Make Affiliate Money

Anyone who uses ezineArticles for affiliate marketing BEWARE, they have started a WAR on you and your fellow marketeers.

Below is a post on ezinearticles blog indicating that they are making a stand against anyone using ezine to direct traffic to affiliate sites.

I have never been a huge fan of ezine, they have always ad very strict editors and silly rules and now this proves they are not willing to play the game.  Luckily there are lots of other good article directories out there, many of these were listed here last month.

Most affiliate marketers don’t write original content and if they do write their own articles… their articles are thin, regurgitated Frankenstein article spin-written by some software program… only to flip our end users to a clickbank site (ie: they added no value in the process).

Affiliate marketers fall into one of two camps:

1. ~90% who have decided to scale their craft into hundreds and thousands of articles have become highly efficient at writing keyword loaded copy while making sure that their articles seldom deliver on the promise made in the article title…because if their articles delivered on the promise they made in the title…they fear our end users would never click to their website.
2. ~10% are in it to share genuine expertise with original articles that came from their background…and they are doing this gig to explore a phase in their business life where they are trying to figure out how to convert traffic into dollars so that they can build their own products to sell. This is the type of affiliate marketer we welcome and even on some days, call “ideal.”

Our position and reason why it’s “war” and personal:

We want our million+ daily end users to leave with a positive experience. Delivering thin non-original articles only to flip the end users to a long sales letter page that further promises the moon and stars for only $49.99 does not always deliver a positive end-user experience.

Last month we cracked down on penis enlargement articles and rejected thousands of them that over promised and massively under-delivered. This month our Editors have been instructed that any article that is ‘thin’ in originality AND the end destination URL is an affiliate link; we’re going to reject for “Non Substantial or Not-Original-Enough Content.”

No, we’re not going to over-react and make a big move here. We’re talking about the subjective decision where the article missed the mark by 5-15% vs. where we would have previously accepted the article and let it pass.

We didn’t get to our current success together this many years by thinking ’short-term’ oriented and the fact that our Editorial standards raise every single month should not be a shock to anyone. It’s the way it’s been since day one. Affiliate marketers who submit thin non-original articles are wasting their time submitting to us.

Lastly, some tips about how to get your affiliate-link-included articles accepted:

• Be sure to read section 3 if you haven’t already in our Editorial Guidelines.
• Do not increase your word count for word count sake. More words that say nothing is not better than fewer words that say nothing.
• Insist that your ghostwriters (if you use them) must blow you away with original ideas, seldom thought about solutions, unique perspectives and not the same crap every other article already says about a particular topic. RAISE THE BAR.
• Keep the spammy looking article titles to a minimum if at all. Hype does not help get your article accepted faster. Know we’re checking your article body to make certain that you deliver on the promise(s) made in your article title.
• Don’t submit 10-1000 articles on same rehashed topic with only the words and tips re-arranged. Our anti-derivative software is being continually tweaked to reject this behavior.
• Be proud of your articles. Most affiliate marketers don’t fight us when we reject their articles because they were not worth writing home to Mom about in the first place.

Hope this helps.

If you’ve got tips or advice as to how we can discourage affiliate marketers from wasting their time submitting thin non-original content to us, we’d like to hear it. Our end goal here is to raise the quality of the perception the marketplace has of the type of articles they can expect to find within EzineArticles.com. This focus also helps us look good to those who refer traffic to our members’ articles.

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I must give credit to my friends at Nichechoppers for this list, if you know of any more good ranking article directories please comment below.

