Article Marketing – The Cold Hard Truth

Let me start off by saying that after you do your keyword research for your various niche markets, it comes down to doing the actual work – writing content. That means producing your own content or getting someone to help you. You will need to look at utilizing software tools that will make your time more productive like using an article rewriter. This is the part where we separate the men from the boys and women from the girls. I want to be politically correct here (lol).


Seriously, writing content, editing it and re-posting different versions of your content can be very tedious and yes, boring at times. I enjoy writing on many topics and this is definitely one of them, like internet marketing, how to do internet marketing, how to make money online, etc.


Reality Check


You see, doing an internet business is like any other business. You get paid for production and ultimately results. Of course, most people are too lazy and won’t do the work required. That is a good thing, believe it or not. That means less competition for me to compete against. If you just want to be a blogger and write about your daily activities, that’s
perfectly fine. However, if you want to learn how to make money online, then you better get your head in the game and learn the various parts of building an online business.


The reality is, there are many things you need to know about in building any online business, despite what the so called guru’s might tell you. It does take some time to research, read and figure it all out. My plan for this website is to provide about 10 articles that cover all of the basics and more, so that you can get up and running in a day or two.


The Price of Financial Freedom


Just remember, the business won’t come to you. You have to be hungry and be willing to go after it. That means sitting down on your ass and getting to work. Turn the TV off and stop wasting time reading all kinds of forums to make yourself feel better. I usually spend about 1 or 2 hours max each week reading other sites, after my work is done for the day or I really need a break. Reading other people’s information, well at least the good ones, is a nice break. However, it doesn’t make me any money because I am not producing content. I know the basics to rank a website.


At the end of the day, you need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and ask the hard question. Did I do everything I could today to move my business forward?


If the answer is no, then get back to your computer and get some more content produced to send out to more article directories. I never said this would be easy. There is a price to pay for financial freedom and being able to fire your boss. In fact, one of the problems plaguing the online world is the scammers out there making it seem easy. There are certainly things you can do to make your life easier like outsourcing some of your work, when you have money to spend on those sorts of things. However, I have come across the odd software tool that can make my life a whole lot easier.


For instance, I do use tools like an article rewriter or what some call article spinners. No, I am not talking about using them to produce crap content either. I know lots of people talk about using tools like that, just to produce crappy content and you really don’t have to by the way. I invest a few hours on a single article and I can actually produce dozens of high quality articles that are unique by at least 50% and above. In fact, I am upset with myself for not using an article spinner earlier. It would have saved me countless hours of re-writes. Sometimes, you just need to figure those things out for yourself. In my case, sometimes it really is the school of hard knocks.


What Do You Use Article Marketing For?


There are various ways to utilize Article Marketing. For my situation, I use it primarily to add content to my websites, submit articles to article directories and other Blogs, to get those all important back links. The ultimate goal is always the same. To rank my website on page 1 for my keywords and make money online.


Of course, you can use article marketing for your own personal interests and just Blog about it. Millions of people seem to be happy having an online journal about their interests, lives, hobbies etc. In reality, although I monetize this Blog to make some money, I am also writing about subjects that interest me. OMG, I am a Blogger (lol).


You can use article marketing to drive hundreds to thousands of people to your website via posting to high traffic places like Ezine Articles and Goarticles. In that case, you can build a large list of readers and potentially market to them. I know dozens of people that use this method very effectively. At the end of the day, it really comes down to a personal choice. I post content to those places and many others on a constant basis. But for SEO purposes, limit your articles to 5 to 10. After that, you are not likely going to get any more link love from G and the other search engines.


However, don’t leave money off the table because you don’t want to do something. I may not want to build a list and I don’t. However, by hopefully writing some useful content that gives benefits and solutions to people, I could end up having people that follow me. Nay, you won’t see me using Twitter anytime soon either. I don’t have time for that stuff as I’m too busy building my online empire. See this website doesn’t even have an RSS feed or opt in email box right now. Maybe later when I have thousands of people flocking to this site, then maybe I will add one to send more digital email that never gets read.


