, they will make a killing!
The same applies in the online world. Now is the time to grow your virtual real estate, ie grow your network of websites, blogs and so on. When the economy recovers, you are well positioned to capitalize on surge in spending. You can either start building my niche websites to promote affiliate programs, or create your very own products. It takes time to create products and websites so no time is better than now to start working on it.
Alternatively, head over to SitePoint or DP Forum and do some bargain hunting for quality websites that webmasters are giving up.
4. Change Your Attention from Selling Products to Pay Per Action
People may not be spending as much money as possible to buy stuff but that does not mean that they have stopped searching for services or stopped spending at all. There are tons of people seeking for help on how to refinance their home, how to manage their debt, how to pay less taxes, how to find cheaper insurances, how to find a job and so on.
Look for affiliate programs offered by merchants at CJ or other affiliate networks that pay per lead. Getting a person to sign up to request for more information is way easier than getting someone to buy something. You will realize that this is a great way to recession-proof your affiliate marketing.
5. Improve Conversions & Drive More Traffic
I noticed that conversions for products nowadays have gone down generally. This means that you need to promote your products to more prospects before you make a single sale.
Instead of lamenting on that, work on 2 things: improve your conversions and drive more traffic. Remember: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.
You can improve the look of your websites by adding nice high impact graphics to attract your prospects or set up a series of auto-responder messages. These are 2 simple tricks to increase the conversion rates.
Spend more time writing and submitting articles for traffic, participate in forums, blog commenting, and other traffic driving techniques to ramp up the traffic volumes.
Building more websites to target different sub-niches will also help to increase your earnings. For example, all along, you may have been targeting the dog training market. Why not also target healthy dog food and other related products?
Why not pick up a copy of my ebook “Secrets of Affiliate Marketing” and pick up some tips to grow your income systematically?
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 3 Comments »
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
iContent Robot is the latest content writing software to appear on the market. If you have gone to take a look at the sales page of iContentRobot.com, you will see some interesting videos.
I have been using all kinds of article writing, rewriting and spinning software. Instant Article Wizard 2.0 (and Version 1.0), Content Assistant, JetSpinner, Unique Article Wizard, Content Spooler and what have you. Every one of these is good but none comes close enough to the speed, ease of use and uniqueness of content created using iContent Robot.
For one moment, I would consider Instant Article Wizard 2.0 as King of Article Writing Software. But it seems that it has met a strong contender in iContent Robot.
What does the article creation robot do for you?
It generates unique versions of a topic based on a keyword. For example, you can key in “Make Money Online”, and click on the “Regenerate Content” button for a new version to appear. All well within 3 seconds.
As an illustration, I am going to show you 3 unique versions of an article on “Acne Skin Care” I just created. Do not let your jaw drop. In case you begin to suspect I did some master touch-up, my reply is NO. These are taken straight from the software.
Remember, click, regenerate, copy and paste. That’s all I did. Don’t blink your eyes.
3 Sample Unique Articles Created by iContent Robot
Version No.1
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; but there are now many treatments available which can help the condition so it is more bearable. A great deal of money is being spent researching the condition; now, some of these skin conditions are gradually being conquered. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition Over-the-counter, Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Many people use products similar to this every day as part of their skin care regime irrespective of whether or not they have the condition.
Other acne skin care products like skin cleansers are more specific about their job, they ensure the facial pores (and other areas) remain free of oil. Excess oil needs to be stopped from clogging the pores as this oil make it easier for bacteria to grow, exacerbating the condition.
Exfoliation skin peels have proved quite effective as a skin care treatment and at controlling the problem. There are now more and more of these types of products available over the counter. Dead skin cells and other atmospheric pollutants are removed cleaning the pores which reduce the chance of any bacterial growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Products that contain the chemical benzoyl peroxide and the naturally occurring salicylic acid are used in vanishing creams. They work by removing the excess oil from the skin and halt the growth of acne.