PR 7

The All I Need – Article submission form
Web Hosting Articles, Submit web hosting articles and Buyer Guides to Article Central
Submit an Article to WebProNews | WebProNews
SEONews.com – Search Engine Optimization & Domaining News
Form for Content Submission for Publication at About Small Business Information
Submit Articles, Article Submission (Business, Marketing, Health, …)

PR 6

Add Articles: GoArticles.com
EzineArticles Member Signup – New Free Membership Account Creation
ArticleCity.com – Submit An Article
Article Dashboard Directory | Submit Articles | Search Find Free Content | Author Submission
Women in Business at Digital Women
Promotion Data: Members
Submit Articles – Isnare.com Member Login
Author Login
Become An Author
Article Submission: Submit Your Articles to Power HomeBiz Guides
BlogWidow.com – Submit an Article
All Freelance Work : freelance article bank – authors and writers – submit your articles
http://articles.hotlib.com/submit.php

PR 5

Article Entry Form
Login
ArticlesOn.com, Free Content, Free Articles, Free Article Database & Free Article Submission.
Login to IdeaMarketers
Article99.com Member Login Page
http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
HowtoAdvice.com: Submit Your Articles
https://uadm.arrivenet.com/index.php…hp&m=nosession
Home – Article Blast! Free Articles And Content For Reprint On Your Website, Newsletters and Ezines. Submit Your Articles For Free!
http://www.boconline.com/articlesubmit.asp
Alumbo! Member Login
SMALL BUSINESS WEB SITES DIRCTORY, SMALL BUSINESS WEB SITE LINKS, ONLINE WEB SITES
Submit Your Top7 Tips To Top7Business
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles
http://www.themanager.org/Content1/form_56.htm
Sign-in | Free Article Submission
SearchWarp.com Author Login
Free Articles For Your Ezine, Website and Newsletters. – ArticleFever.com
tc-sales.biz
Submit an Article | Article Submission | Small Business Marketing and Promotion Article Directory
http://virtual-professionals.com/submit/
Submit Article
http://www.mbnet.com/article_add_form.asp
http://www.a1articles.com/author_login.php

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Getting customers to your site should always be ranked as high as the importance of the quality and the excellence of the product and the services you provide. They should go hand in hand in providing your customers the satisfaction they get in exchange for the money they have paid for them. Customer service should be just as fantastic so that the customers are provided with the same satisfaction.

One of the ways you can combine marketing and customer service is through opt-in marketing. With an opt-in list you get the opportunity to introduce your site and products on a good time basis. Opt-in marketing strategy is a marketing strategy that is virtually low cost and not time consuming. Here, you get the consent of your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletters and other promotional materials such as catalogs and free promotions.

Opt-in marketing uses your list of subscribers to send e-mail to. These e-mails will contain the materials you will send to your subscribers. It is essential that you present your promotional items in a manner that will catch the interest and the eye of your subscribers to keep them wanting for more. The best way to do this is to provide fun, entertaining and informational articles.

Well written articles full of content and useful information will help in building your list as more subscribers will be enticed your list. When they have read the samples of your contents in your sites, they will be intrigued as to what will come next. Subscribing to your newsletter will offer them a glimpse of what you have to offer next.

Many sites and companies have captured the importance of articles and this also aids in search engine optimization. As more people are heading towards the internet for their information needs, serving the right information to them via articles in your site will increase the flow of your website traffic. With more traffic, the percentage of your sales will grow. More sales turn into more profit.

They have seen the rise for the importance of well written, information enriched and keyword packed articles for the content of their site as well as for newsletters. These articles provide the information many are seeking in the internet. If your site has them, more people will be going to your site for information and research.

Well written articles would also boost your sites reputation. If they are filled with many information you will be regarded as well informed and an expert on the subjects that you tackle. Your articles must be well researched so that the people will trust you. When you have gained their trust, they will always come for you for their needs on that subject.

In connection, you must write articles or commission them to tackle subjects that are closely connected with your type of business. If you have a site for a medicine tackling a certain disease, your articles must be about the diseases. Or if you sell materials for home improvements provide articles with those themes. Most articles searched for are tips, guidelines, methods, manuals and such. If you provide these articles to your customers and you have their trust, they will always go to your site for help and advice as well as for your products.

With the loyalty of these customers, they may subscribe to your opt-in list to receive all the information you have. If you provide them with the answers for that need, they will be happy to be receiving your newsletters as well as other promotional materials to keep them well informed. Others may even forward your newsletters to other people when they find a certain article interesting.