It comes down to deciding on how you want to build your business. If you don’t want to deal with building a list and dealing with customers, then obviously building it to rank your website on different keyword terms is the way to go. The problem for most, is how do you actually use article marketing to rank your website. I have a couple of articles that cover the topic of building back links.


What if you don’t know what to write about or what should be included on your website?


Getting started seems to be the hard part for many people. For example, when you first look at the various keywords and long tail keywords, you might not be sure on what to target or what to write. What I do in those instances, is check out my competition to see what they are writing about, the topics, the flow of information etc. I didn’t say copy and paste their content into your website. But getting some ideas from other’s is one of the best ways to generate new ideas for your own site.


I will eventually do both types of article marketing. One side of my business will be to funnel traffic to my websites via article marketing. The other side of my business will be built with content, posting and get back links to drive my sites to page 1 of the search engines.


Remember, to be successful, its about taking daily and consistent action. When developing your content, do simple thinks like using your keyword in the title of the post. As well, include your keyword phrase 2 or 3 times is usually enough. I know the experts say to include it 2 or 3 times for a certain amount of words. Nay, I will usually include it at somewhere in the top paragraph, middle and near the end of the article.


Besides, write enough bullshit, I mean content, you will rank for all kinds of keywords over time that even you didn’t think about or plan for. I will use some tools like an article rewriter or what some call a article spinning software to leverage my time more effectively. You can bet your competition is using everything they can to beat you and me on page 1. It really comes down to how bad do you really want freedom. If you are willing to pay the price, you too can work from home.


Cheers

The Anatomy of Keywords and Research

The one area that most people get wrong is good keyword research. They think its just a matter of just entering some search terms into Google or the other search engines and bingo, they hit the mother load. If that is your approach, then this article is definitely for you. Understanding keyword research is the difference between making money or working for the next 30 plus years for that golden parachute, aka your pension. Its also about learning to look for and utilize software tools to increase your productivity like an article rewriter or what some call an article spinner. The main point here to succeeding in IM, is having a game plan and working your plan.


OK, you decided to jump into internet marketing to make some cash, fire your boss and take that nice vacation you have been dreaming about for years. Well, hold on because we first need to make some money. Where do you begin to generate some ideas on which keywords to go after? Below is a list of keywords suggestion on ways to generate some ideas.


Interest – what are you interested in? Its easier to write about something that you have an interest in – right?


How to – people are always searching “how to”. For example, how do you make money online or how do I do internet marketing are just a couple of examples.


Current trends – look at Google trends. That will give you a good idea on what’s hot and more importantly, what people are searching for. Keep in mind, it can be short term profit if you go after this type of keywords. But if you are quick, you can strike while the iron is hot for a few days.


Holidays – many people miss out on this opportunity because they are so focused on ranking for their keywords, they forget that during the year are prime ways to generate some nice extra money. For example, if I were planning to target the Christmas season, I would probably start doing my Keyword research in August/September and roll out my actual SEO plan in early September. You maybe able to make a years wage in a couple of months if done correctly.


Buyers – Look around the different areas that you are interested in. See what kinds of products are available to purchase in that particular niche market. You want to find products and/or services that people are likely to buy. This is one of the keys to making money.


Common Sense – We often times forget to use common sense when picking or researching keywords. Its not over rated (lol).


There are many tools out there to help you save time, energy and money like an article rewriter or article spinner as examples. The one that you can start with, is a freebie by Google. There are 2 different places you can go to research keywords via Google. You can either type in Google Keyword Tool or you can go to the alternate place, Googles Search Based Keyword Tool. The latter one, will give you more detailed results. However, both will give you overall results.


Google’s Keyword Tool


First – Type in your keyword term in the box and fill out the captcha form and click “Get Keyword Ideas”.


Second – After you get the initial results, there’s a drop down box that you need to change from what it shows and change it to “show the estimated/average CPC. The drop down box is just below “get keyword ideas”. Also, there’s a currency drop down box. It will default to where you live, so maybe change it to US currency.


Third – There’s one other drop down menu you should probably change. Its right below the drop down menu for showing CPC averages from above. Change it from broad results to exact results. This will give you more accurate results of your keyword phrase.