Although benzoyl peroxide works well, it is possible you may have a reaction, it is suggested that any benzoyl peroxide skin care product should not contain the active ingredient at more than 5.5 percent. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
There are benefits of seeing your doctor or dermatologist; they can prescribe you with a prescription for treatments not available over the counter, for example a course of antibiotics. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anesthetic, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
Your doctor could prescribe a hormone-based treatment to treat your skin problem. Hormonal changes are known to cause acne and such skin care treatments are sometimes known to be effective. Constant research has paid off, and whilst they cannot cure the condition, it is becoming easier to treat.
Version No.2
The psychological harm acne or Zits causes it’s many sufferers should not be underestimated; fortunately treatments are improving all the time. It is not surprising then that a great deal of money has been spent on skin care treatment development; as a result there are a variety of new products available to help prevent and treat skin conditions. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Preventative: Creams, lotions etc. to help cleanse and tone the skin. Over-the-counter and Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
More specialized cleaners are designed in the same way as acne skin care products; they clean out the pores to help stop sebum or oil which clogs up the pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
This type of skin care treatment also includes those which exfoliate such as skin peels. These can be bought over the counter or on the internet. They work by reducing oil plus other contaminants from the skin and in the pores; this can reduce harmful bacteria and stop their chance of growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Skin care products have been formulated to extract the excess oil that bacteria need to promote the development of acne. These products have benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid as ingredients which the bacterium reacts badly too.
It is preferable when you first start using this type of product to keep the concentration of it low, around 5.5 percent is best. You can always try a cleaner or cream containing alpha hydroxy acid if this doesn’t work. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
Only doctors or skin care specialists can prescribe some medications, including the use of antibiotics and certain ointments. Under certain circumstances, having the infected material removed from the pores under a local anesthetic may be suggested by your dermatologist. This is something you should never attempt yourself.
Your doctor may even suggest a course of hormone therapy as a skin care treatment. Hormone changes are sometimes responsible for acne and can be very effective when used under prescription. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Version No.3
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; Fortunately, skin care treatments are plentiful. Research into the causes, and possible treatments, for the condition is ongoing; as a consequence, many of these new treatments are very affective. Despite the number of acne skin care products currently available on the market, they are broadly categorized into three distinctly separate groups: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition; Those available at a drugstore or over-the-counter and Prescription: Issued for specialized medication from a doctor etc.
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
Some of these products are designed to act like an acne skin care product and act against the causes of this complaint. They work by limiting the production of sebum/oil and prevent clogging of skin pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
General skin care treatments also include special exfoliation products like skin peels. This type of peel helps reduce the chance of oil clogging up the pores as well as removing other skin impurities; this can reduce the bacterium growth on your skin.
There is a huge market for these types of acne skin care products as they don’t require a consultation with a dermatologist. These include products like vanishing creams which extract the excess oil from the skin. Most of these are based on benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid, both of which are the enemies of bacteria (and hence acne).
You should start with a product that has lower concentration of benzoyl peroxide (e.g. 5%) and see how your skin responds. Alpha-hydroxy-acid based moisturizers are also popular as a skin care regime. Because we all have different types of skin, more than one type of acne skin care product may need to be tried. This is quite normal, however, if it is proving to be a problem then consult with your doctor, or skin care specialist.
On-prescription treatments are prescribed by a dermatologist and can include ointments that can be applied on the affected area or oral antibiotics or just any topical ointment. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anaesthetics, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
An alternative that has been shown to work well is hormone therapy. Studies have shown that hormones can cause acne and skin care treatments that are hormone based have proved to be effective in many cases. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Are you impressed? I am! Normally, it would cost me about $5 per article if I outsource my writing. It can cost even more depending on the quality and length of article. A simple rewrite from the original would have easily cost about $3.
With iContent Robot, you can create unlimited versions without costing you a single dime!
Some Advantages of iContentRobot.com Over Other Article Creation Software & Content Sources like PLR or Ghostwriters:
1. Super Fast – It takes only 3 seconds to create a completely unique version.
2. Unlimited Versions – You can create unlimited articles and they all look different and unique. No one else will have the same content as what you created with iContent Robot.
3. No Preparation Required – Most article spinning software requires some form of preparation such as creating several seed articles.
4. Latent Semantic Index Friendly – Content created is LSI friendly. If you understand about Google’s new rules about LSI content relevance, then you will see that the content is created following Google’s rules.