You should provide links in your newsletter so that when other people are reading it and wants to read more, they may click on the link and go to your site. With the articles you have in your site that are good, they may decide to sign up as well for your opt-in list. This will build your list and make it bigger.

Make sure to keep your subscribers happy and interested in your newsletters and promotional materials. Keep on posting and writing good articles for your site and newsletter. If you are not interested in writing them or if you just don’t have the time, there are many available well experienced and knowledgeable writers available to help you out. This is an investment that will pay for itself in time.

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Following on from my earlier post, in response to a question from ddt “How do I get Started in Affiliate Marketing? – WITH NO MONEY” , I promised to explain a bit more about BUM Marketing and Article Writing.

You may have heard the term BUM Marketing and thought, what on earth does that stand for? In fact it is not an abbreviation it is a marketing style that was designed and popularized by a man named Travis Sago. The reason why it is called bum marketing is because it is meant to be so simple and straight forward that if a bum off the street was given a computer with internet access, he would be able to generate money with this form of marketing in no time at all. You should be able to do it without spending any money.

There is actually very little difference between normal Article Marketing and BUM Marketing, but BUM Marketing is done to specifically earn affiliate income and/or create a “list” of potential customers. Plain Article Marketing is done for several reasons including building good quality backlinks and generating targetted traffic to your website containing Adsense or similar EPC (earn per click) networks.

Basic Bum Marketing Steps:

1. Choose a Niche market (like Forex)
2. Choose Affiliate Products to promote (generally ones that pay good commission and have good “gravity”)
3. Find some good keywords and groups of keywords that are searched regularly (I use Google Adwords Tool for this) This will tell give you lists of keywords and how often they are searched for in any country.
4. Set up a Landing Page like the examples in Part 1, you can use a free provider such as squidoo, synthasite, blogger, wordpress. Make sure you have the keywords you are targetting as the title and url i.e. if you are targetting “dog training guide” then look for http://squidoo.com/dogtrainingguide or http://dogtrainingguide.wordpress.com or similar, some people have suggested that using a – between words on squidoo is better, i.e. http://squidoo.com/dog-training-guide for search engine results.
5. Write a review or details of the product(s) that you are promoting on these pages and include your hoplink. Do not have any distractions or easy ways out on this page like Adsense adverts or links that are not hoplinks, you want the visitor to leave this page by clicking on the hoplink.
6. Open accounts at ezinearticles.com, hubpages, knol, etc (there are loads of article directories, but only a few rank well in Google) Knol is fairly new, but as a Google product I suspect it will start to rank well!
7. Write unique articles relating to the niche or even the products that you are promoting, they need to focus on the same keywords you picked in 3 and 4 above, in particular the title. Each of the article directories have different rules about content, links etc but ezine seem to be the most difficult to please and most inconsistent. hubpages is very easy to use, you can use images and they don’t have such stringent rules. On the flip side, you will get less exposure on hubpages than you will from ezine. hubpages is added straight away and ezine can take up to a week for an editor to approve or reject.
8. Keep submitting good quality articles to ezine and if you submit 10 in a row that are approved without problem, you will have the opportunity to ask for an upgrade to platinum status, this will give you unlimited submissions and apparently quick approval. More than likely you will not get platinum after 10 articles, and will be awarded basic plus status where you can add another 25 articles before going for platinum again, do not worry about this, just keep submitting good, keyword focused articles with links to your landing pages in the “resource box” or throughout on the hubpages example. You will get some traffic from these eventually and also good quality backlinks which will help your landing page rank higher and get more organic (free) visitors.
9. Bookmark your articles and landing pages using digg.com, propeller.com, furl.com, stumbleupon, del.icio.us etc, this will create good network of links, again helping search engine ranking of both the articles and landing page.
10. Keep updating landing pages and improve their “lens rank” etc by adding more features.
11. Most important, BE PATIENT – this is not a way to make money overnight, it will take a lot of time and effort and will take anything from 2-4 weeks to get a decent level of traffic and your first affiliate sale. It will be worth it in the end as the sales will be 100% profit and that feels great!

Good Luck – Tell me how it works out.

JZ

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