CPC – Cost Per Click


Remember, the search results are an estimation and could be off by 10 or 20% or more. Realize that you only get a small portion of that. It can range 10 to 20%. So if it shows like $3 for a click, you will get 10 or 20%, which is about 30 to 60 cents per click. From what I can tell, there seems to be a tiered system for Adsense. When first starting out, your website or Blog may only get the lower end, say 10%. But as your traffic goes up and you have a higher Click Thru Rate, you could move up to the higher click thru rates.


One other important piece to deciding on keywords, is what is the lowest CPC that you should consider? That is an individual choice. But, if it were me, I would only look at keywords that have higher than $1 per click. In fact, many times I will only look at CPC values that are above $2.


A minimum of 1000 searches per month is my base line and higher. I look for search results between 1000 to 10,000. I know its broad, but in reality its a decent amount of daily traffic because I am looking for the golden nuggets. Not looking to take over the make money online competition. Well, at least not yet (lol). If I want to make money, which should be your goal, then focus on long tail keywords that pay a reasonable amount and get a reasonable amount of daily searches. You enter the main keyword. Then drill down on the long tail keywords.


One nice feature of using something like Google’s free keyword tool is that you can export your results into an excel (.csv format) spread sheet. You can also add different colors to your excel spreadsheet on words that are a go or no go. For example, words that are a go, could be green like traffic lights. In fact, lets use that for are keyword color coding experiment. Red means, no, yellow is so so, and green means go.


Get the Edge on Your Competition


One way to save yourself some time and if you are not sure on which keywords, is to go and check out your competitors in the niche you are thinking about. Seriously, if you haven’t done that before, its time to start doing that. One of the key things I do is seeing what keywords my competition is going for.


For example, when you go to someone’s website, do a right click with your mouse and there will be some options to choose from. Select, edit/view source code. If you are using Firefox (which I recommend you do), the option will say, “view page source”. If using Internet Explorer, just click on the drop down or right click on the page to view the source code. You are looking for the meta description for keywords on the page. It will be in the upper 1/3 of the page normally.


This will give you an idea on what keywords your competitor is going after. You certainly don’t have to do the same keywords. This is only to give you some other ways to test and verify if you have picked the correct keywords.


Back Linking – A Brief Explanation


You also need to check your competition on page 1. A couple of things to keep in mind when comparing your results with the competition on page 1 is how many back links each site has and is it the home page or a sub page on page 1 for the results. First to find out the number of backlinks, you want to check Google and Yahoo.


Here’s the format: link:yourwebsitename.com


You don’t need to include the http or www part. However, place that in the actual search field. You may see no back links, a few or dozens. Again, it depends on the keyword you are trying to compete for. Also, do the same in Yahoo. You should notice different amounts of back links in each search engine. They are constantly changing and will never be 100% accurate. Check out my other article on back linking for detailed information.


How to Increase Your Productivity With An Article Rewriter


When you are just starting out, try to focus on 2 or 3 long tail keywords at a time. Attempting to go after too many, will only frustrate you. I rarely recommend too many SEO online tools, but, there is one that I found to work really well. You can triple your article marketing efforts and productivity by using a tool called article spinning software.


I have found there are many types of article spinning programs out there, but most don’t live up to what they promise. The article rewriter that I am recommending, I personally use and have found it very helpful to get unique versions of my content out to different article directories, Blogs, websites etc. for back links.


If you want more information, you can click on the following link (yes its my affiliate link) to get some more information….article spinning software.


No you don’t have to buy any software tools, but some can and will make your life much easier.


The reason I use some software tools, like an article rewriter is because my competitors are using them. Its a competition and those that can get the most out of each article, will have a better chance for more back links. That means a better chance to rank on page 1, which means a better chance to make more money.


I hope you have a better appreciation of the importance of keyword research because its really the foundation for anything you do with your Blog or Website. More importantly, it is the bread and butter for you to make money online. Remember, you will have failures and yes successes. However, if you do the necessary research up front, this will give you better odds that you may make some money. As well don’t forget to invest in other software tools to give you a competitive advantage in terms of leveraging your time like an article rewriter because you need to increase your productivity where ever possible.