Easy Earning

Commonly known in the Internet Marketing world as “article marketing”, or, “bum marketing” - it’s simply the act of submitting articles to popular article directories on any given subject, and then putting your URL in the “resource box” (the author credits) at the end of the article. The goal is to hopefully get a decent ranking in Google for your article, and when people read it, they are persuaded to click on the URL for the author that wrote the article, which leads them to your target URL (your website or whatever website you’re promoting).

Whew, that was hard to sum up in one little paragraph, and there’s still so much more to talk about, but I’m just going to cover the basics today, on the subject of using article marketing to drive traffic to your blog.

Article marketing is a wicked tool, which, if used right, can drive long term traffic to any blog. I’m serious when I say that all bloggers, even some of the “big dogs”, should actively participate in this method of traffic generation, because it works. And it works even better in numbers.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with this concept, bare with me, I’ll give you a quick tutorial below:

1. Write an article that deals with the subject of your blog. For instance, if you write about fitness, then get an article written that relates somewhat to fitness. Easy enough.

2. Pick a phenomenal title for your article. This is where you would want to do a little keyword research, but since this is meant for beginners, I won’t go into that at the moment. If you stick with titles like, “Top 10 Ways To Lose Weight Fast”, or, “21 Foods That Melt Belly Fat”, you should be just fine for now.

Note: If you are familiar with keyword research (using a tool such as the free Wordtracker keyword tool, then make sure you do a little check up to see what people are searching for in your niche, and make sure to include your chosen keyword in your title - make sense?)

3. Sign up and set up your free account over at a popular article directory such as EzineArticles.Com (the best, by far).

4. Proof read your article until you’re sure it’s perfect, and proper spelling and grammar is used.

5. Write a quick resource box (the resource box is what appears underneath your article when it goes live). I find that a quick and to the point one works best, with a call to action in it. Instead of saying something like, “Bob Jones is an expert at fitness, read his daily fitness tips here”, instead, I would say something along the lines of, “Learn 7 explosive ways to lose weight fast in our free newsletter”. I would make the word newsletter the actual link back to the site. By putting a “call to action” in the wording, your CTR (click through ratio) will be much higher. This is the whole goal of this, so a good resource box should be one of your number one priorities.

6. When all of the above is done, submit your article for approval.

7. Wait a few days until it gets approved.

8. Use an existing article in your blog, or some other website, to link to the live Ezine Article you just wrote, that way it gives it a little extra “link juice”.

9. Rinse and repeat as many times as you can stand it. Seriously, this is the way to make it happen. Writing 4 articles and expecting heaps of traffic isn’t going to happen. This is a numbers game, meaning, the more articles you get submitted, the more traffic you’re going to receive. Heck, I have articles from over a year ago still generating good traffic for an old blog of mine.

Numbers Are Your Friend

I can’t emphasize the fact enough that article marketing is purely a numbers game. The more articles you have submitted, the more traffic you’re going to receive in the long run.

You see, whenever you submit an article with a popular article directory such as EzineArticles, you stand a chance at getting a good ranking in the search engines because EA carries a lot of weight in the search engines (especially Google).

I want to present an truly awesome example of how article marketing can not only drive tons of traffic, but also put a lot of money in your pocket. There is a guy over at the WarriorForums that goes by the name, “TimG“, and he’s well known around there for his article marketing savvy. Long story short, he just posted some statistics yesterday - because he just hit the 1500 articles submitted milestone. That’s HUGE.

He obviously uses these articles to drive traffic to his websites, and here are his stats from having 1500 live articles (be ready to get jealous and cry):

Page Views: 2,231,423

URL Clicks: 141,030

Now, URL clicks were only recently started to be tracked by Ezinearticles, so one could assume that number is probably double, triple, or more. Folks, that’s a lot of traffic and clicks.

You may think that’s a lot of articles to write, but he freely admits that he outsourced a lot of it, due to the fact that even by outsourcing the articles, he still made plenty of profit from the traffic coming in to cover the costs. When you get to the point where you have 100+ articles submitted and they’re doing well, then outsourcing your article writing is probably the smartest thing you can do. Instead of using your time to write articles, you can be out there promoting and marketing your site.