5. SEO Optimized – Each unique article is created with SEO in mind for ranking in the search engines.
6. Non-Spammy – A lot of poor quality article creation software produce spammy articles that are an eye-sore to human beings. This is quite unlike the quality content created by iContent Robot.
7. Economical – I wanted to call the tool cheap but that sounds very devaluing for a cool tool like this. For $67, it is not even enough for me to buy more than 13 hand-written articles by a cheap writer. It is also much cheaper than most PLR membership sites I use or come across (most offer a fixed number of articles each month shared by hundreds of people…hardly unique at all).
What I Do Not Like About iContent Robot:
While the unique versions are highly readable, what I do not like is the topics listed for this first month. iContent Robot’s creater Mo Latif pointed out that users are allowed to choose what topic they want their service to write about for the next month.
This part is not clear. I wonder how the arrangement will be like.
Members vote for what topic they want?
Or they will create articles based on the topics requested by individual member?
Or they have a point system where everyone can make a fixed number of requests on choice of topic each month?
This is important to me personally because I do not own websites on all these topics. Those who own and build lots of Adsense websites are the first ones to gain from this software. You can create tons of content to attract traffic from the search engines and with 50 topics to choose from, that is a lot of websites you can build for Adsense income!
The possibilities of using iContent Robot is great. You can use the content to post it on your websites/blogs or submit the articles to article directories or any site that accepts your content for traffic.
Or, you can create a full report on the topic and sell it. You can even consider reselling the articles.
Of course, using the service iContent Robot itself does cost you some money. For a start, the doors are just open not long ago for the first 500 exclusive members at $67. After that, the price will increase. At the time of this writing, over 400 memberships have been sold.
Make a sale or two with the articles created and it would have paid fully for the fee.
Take a look at iContentRobot and see how it works.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 24th, 2008
It has been more than a week since I last posted my Buzz marketing article. I hope you like my previous post on the “10 Step Guide to Become the Most Broke Affiliate Marketer in 2008”. My girlfriend sure had a good laugh after reading it. Read on to know what exactly is Buzz Marketing.
If you had not read it, you can read it here.
10 Step Guide to Become the Most Broke Affiliate Marketer in 2008
There are 2 main reasons why I wrote that article.
Firstly, to share with readers like you about the common problems many affiliate marketers are caught up in. Some are innocent mistakes, others are totally blind to them and keep repeating these mistakes. The result is a waste of precious time, the loss of sales and subscribers.
Secondly, I created the article as a simple experiment on the concept of Buzz Marketing. You see, Buzz Marketing is another form of article marketing, powered by the buzz of Web 2.0 media.
Recently, I got to read about Buzz Marketing by an under-the-radar marketer called Dean Hunt.
What do Bum Marketers normally do with their articles?
A lot of the bum marketers simply do some proper keyword research for long tail keywords, slap a piece of article together and then submit it to EzineArticles or Squidoo. That’s it! They leave it to chance for the article to rank well in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The trouble is, they are shortchanging the bum marketing method. How about combining the power of bum marketing method with a twist of Web 2.0 BUZZ? This is truly powerful BUZZ Marketing!
How to Combine Buzz Marketing with the BUM Marketing Method?
1. Create an article using the bum marketing method but write the title in a really eye-catching manner.
Notice that for my “10 Step Guide to Become the Most Broke Affiliate Marketer in 2008”, I could have written in the same old same old method of “10 Step Guide to Become the Most Successful Affiliate Marketer in 2008”.
There are tons of similar articles you can find. Titles like “Top Ways to Sell More”, “How to Be A Super Guru” and so on are pretty common. So how do you get people interested at all if you plan to write in the same manner?
Some tips to create a good and catchy title for your Buzz Marketing article:
a. Go for a negative angle. Notice that people love to read bad news. That is why bad news always sells so well. Read the newspapers and magazines to understand.
b. Use simple to understand keywords in your title. Try not to be bombastic. Go for simple to understand English. This will ensure your readers can understand and will read your article.
c. Use lists in your title. It has been proven that numbers and figures attract the readers’ attention much better. Instead of “Tips to Be the Most Attractive Guy in School”, go for “10 Killer Tips to Be the Most Loved Guy in School”. See what the small change can do.
