Isn't Article Marketing Just one Giant Leak & Energy Suck???

[Bryan Zimmerman]

Ok, technically the definition of outsourcing is as you stated. But we both know I was talking about you not doing it yourself. So technically you are not "outsourcing" but you are still having someone else do it for you which was my whole point.

With proper knowelge and management any body that "wants it" can do anything. PPC, SEO, article marketing the list goes on and on.

I don't know what you mean by "playing on the smaller end". If you have a system that is repeatable, there is no such thing as a "smaller end" you just have to repeat it enough times. If you make $2000 a month you just reapeat and two months later your at $4000. Then you repeat again and again and again. By the time you get to the 12-14 months thats no small amount of money if you keep repeating. And I promise you that you won't need a staff of writers to do it. You can have 3 people working for you about 10 hours a week each and handle it very nicely. The profit return from what the pay out in work would be a very big difference.

I don't call that a "stage" to get passed. I call it following a method you have proven to work. You seem to have found one that works for you, you have repeated it and have had success with it. There is nothing wrong with that.

you say "Now, if it is just a personal preference to stay at any given level, then that is fine, but without increases in resources, there is only so much you can do within any niche."

I will agree, but there are much more efficent and cheaper ways to monitize a niche than hiring a team of writers. There are so many things you can do that will bring you more money. I'll say it again. THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION.

But out of 70 people you have helped only 1 has stuck with it? Thats a pretty tough ratio. 95 out of 100 people probably would not be able to keep that type of pace up for long. I commend you for being able to do it! We can say they dont have the "want to" but I can't say I'd blame them. Especially when there are other ways that are way less time consuming to make a lot of money. Again, MY OPINION ONLY.

We just have two different ways of looking at this. Were just going to have to agree to disagree because we can go back and forth with this forever.

The whole idea behind this thread was that people think article marketing is a giant leak and energy suck. And here we are, both of us use article marketing as a major source of income going back and forth about how to do article marketing better.

Article marketing is a great source of income, I think that at least is one thing we can agree on.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well the reason I started this thread is to get a good debate going but I didn't think it would quite come to this, so let's go back on topic.

I never said article marketing does not work or you can't make money at it.

My question/concern was for newbies just starting out. It just seems like on some of these article directories there are 20 - 30 leaks - i.e. other links to Adsense etc. that can take the reader away, making money for the article site, before they even get to the newbie's link at the bottom of the article.

So it just seems like the newbies who don't know all the tricks yet and maybe aren't good at writing copy and pulling people through to the end of the article, only have a 1 out of 30 chance of getting a click-through to their site. I know it's also partly about inbound links, but lots of newbies do it thinking it's a good way to get traffic. Maybe it is, just seems like there's soooo many leaks to me.

I bet the article sites make a ton off the Adsense from all the user-generated content people give them.

OK time suck debate back on.

 

[jcorkern]

I will tell you what, you try to stay in the market I am in by yourself and you will reach a plateau in about 6 months, if that long. So, you idea of "repeatable" without man hours is not possible. And my market is no different from millions of others. When you take a moneymaking spot, they want it back.

"but there are much more efficent and cheaper ways to monitize a niche than hiring a team of writers" now see, your assuming when you have no clue as to the comp in my field, and you are dead wrong. I am in a very agressive field, like a lot of affiliates here, and there are sharks in the field that will keep you out of PPC (profitable anyway), and if you try seo by yourself, you may get a small peice of the pie for a couple weeks, but once you hit page 4, not only myself, but about 4 other major players would cast you out like a dog and you would never see page one other than maybe a few longtail phrases, and that would be few. That is tough language, I know, but that is the attitude of people who are making big bucks. It is in fact a war, may be a friendly war, but still a war.

It is obvious by your conversation that you have never played with the big boys.


I do not deal with assumptions, I deal in fact, period.

And as far as the pace, there is nothing easy in life and writing 4 articles a day( 5 days a week, I should have clarified) for a year is not that rough of a pace. Also, within that year, you can then hire more help and ease up, by year 2 anyone can (semi) retire (still have to watch your business a day a week) for just about any target they want.

I was not trying to put down on you, but there are a lot of niche's that do require a steady flow of articles, link building, branding and "other" link building and content writing to be able to even keep your head above water. But the tougher the comp, the better the payoff.

If you say it can be duplicated without additional manpower is just plain out wrong. links go away over time, but your comp will not go away and they will continue to build, so the bigger you build, the more man hours you must use to maintain the first few groups and build, because when you stop, you lose. Your comp will smoke you out, and there is a point where you will not have time to even maintain what you have alone, much less build anything else up.

That is why I used the term "stage". It was not ment as an insult, but rather as stating facts. It is a stage. Are you rolling in 5 digits a month? Maybe 6? If not, then there is plenty of room still left in the field, no matter what it is.

However, we do agree as stated that article marketing is one of the main staples of SEO and internet marketing.


Sorry Linda, it is easy to get off topic! lol

 

[Bryan Zimmerman]

I don't know what market you are in or what you need to do to stay there. So that doesn't really have any effect. You chose to get into what ever market your in and what ever you need to do to stay there then I guess thats what you have to do.