Imagine, just imagine, how much money he’s pulled down from this. He’s a marketer at heart, so no doubt he used this traffic to direct it at affiliate offers, CPA offers, or whatever floats his boat. And this is just from the article submissions alone! With that many backlinks from the articles, and from people who have used his articles on their own websites (another huge factor in this), he probably has more traffic than he could ever dream of. Even if 1% of those converted to a sale, that’s a lot of dough.

One more thing, like I just mentioned a bit above - the whole point of an article directory is to provide a place for other webmasters to freely copy and paste the articles for use on their own websites, so long as they keep the author resource box in tact. Out of the 1500 articles that Tim submitted, it’s safe to say that there are quite a few webmasters out there using his articles, which of course leads to more incoming links, which in turn can help boost your search engine rankings. I’m quite sure he ranks well for a variety of keywords. Also, big E-Zines that have hundreds of thousands of readers often look at article directories for good articles to publish, so getting picked up by one of those types of sites is an article marketers dream, because if you get picked up by one of the big boys, you can expect a flood of traffic to your site, and fast.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, article marketing can be quite the worthwhile activity, especially if you get serious with it. I find it’s a great activity for when I have downtime, and I’ve recently started a quest called Bum 1000 - which is my attempt at submitting 1000 articles to EzineArticles to see how much traffic I can drive to various websites of mine.

According to the website howrichiwllbe.com, I will earned in next 10 years around about $7,449,989. Here is the proof from this website.

7,449,989
How much money will you be worth?

Have you ever thought about how rich you’ll be in the next 10 years? I know I have. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a simple scientific way to figure out how much you’ll make in the future? Well, there is!
A new site has been created that answers the question, “How rich will I be?” They’re using this review to help generate some buzz for the new venture. By taking a minute or two to answer 15 easy questions, How Rich Will I Be will be able tell you exactly how rich you will be. How does the site do this? The creator refused to reveal the top secret algorithm the site uses, but he claims it’s extremely accurate and can tell how much you’ll make in the next 10 year down to the nearest dollar.
What a great stress reliever this site is. No longer will you have to wonder about your financial future. Just by answering 15 questions, your monetary fate will be spelled out before you. After you find out how rich you’ll be, the site will produce a nice plaque to proudly display on your blog and make all your friends green with envy.
How Rich Will I Be?
At first I was reluctant to use this site because I may not like the answer. However, I overcame my initial fear and gave the questions a go.
Imagine how wide my eyes got when How Rich Will I Be told me I’ll be worth $21,520,951 in the next 10 years. What kind of crap is that? That number is way too low! The site needs to adjust its algorithm to add one or two more zeros to it.
How rich will you be? Take the test and find out. Post your results in the comments. If you end up richer than me, please tell me how you answered your questions so I can get richer.

Watch the video below to see how you can generate the AdSense code to place on your site in order to display Google ads.

Yet another service has launched today that enables bloggers to write sponsored posts in return for a payment from advertisers. This one is called ReviewMe and has been talked about for a couple of weeks now in the wake of much of the controversy around PayPerPost.

Reviews cost advertisers a minimum of $40 but the cost is actually different for each blog’s statistics (ie Alexa ranking, Technorati ranking etc). The ReviewMe site says that bloggers will earn between $20 and $200 per post.

Bloggers are required to disclose that the reviews that they write are sponsored posts and they are not required to write positive reviews of advertisers products or services.

Review me is owned by Andy Hagans - a blogger who will be familiar to many ProBlogger readers.

While I’m still not a massive fan of sponsored posts (I can see a place for them when the products being reviewed are relevant to the topic of the blog - but many sponsored posts that I’ve seen bloggers posting using PPP are totally out of context of their blog’s topic) I think reviewMe seems like a better concept than the alternatives at this point.

PS: no this is not a paid review of ReviewMe - even though they’re offering some nice coin for reviews of their service.