2. Submit your article to Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com. Digg and StumbleUpon are 2 of the most popular Web 2.0 Social Bookmarking Sites. There are millions of readers and even journalists hang out there for fresh news and gossips.
3. Use an attractive graphic when you post to Digg and StumbleUpon. Pictures speak a thousand words. It is true. With a nice graphic, people will pay more attention to your article.
You may think, well, you only got 3 Diggs for your article. So what’s the big deal?
Did I fail in my BUZZ Marketing experiment? The answer is NO! On the contrary, after I wrote the article “10 Step Guide to Become the Most Broke Affiliate Marketer in 2008”, my web stats are showing that I am getting at least 100 – 150 more visitors daily. And I am receiving well over 200 links from StumbleUpon!
So go ahead, use Buzz Marketing and combine it with the Bum Marketing method. Experience the combined power and traffic avalanche from the search engines and the Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites. And if you like this, do Digg my posts. 
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
What are the most important or must-have bum marketing tools in your arsenal?
I talked about the bum marketing method in my previous post. Today, I want to spend some time to talk about the essential bum marketing tools that I use quite often.
1. Brainstorming for Niches and Products
In brainstorming for ideas or niches to target for my bum marketing efforts, there is one place you will love to go to.
CB Engine – it is quite simply one of the best tools to find hot products to promote. I like the feature that lets you filter off the search results according to your preference such as minimum commissions and commission payout percentage and so on. Personally, if the commission payout is lower than $20 per sale, I will ditch it.
From here, you can also get to see which are the market movers and what are the most popular topics. With the pro version, you get a full set of cool tools to use as a ClickBank affiliate.
One word of advice here – the “make money online” market is one where the buyers tend to be very well-informed! It may not be that easy to make money out of them.
While it is also such a huge market where tons of products are sold, it is not recommended for the newbie bum marketer. Target the other niche markets using your bum marketing method.
2. Keyword Research Tools
Once you decide on a market to target, it is time to do proper keyword research. A lot of people get this wrong by focusing on keyword research first before looking at the market’s profitability.
Some tools I use frequently include:
a. Google’s very own keyword research tool
This is a free tool to find long tail keywords. But it is not the best since you cannot figure out what is the exact search count.
b. Keyword Elite
If you have money, invest in Keyword Elite. It is one of the most powerful keyword research software I use to find the right keywords to target for the bum marketing method. This is hands-down one of the best bum marketing tools!
c. NicheBot
NicheBot is a super dynamo when it comes to churning out laser-targeted keywords for your bum marketing articles. I use the paid version which gives me detailed run downs on what are the exact keywords people are searching.
This bum marketing tool also suggests which “Jackpot” keywords you can use to dominate any niche market you are in. These are keywords and keyphrase where there is almost zero competition! This is perfect for my bum marketing method.
It is meant for more elaborate keyword research and ideal for PPC campaigns as well.
3. Writing Content for Bum Marketing Articles
I used to write all my articles for bum marketing traffic. But with a network of 50 over blogs, it can be extremely challenging to write all my content.
There are some tools and services that make things really simple for me.
a. Instant Article Wizard
This is my baby for the bum marketing method. The reason why I say that it is a tool made for bum marketers is because in the whole bum marketing strategy, pumping out articles fast is the key to win the game! And that is what Instant Article Wizard does.
Oh, do not simply slap an article together with the search. Well you can and chances are the article is highly readable, but I expect a lot out of my articles.
So I will normally use it to do my content research. Find all the necessary data and information and then write an original article altogether.
b. Hiring GhostWriters
Ghostwriters are so important if you intend to run a successful business. Outsource your writing to good writers. Pay them well enough and you are never in lack of quality unique content.
$5 for an article is quite reasonable. I often use GetaFreeLancer and DP Forums for my content writing needs.
4. Submitting the Bum Marketing Articles
Article directories are my main battlegrounds to charge up profits from the bum marketing method.
I rely heavily on article submission software and article submission services.
Article Post Robot is the ultimate well-invested tool I found. It has earned me many fold the one-time price I paid for it. With one click, my article is distributed to over 400 article directories including EzineArticles. So far, this is the only tool that can post to the correct article category.
