First, when it comes to productive article marketing, you want to make sure that you develop an general and all-inclusive marketing plan. Any worth-while endeavor should be proceeded by a plan of action. Simply enough, how will you know if your making any progress if you do not know where your headed. You need direction.

Second, when it comes to earning an income through article marketing, you are going to need to develop your own website through which you can feature your articles and products. Simply writing articles is not enough. You need to have some place to send the reader where they can purchase, or at the very least sign-up for a free book or newsletter.

Third, one step that you might consider trying on your way to article marketing success is to try joining a freelance writing site.  In this day and age, there are thousands of writers out there who are making a good deal of money through the use of article marketing. They will be a great source of information and guidance.

Fourth, an additional approach that you might want to think about is by developing strategic alliances with other writers.  By developing strategic alliances with other writers, you may be able to develop jointly written projects.  In addition, you may be able to embark on cooperative marketing efforts that will be advantageous to you and your writing partners.

Fifth, you will want to make sure that you identify any and all market niches in which you have a level of expertise.  In other words, you will need to establish which marketplace segments you will be able to reach through your professional writing efforts. It is quite helpful to establishing yourself if you know the markets you are best at before writing about them.

Sixth, if you are not confident in your abilities, or you have questions about developing valuable and productive article marketing strategies, then you might want to think about hiring the services of a professional.  There are many professionals and experts that can assist you with pretty much every aspect of your article marketing efforts.

Finally, you will want to frequently evaluate and modify any goals that you are doing in regard to your article marketing product efforts.  By applying these steps, you’ll stay ahead of the current trends on the Internet.

Above all else, the subscribers on your email lists are looking for good content, or else they would not have subscribed to your list.  They are also screening you and your emails for quality.  If your emails are terrible and grammatically poor and contain very little useful or fresh information, then expect your readers will simply assume that your product is also lousy, grammatically poor and has little fresh information.

Your auto responder series must be packed full of informative emails stuffed with useful gems that a reader can apply immediately, without having to purchase any of your products.  Once they apply some of your techniques, and they see that they work or make sense, they will feel much more comfortable sending you a check for your primary product.

So how do you do it?

1.  Write intelligently.  By writing intelligently, you are establishing that you are the expert in the field about which you write. Besides that is why they are reading your emails in the first place.

2.  Write comfortably.  They must be able to read and understand the letter with the same ease that they might be discussing your merchandise or the subject of the email with their friend over a cup of coffee. The language should not be unnatural or uncomfortable; it should simply be easy to read.

3.  Do not try to sell something around every corner or in every email.  Feel free to send an email or two that simply provides useful information and include a simple link to your web site.  You do not want to sell them on your product everyday.  They may get frustrated if you try. Let them actually take the time to enjoy reading your letters.  Think about some of the letters you read daily.  Are they long-winded sales pitches, or are they informative?

4.  Be sure to send a satisfactory number of emails.  In the beginning, when you are first getting to know your clients and market, and while they have the highest level of interest, mail more frequently, maybe 3-5 times per week.  When you have built a lasting relationship with your customer and they recognize you by your email or name, you can drop down in frequency.  Take into account that if you have informative emails that truly adds to their knowledge base, you can generally mail to them more often.  If you are sending out pushy sales letters every other day, you are going to be asked to unsubscribe them in a hurry!  So use good judgment here.

5.  Before you send out any email, read it and ask yourself what you would do if you received that email in your inbox.  Would you read it, click through from it, delete it, or unsubscribe from the list?

6.  Remember that your reader is a person, not an email inbox.  Be personal.  Be respectful.  Treat them like you want to be treated–remember the “golden rule”?–it works!

Once you are armed with the right information, you’ll be able to build upon a foundation from which you can enjoy profitable article writing success in no time at all. In this article we are going to look at five nifty article writing concepts that can help you to do just that. 

When working on the road to creating your own money-making article writing endeavor, please keep in mind that humor is king.  If you have the ability to write in a humorous manner, you can really get a great deal of momentum on your way to profitable article writing.

Another clever, profitable article writing concept involves success through inside knowledge.  If you have some type of attention-grabbing, inside knowledge that you can take advantage of through your writing, you’ll be able to make a great deal of money through your article writing.  This is quite often the case in the entertainment industry.

The third lucrative article writing suggestion that you may want to keep in mind and use, involves writing in the self help and personal growth markets.  If you can come up with some compelling personal stories or write about the emotional stories of others, you will be able to enjoy even greater article writing success.

The fourth and sometimes most profitable article writing concept for your consideration, is to write articles that involve taking on controversial topics head on.  Many people like a lively debate, and the more debatable your topic is, the more traffic you can generate.  If you can write articles that encourage conversation and debate, you’ll be well on your way to a profitable article writing career.