A question that I’m increasingly being asked about is whether I agree with sponsored posts as a way to make money online from blogging.

Sponsored posts are nothing new - bloggers have been doing it for years - writing posts in exchange for payments. What is new is the organized way that the practice is happening with services popping up that match bloggers with those wanting to get blogged about.

PayPerPost is perhaps the most prominent service that does this but there are others too. They include CreamAid, inBlogAds and ReviewMe (others are popping up as well).

• So what do you think about sponsored posts as a concept?
• Have you used them?
• Would you do them?
• Under what circumstances would you do them?

I’m interested in people’s experiences and opinions on the topic and won’t cloud this post with my own thoughts on it (I’m happy to write my own opinions on it at a later point once others have had their say).

I know people feel pretty strongly about the topic either way so expect this to come through in your comments but simply ask that you keep to the topic and not take it into a personal flame war if you disagree with what others say. All opinions will be listened to and are welcomed.

It’s been months since programs like PayPerPost and ReviewMe launched - offering bloggers money to review products, sites and services.

In that time there’s been a lot of controversy around the ethics of paid reviews and whether disclosure should be compulsory or not. I don’t really want to get into that again here - but I do have a question.

• When you see a paid review on a blog do you read it?
• If you read it - do you give it any more or less authority or credibility than a non paid review?

I’m asking the question(s) without any agenda - but out of my own experience of seeing more and more blogs writing paid reviews (some blogs are doing them daily and are making good money doing so).

My own experience is that while I don’t ethically have a problem with a paid review as long as it’s clearly disclosed - that I can’t remember too many times when I’ve read them beyond the first paragraph.

Perhaps I am not a typical blog reader and have become a little hardened in my old age - but I’d really love to hear of other people’s experiences. Do you read paid reviews?

I’d also like to ask a question or three to those doing paid reviews:

• What type of response (positive or negative) have you had from readers to your reviews?
• Do you find comments on paid reviews are higher or lower than your other posts?

Again - I’m only asking this out of a genuine interest. While I’ve not gotten into the paid review game myself because it doesn’t quite fit with my style of blogging I’d love to hear from others who have - particularly around the questions of whether you feel the reviews have impacted the quality of the interactions you’re having with readers.

It looks like ReviewMe is adding another product to their range - this time it’s Advertorials.

On their Advertisers page they share what they are:

• You can browse our marketplace of top blogs and choose the blogs to run your message which you remain in full control over.
• Advertorials also feature full impression and click tracking so you can measure your return on investment.
• Advertorials are a great way to generate buzz and traffic while controlling the message and measuring your results!

They don’t seen to have officially announced it yet but what it seems like is that instead of the blogger writing the review - advertorials have more input by the advertiser. I’m hoping that they’ll be marked/disclosed as such (as they require for reviews).

OK - so as a blogger, would you use this type of service?

I’ve always had mixed thoughts on review posts. I think if they are on topic, genuine and disclosed they are one option to explore as a blogger - as long as you don’t become obsessed by posting too many of them and as long as they give actual useful information to your readers (and realize that for some readers they can be a turn off).

I personally don’t do paid reviews because I don’t want to put myself in that kind of position with my readers - however some bloggers seem to be doing well with them.

With advertorials I’m feeling similar thoughts - although am probably even further away from running them on my own blogs than running paid reviews. While I guess ReviewMe will give bloggers full control of whether an advertorial is placed on their blog (after seeing the copy) I think there are a couple of downsides to this as a blogger wanting to develop a community and relationships with readers:

• Disruption of Style/Voice - one of the potential downsides is that the voice that advertorials are written in could well be different to the voice that you write your blog on. I guess this will be a case by case thing that bloggers need to assess - but most advertorials that I read in newspapers and magazines have a certain kind of ’spin’ on them. I guess to be fair that this disruption of voice is similar to when you put a guest post up on your blog.
• Loss of Balance - the point of an advertorial is to sell something. Whether it be a product, brand or service - an advertorial is an advertisement of some sort and as a result it is not generally a balanced exploration of the pros and cons of that service. Is this what your blog is about - this is a call that a blogger will need to make for themselves.