Read this review about Article Post Robot to understand what it can do for you.
The next are the article submission services, Unique Article Wizard and JetSubmitter. Both are hands-free services that distribute my articles to well over hundreds of article directories. Read about these two services at this article submission service review site.
I love UAW more simply because it also posts my articles onto their network of blogs. So far, I have seen quite a number of my articles that are posted on blogs ranking Top 10 in Google. I consider this my secret weapon among the bum marketing tools I own.
I hope I did not miss out on any tool that is useful for bum marketing. Feel free to post your comments about your arsenal of bum marketing tools here.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 7 Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
How do you create unique content that the search engines love? And do so quickly in 15 minutes flat?
These are some simple ways to create unique content fast and good. You can use it for your article submission or publish the content on your website.
Notice that I did not say, “write” here. Because you really do not have to write your own content if you find it challenging to do so.
1. Google for Results and Rewrite the Content. (Plus a Sneaky Trick!)
Before you shoot me down with such an obvious method, read on for the twist.
Google the main target keyword.
Browse through the top 10 search results. Copy the appropriate and relevant content onto a notepad or Word document.
Pick out the 4 or 5 key points. Using these key points, start writing an article.
Okay, I may sound a bit exaggerative here about the 15 minutes. But with practice, it is achievable for a 300 word article.
There is a sneaky trick here which you may want to use.
You can copy a few pages of content on your Microsoft Word, then go to your toolbar, click the “Tools” section, and activate the “AutoSummarize” function.
This will squeeze your article down to a nice length according to your needs. Then simply rewrite it or rephrase the content. There you have a ready piece of excellent unique content.
2. Use an Article Writing Software
In the market, there are different article writing software that helps writers to create unique content. I have used quite a number of them like Instant Article Wizard and Content Assistant.
Instant Article Wizard is hands-down the best so far. Basically, what it does is it goes scrapping for actual sentences containing your target keywords. You can do that for several keywords at one go.
From there, you just compile all the sentences that you deem as useful and rewrite it. You can whip up an article easily within 8 minutes.
Others are pretty crappy and basically scrap off some irrelevant advertisement content. Hardly readable and trashy stuff.
3. Buying & Rewriting Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles
You can use PLR articles. But rule of thumb is to modify the content at least 30%. I tend to be a bit careful and will rewrite up to at least 50%. Work on the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
There are dozens of PLR sites that offer PLR articles at $1 per article like
1. Great Niche Content - less than $1 per article
2. Fresh Niche Content
3. Easy PLR
4. PLR Mini Mart
Or you can sign up with those PLR sites that offer monthly batches of articles. That will solve your problem of creating excellent unique content.
4. Research at the Library/Buy a Second-Hand Book
Go to the library to pick up a book or grab a second-hand book on the topic you are writing about. Summarize the content and rewrite it in your own words.
When you do so, you can actually churn out a few articles at the same time within an hour.
This is particularly helpful when you are targeting age-old topics like health, remedies, dog training and stuff that have existed for a long, long time.
I recently grabbed a cheap book on home remedies for over 100 ailments for about $5. This is enough to create unique content for an entire website!
5. Hire a GhostWriter
I have personally tried hiring writers at a few free lance sites like Elance, ScriptLance and GetaFreeLancer.
GetaFreeLancer is my favorite. There are many good writers there willing to write an excellent unique article for $5 - 7. In case you think that these are low quality articles, then you are grossly mistaken. For that price, you can get articles of high quality.
Another place where you can find good article writers is DP Forums. Under the “Buy, Sell or Trade” section, you will be able to start a thread to buy content. Or you can browse around and send a private message to the more popular writers there. NicheRockets also have a section where you can buy limited PLR packages or hire some good writers for low rates.
6. Use Voice Recognition Software
Nowadays, voice recognition software can do wonders! If you find it too slow to write, you can simply just talk and let the software convert your voice into text.
For topics which you are familiar, getting an article created takes no more than 5 - 10 minutes.