I'm in a few different markets and they all make me money. Where did I say I was in the market by myself? You keep bringing up these things I suposedly said that were never said. I do outsource things and yes that is HOW you grow your business. I Just won't outsource two hundred articles a week because I think there are much better things you can do with that money then buy 200 articles.

I outsource things that will not only bring me traffic but also things that drive my sites up with in the search engines so I can rank high for 30 different keywords and WALK AWAY and still make a lot of money. Pure organic traffic without doing a thing to it besides building a back link or two once a week once you get it where you want it. Good amount of work up front but pure auto pilot in the end.

Your trying to tell me that because you choose to be in a competitive niche that has "major players" I haven't played with the big boys? I'd rather avoid the big boys! The internet is so large with so many different ways to make money I'd rather take on 10 other smaller niches, dominate them because of less competition, make money from them every day, take over the first 3 slots on PAGE 1 of google for 15 different keywords and move on to dominateing another niche. Thats called working smart and that is what a lot of the "big boys" you talk about do. So if you want to outsource 200 articles to keep up in a niche go right ahead. That just one less person I have to worry about while I'm going after smaller niches that will add up with a less amount of work. That is how a lot of the big boys do it. Not all but a lot do it this way!

I'll just break down the method I use for you since it's obvious by my conversation I don't know how the big boys play.

Find a niche and pick the keywords. Test the niche to see if it is going to be profitable. Once you have decided it is begin building your campaign with articles, pages, blogs, backlinks (you know seo so I'm not going into a whole lot of detail here). Get your pages ranking for your keywords on the first page of google. Once it starts bringing you money, outsource the link building and article writing that needs to be done to finish your climb to the top. Start a new niche the same way. Once that one gets going you now outsource that one as well. The money that is now comming in from both niches will now allow you to totaly outsource a third with out you having to touch it. While the 1st, 2nd and 3rd are going you start a fourth. You just repeat and repeat. Before you know it your in a bunch of niches that are all bringing you money.

The difference is once I can control the top slots in google for my keywords, I don't have to rely on articles for traffic. Google gives it to me and I can now take the money I have comming in and outsource 5 other niches while I start another one myself.

Bottom line is I can walk away for a week at a time and keep making money day after day after day without doing a thing to them once I've taken over the top slots of google. From what your saying if you don't keep up that type of pace you will get killed because of your competition. So to me it makes much more sense to do it this way.

If you say you don't deal with assumptions, then don't assume what you think I know.

Lets just agree to disagree and call it a day. You have your method and I have mine. I mean no disrespect to you nor did I think you were insulting me. This is just discussion that we could go back and forth on forever.

 

[Linda Buquet]

You are both smart guys and each have your own way of doing things and going back and forth, is just not productive. So let's get back to the original topic, please.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I split off all MSJaxxee's questions and the replies into a new thread.
http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...um/16524-my-head-spinning-help.html#post51819

 

[myfreeforum]

My question/concern was for newbies just starting out. It just seems like on some of these article directories there are 20 - 30 leaks - i.e. other links to Adsense etc. that can take the reader away, making money for the article site, before they even get to the newbie's link at the bottom of the article.

I think many of us submit articles for backlinks to help search engine ranking, and do not expect that many clicks to come from the article websites.

It is important to have an optimized landing page and understand the keywords you want to target in your anchor text.

On the other hand, I've shot myself in the foot many a time by having the article with all the leaks rank over my Money Page - but with a little more effort that often corrects itself.

What is better for newbies, really? Spending a lot of money on PPC and probably losing it?

Anything takes some skill, trial and error, and experience.

 

[kbhuffaker]

For a new niche it's important to get quality relevant and related backlinks. Article marketing will give you one way backlinks and the search engines love them. So even if you only get a few clicks from interested customers it is worth it in my opinion.

I don't consider myself a seasoned pro but from what I have learned and experienced, article marketing takes care of two very important things;

1- SEO
2- Relevant and related backlinks

These two things will get your site placed in front of people. Without being in front of people, how do you expect to be successful?

I suppose if you had a HUGH mailing list then things might be a little different. But how do you get a nice mailing list - You first have to advertise your goods.

Quality relevant and related backlinks along with proper SEO keywords optimization, in my opinion, is key for AM success and article writing is a big part of that key.

Just my 2 bits

 

[CoolAromas]

Ezine articles has a handy little feature that lets you keep count of how many people have clicked on the link to your site.

And I am sure you will agree, getting a visitor from that article is pretty targetted.

So let's say a PPC click will cost me 75 cents.

And I know I can get on average, a lousy 10 clicks from an article (usually they average 20 over a few months).

Then if I can get an article written and submitted for less than $7.50, I will be better off using article marketing.

It's a no-brainer.

And that's only ezinearticles - if you submit using a submission service, it's much better.

HOWEVER

I have a couple of site that get reasonable traffic where the majority of link building has been with articles. And these sites get top 10 rankings on almost any local keyword I attack.

Again, it is well worth the effort for basic seo, if you can source cheap articles.

I ahted to quote the whole post, but it was so relevant.

I agree. There are articles I wrote a year ago that are still getting huge traffic and making sales, and I have done NOTHING to them since.

The price we pay for using the article directories' sites is that they collect adsense revenue.

But the trade-off is well worth it for me.

Patrick