I’m not about to reject the idea of an advertorial completely for all blogs - but I would suggest bloggers think carefully about running them or not (as I would encourage bloggers to do with any type of ad on their blog. Remember that everything that goes up on your blog either adds to or takes away from how readers perceive it - particularly those things that appear in the content areas of your blog.

They are my initial thoughts, having not seen many details of what the service entails. What do you think about advertorials on blogs?

PS: one last question that I have about this - will advertorials be unique from blog to blog? Seeing the same advertorial numerous times around a niche could become annoying to readers but also could have implications when it comes to SEO both of the advertiser and blogger - ie duplicate content. Knowing the smart SEO types behind ReviewMe I suspect they’ve given this some consideration and will be interested to see what they’ve come up with.

Update: Thanks to Patrick from ReviewMe who has made the following clarifications for us:

New Yorks’ Media Whiz advertising firm has acquired Cincinnati’s Text Link Ads. The deal was announced this morning, but the financial details aren’t being disclosed.

Text Link Ads typically sells small text ads for a fixed monthly rate, not pay per click. They advertise on blogs extensively (disclosure: including this one). The company recently released a product called “Feedvertising” that allows publishers to easily place ads from Text Link Ads, ads the publisher sells themselves directly or other messages into their RSS feeds. We use this service to promote other sites in the Crunch network. I hope that this product continues to flourish post acquisition.

Media Whiz was founded by Jason Cohen in 2001. The company offers lead generation, affiliate, display and email advertising services. It looks fairly old school to me and acquiring Text Link Ads is probably going to be a big step in moving into the emerging social media space. Jason Cohen’s previous company, Wise Ads New Media was acquired by About.com in 2000. Cohen began his career at DoubleClick. People talk about the power of PayPal alumni - I’d like to write a post about all the interesting things DoubleClick alumni are doing around the web, they’re everywhere.

There has been some amount of controversy around Text Link Ads because they don’t use javascript or “no follow” links to serve up ads on blogs and thus carry more weight with search engines than some people believe paid links ought to have. The Text Link Ads site is very clear that customers are buying inbound links and search engine weight, not just traffic. Some people contend that this is not a problem and that the more granular control over individual ads that Text Link Ads can offer its publishers by not using javascript is positive. Still others contend that “the link is dead” (perhaps because of things like links for sale) and all of this will be irrelevant soon.

Patrick Gavin, President of Text Link Ads, tells us that this is just one of several acquisitions in the pipeline at Media Whiz. It looks like a smart one; look to start seeing the Media Whiz name more and more around the blogosphere.

ReviewMe, which is a PayPerPost-like service that pays bloggers to write about advertisers’ products, just launched moments ago. The company is backed by TechCrunch-sponsor Text-Link-Ads, which was recently acquired.

ReviewMe has a somewhat different model that PayPerPost. Where advertisers on PayPerPost set a single fee that is paid to all bloggers regardless of their size, ReviewMe uses an algorithm based on Alexa, Technorati and other statistics to determine the importance of a blog and charges a different fee for each blog based on the calculation. Blogger payments range from $30 - $1,000 per post.

Also, Bloggers must disclose that the review is a paid advertisement. They can do this in anyway they choose, ie “The following is a paid review:” “Paid Advertisement:” etc. This is another improvement over PayPerPost, which is heavily criticized because it does not require disclosure.

Finally, advertisers can purchase posts, but they cannot require that a post is positive. The blogger can choose to write their honest opinion without fear of not being paid. The only requirement is that the review must be a minimum of 200 words.

In an email exchange, a company spokesperson said “We are planning on burying PayPerPost.” While we do not endorse this business model, we do note that ReviewMe has removed the most egregious aspects of the PayPerPost business model: no disclosure requirement, and a requirement to write a positive post.

ReviewMe is eating their own dog food by giving away $25,000 today to pay bloggers to write about the service.

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