Well, for topics that you are not so familiar, you can always research online, paraphrase what you read and let the voice recognition software do the writing. One of the most powerful tools is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software V9.0. According to users, accuracy is up to 99%. No script reading or “voice training” is required. You can start dictating straightaway.
I checked out the prices of this tool. Surprisingly, buying at the developer Nuance.com is not the cheapest. Nuance is selling at $99.99, while Buy.com is offering at $82.30. The cheapest is at …..Amazon.com, $59.99!
If you are keen on buying this nifty tool, you can always check out the links:
7. Invite Article Writers
This method involves you inviting article writers to write unique content for you. For this to work, you have to offer a “bribe”.
You can use a product such as an ebook or software where you own the rights to give away. Or offer to provide a backlink the next time you post on your website or blog, or whatever.
Post the invitation on your blog or forum.
These 7 tips should get you a constant stream of quality unique content for your publishing and article submissions. Begin to create unique content of excellent quality now!
Feel free to leave your comments here.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
As promised, I mentioned I will share more article writing tips about creating a killer article that pull in traffic, bring in more subscribers and make more sales.
What is the Perfect article?
Personally, an article is “perfect” if it achieves what I wrote it for. Whether it is for more traffic, or to build up my credibility as a subject expert, or for bum marketing, as long as it can hit the target, it is. Over time, I do come to realize that there are a few key ingredients that are essential to write a winning article for article marketing.
In writing for article marketing, you need to pay attention to the following in order to see your articles rank well for the targeted keywords, get publishers to publish your content for more traffic and to pre-sell your readers.
1. A Powerful & Attention-Grabbing Title
You need to create a great looking article. Your article title is the first thing readers see, not your content. It determines if it is interesting enough for your prospect to click on it to read. So pay attention to it!
Use words like “How to”, “Tips”, “What”, “Where”, “Who” etc. Use numbers. Call them to action. Example “10 Tips to Approach the Girl of Your Dreams”.
Always remember to include the target keyword in the title. Miss this and you lose the chance of ranking well.
2. Keyword Density
I mentioned in my earlier post that an ideal keyword density is between 1 to 2%. This is applicable for most article directories. Stay within this and you should be safe from being banned for keyword spamming/abuse.
This appropriate density is also ideal for SEO. Remember to use the target keyword in the introduction, article body and conclusion.
3. Article Body
The ideal format of a well-written article is to have an introduction that summarizes what the reader is getting from the entire article, a body with the various points elaborated, and a conclusion that calls them to click on your resource link for more information.
So in short, an article should have an introduction, point 1 to 4 (or more) and conclusion. Stay within 400 to 600 words.
When writing your content, make it informative. Give them facts, details and anything that you feel will be useful for them.
There are different types of article content or format of writing.
a. List of resources or places
You can either write your article as a list, such as listing the top 10 places to get free links or 10 free tools to do something.
b. Review
You can write a review of a product or service, explaining each feature, pros and cons, and give your honest comments.
c. FAQ format
I seldom see people doing that but this is a good suggestion for you. Think of some relevant and commonly questions people ask about the topic you are writing about. Then offer the answers.
When writing an article, always leave the readers with a good impression and wanting to find out more. Bait them, make them curious enough to look at your author resource box!
4. Author Resource Box
This is the most important part of your article. Why? This is where your “sales pitch” or any form of promotion can take place without getting banned by the article directory. Once again, be creative and make your author resource intriguing and attractive enough for your prospects to click to your website.
Compare these 2:
Dave is an online entrepreneur. Visit his site at XXXX to find out how to market with articles.
Dave makes well over $10,000 monthly from article marketing alone. You can too! See how he converts a piece of plain content into a traffic-sucking and sales converting article at XXXX.
Which One is Better?
Remember to use the target keyword as anchor text for backlinking purposes.
These are the real ingredients that make up an excellent article that can pull in more readers, subscribers and sales for you. Make full use of these powerful article writing tips.
Read this secret report that can propel your article marketing efforts and supercharge your profits!
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | No Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Before you even start writing your article, keyword research is a must. It is so critical that it can determine whether your article marketing effort is a flop or success.
Keyword Research for Long Tails – Your Key to Fast Traffic
Long tail keywords or long tails are worth gold to every article marketer. Using long tail keywords for article writing is smart because they are easier to rank than normal keyword phrases.
What is a long tail?
A 4 or 5 keyword phrase is a long tail version of the root keyword. For example, “make money online with PPC” is a long tail. Or “buy red Toyota Prius” is another example of a long tail.
Why using long tail keywords for article writing is beneficial?
They are targeted and specific and much easier to rank. Hence, the conversion is better. Those who search “article submission software review” probably have some knowledge about article submission software. So if your article is targeting the keyword “article submission software review”, isn’t it very specific and targeted?
Compare this with targeting the keyword “article submission”. Yes, it gets a lot more searches from Google, Yahoo and MSN. But ranking for this keyword is much, much tougher than “article submission software review”. Also, when people search for “article submission”, they may be looking for article submission services, or how effective is article submission, or so on. Very untargeted!
What is a good long tail?
a. Use a keyword research tool like Keyword Elite or WordTracker.
b. From there, look for keywords that have lower than 1000 search counts. Normally, the actual search counts in Google are at least 3 times higher than this.
c. Go to Google the keyword. See if the search results is lower than 2 million results. The lower this figure, the lower the competition, the better for you.
d. Use the “allintitle:keyword” search at Google to see how many web pages are optimized for the keyword you are targeting. Anything lower than 3000 is good.
e. Repeat the whole process until you have 10 to 20 keywords.
Once you have gathered 10 to 20 keywords, write 10 to 20 articles around these keywords and submit them to EzineArticles.
Sit and wait for the traffic to start pouring in…
See the following screenshot of an article I wrote and submitted to EzineArticles that has thus far received over 30,000 views or about 30,000 unique visitors over a year. Today, it is still ranked No.3 in Google.
All the views are from the search engines. That works out to about 2200 visitors per month. Assuming the click through to my site is 30 to 50% which works out to about 660 – 1100 visitors per month from 1 article.
What if you can convert at 1%? That will be 6 to 10 sales! By the way, the conversion of this article is about 1%.
Now, what if you have 10 or 20 of such articles? You do the math. Using long tail keywords for article writing rocks!
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 3 Comments »
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Writing articles for the web is not the same as writing a school essay.
I have realized something very important. You need to write both for your readers as well as the search engine spiders. This is where many online writers fail miserably.
The truth is there are a lot of good writers with a flair for writing and profound knowledge about the topic they write. But the trouble is, they often think in terms of the human readers and not the search engine spiders. Therefore, they write in such a manner that attracts the reader’s attention, but score poorly in the eyes of the search engines.
Online publishing is different from normal offline literature. You can use bombastic words and write an article with all that creative juices but it will still receive low readership. I have seen many articles of high quality receiving low page views. What a waste!
Article marketing cannot depart from good SEO practices. By that, you need to take note of a couple of factors when writing your articles or web content:
1. Keyword Density, both in the title and the content
2. Latent Semantic Indexing
Article marketing basically is targeted at the search engines. If you cannot rank your article in the top 10 search engine results, you can be sure that your readership will not be outstanding. Conversely, any article that is ranked well gets tons of targeted traffic from the search engines.
So how do you rank them in Top 10?
Treat your article as a web page. In all web pages, the meta-tags and content are optimized for the target keywords. In the same manner, the meta-tags are synonymous with the article title, and the web content with the article body.
Did you realize that the article titles of all articles that are indexed in the search engines are showing up like the meta-title? Likewise, the content is showing up like the meta-description?
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) in layman terms simply means that you have to pay attention to the keywords and topic you use. On top of keeping an appropriate keyword density of the target keyword at about 1% to 2%, you need to associate your content with related keywords. Also, do not go overboard in targeting your main keyword. Never spam your content!
In the past, simply littering the content with the targeted keywords is good enough. Today, rules have changed. For example, if you are writing an article on “article marketing”, instead of just repeating “article marketing” as the only keyword, you probably would think of “online authors”, “EzineArticles”, “article title”, “bum marketing”, “web traffic”, “article submission” and so on.
Likewise, when writing an article on “buying a used Toyota”, you will associate it with “car dealers”, “auto insurance”, “Toyota Prius”, “Toyota Rav4” and so on.
The whole idea is to stay relevant.
So how do you come up with the associated keywords to use in your article content?
1. Use the “~” search feature in Google. Say you want to find a synonym for “car”, simply go to Google ~car and you will see some possible synonyms.
2. Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and search for related keywords and phrases. Remember to check the “Use synonyms” box. This free keyword tool will churn out keywords that Google deems as related to your target keyword.
3. Ask your family and friends. Sometimes, they can tell you some interesting words you may not have thought of.
4. Google the main keyword, and find the top few websites. Take each url and place it in the https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Remember to check the “Website Content” box.
If you will pay attention to the above 2 factors, your article stands to rank well. This strategy will work very well with EzineArticles.
Of course, other than these 2, there are other key factors such as creating unique content, picking long tails and more. I shall talk more about this topic in my next post. We will also discuss later on what makes a “Perfect” article.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 2 Comments »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Article marketing is my pet topic. This is one powerful marketing technique that has brought me more than 460,000 unique visitors and $10,000s of sales. But it was not always a bed of roses. Let me tell you a little silly story why. When I started marketing in early 2006 as a complete newbie, I was making use of safelist marketing solely.
It was only when I chanced upon the NicheRockets forum in end 2006 that I got to hear about article marketing, ie writing and submitting articles to free article directories for traffic and sales. I also picked up some free ebooks on article marketing as well in the forum.
The people there were using articles to drive traffic to built-for-Adsense sites and making loads of money in the tune of $1000s every month. Of course there are other stealthy tools and killer tricks that they use and talk about such as advanced content generating tools and so on.
The first article I wrote was for an online golf gaming software that ran on a MLM model. Matrix, Level Up, 2 Up and all that jargon that most people cannot understand. I left the article alone and never took a second look at it. I just chucked the article marketing technique aside to do other stuff.
But on one occasion, a very innocent search I did on Google revealed that my article posted at Article Alley was ranked No.1 for a highly competitive keyword related to “country club”. There were about 200 million results for that keyword! I was Excited!
But then came my Exasperation…I forgot to check if my affiliate link was working…and it wasn’t…and I couldn’t update the link. I felt really silly!
So even though I made it to the top of Google for a highly competitive keyword which drives tons of traffic to my article, I never made a SINGLE CENT out of it.
Of course, that was my silly past. I have since learnt my mistakes and for the entire year of 2007 worked diligently on mastering article marketing.
Why is Article Marketing useful for all marketers, whether you are an affiliate or webmaster?
1. Article Marketing is Free.
If you can write quality content, you can submit your article for free without paying a single cent. It works whether you are a newbie or experienced marketer.
2. Article Marketing Drives Lots of Traffic.
There are a few ways to drive traffic using articles.
a. An article that is optimized for a target keyword has the potential of ranking well in the search engines. We all know the benefits of that.
b. A well-written and informative article will be picked up by publishers. These publishers may place your article onto their websites or send it to their lists. More traffic!
c. Submitting an article to dozens of article directories can get you instant one-way backlinks. Many quality directories carry a high PageRank, so that means more link love and higher search engine rankings for our sites.
3. Article Marketing Builds Your Credibility
You are what you write or so it says. Your content will reveal your understanding and knowledge about a topic. So if you are selling weight loss products, contributing articles regularly on the topic establishes you as an expert. People are more willing to listen to your advice and…product recommendations.
4. Article Marketing Pre-sells!
A well-written article can pre-sell your prospects and convince them to do what YOU WANT them to do. Trust me, it improves the conversion rates much better than just flashing the product sales page!
One product that converts at 1 sale per 100 clicks has been shown to convert at less than 50 clicks. Disclaimer: Not all products will see such dramatic improvements but you should still see a great improvement.
The reason is simple. When people read your article, their intention is to find out more information. But little do they know that their subconscious minds are starting to buy into what was presented to them.
So it warms them up to feel good about the product or service you are promoting. You know what happens when they click the author resource link to see the sales page. The likelihood of them flashing out their credit cards dramatically improves!
This is just an introduction to article marketing. In my subsequent posts, I will share in greater details of how to make money using article marketing.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | No Comments »