Finally, as you go about your own efforts towards article writing, consider writing with someone else.  By writing in tandem with another individual, you will come up with some unique articles that will be compelling and marketable.

If you were to subscribe to a newsletter and then receive an informative newsletter every couple of days or once a week, are you more or less likely to open an email from the sender of that newsletter than one from someone you don’t know?

That’s right–and most other people online will behave in much the same manner as you do.  Sending emails to customers who are already familiar with your return email address as one that sends them useful and informative information will be more productive. So if you take the time and effort to cultivate a list of your own, will your emails be opened at a higher rate than they would if you bought a “safe list” or rented someone else’s list?

I believe the answer should be clear.  Your own list will always win hands down.  Keep in mind, when you purchase somebody else’s list, it is most probably being sold to many others people, not just you.  So the recipient not only gets your email but 30 or 50 others, all from email addresses they don’t trust. When that happens, who is going to read it? Not me.

You simply must develop your own list.  There is no better option.

So how do you do it?  At the very least, you will need to have a web site.  It does not have to be anything super fancy, just a simple, one page landing page for interested potential customer to sign-up for more information. You will do this by adding in your auto responder’s opt-in script.

You must have an auto responder account. You will use the auto responder account to deliver messages that help you build a relationship with your potential customers.

Your emails must be educational and useful to the reader in order to keep them getting read.  If you keep on providing helpful and informative material, people will continue to look forward to your email as often as you send it.  If you do not provide useful information, your emails will not get opened.

You must have patience when building your list.  You are not going to build a huge list overnight.  But as you build your list, you are also building your business.  A long-term business, with long-term repeat customers.

One note to the wise: Be sure you use the “double opt-in” feature you will receive with your auto responder.  This will ensure that anyone who opts in to your list will have to click through to a confirmation link before they receive any emails from you.  This helps protect you from SPAM complaints.

A word of warning to those who really want to buy a “safe list” and simply email your offer to the email addresses on that list.  Is it worth a one-time mailing to get your web site suspended for spam activity?  Don’t do it!  Build your own high-quality list and develop a strong long-term relationship with those leads.

First, when it comes to generating income with article marketing, you absolutely have got to develop a comprehensive and long-term article marketing plan.  You should keep in mind that the efforts you put forth in article marketing are actually promoting your articles and sites like any other service.  Any article that you create is a product, just like any other product you produce.  They must be marketed to your target audience and sold.  You have to come up with a coordinated strategy to be successful in this regard.

Second, in this day and age, article marketing and copywriting has developed into an exceedingly aggressive and very competitive marketing arena.  With this in mind, you may want to enlist the services of a professional copywriter to make sure that you’re always on track when it comes to your own article marketing efforts.

Third, those individuals who have enjoyed online success through the use of their article marketing efforts are all in agreement that it is imperative for you to set up a web site for your products.  This is by far one of the most important article marketing and promotional ideas that you must always keep in mind, that of creating an appropriate website to market your efforts and your articles together.

Finally, you should think about developing strategic alliances with other marketers, businesses and individuals through which you can improve your overall efforts at article marketing and at selling your articles.  Strategic alliances often prove to be invaluable when it comes to your own article marketing efforts.

First, when it comes to creating strong affiliate revenue sources, your most important consideration will be in selecting suitable affiliates in the first place.  Therefore, you will need to have a thorough screening process in order select the best affiliates initially.

Second, if you want to generate a long term and stable affiliate revenue stream, you must have an accurate and appropriate system in place for rewarding your affiliates.  You need to have right types and levels of incentives that will encourage your affiliates to work hard for you.

Third, on the reverse side of the coin, you need to have a procedure in place in which you can promptly dismiss an affiliate that is not functioning effectively.  Regrettably, very many business owners create an affiliate structure that makes it almost impossible to actually get rid of a non-functioning affiliate.

Fourth, you need to be able to have a tracking system in place where you can continually monitor the way your affiliates network is running.  In this regard, you need to monitor not only your affiliate income stream but also the individual affiliates sales and how they are contributing individually to the overall affiliate system.

Fifth, finally, if generating an ever growing affiliate revenue is your goal, consider engaging the services of a professional consultant.  There are now professionals and consultants today that can provide you with definitive assistance in creating a profitable affiliate marketing  program.  These professionals and consultants are capable of assisting business’s goals of generating a strong affiliate revenue streams.

I started this endeavor from the standpoint of a beginner, mainly to help those who are beginners to better understand the exact steps and issues involved.

Now that I can post more then 10 articles, I have gone and done so, but as of yet only have 6 related to dog training, the specific topic of the website case study.

Here is the break down to for a total of only seven pet training articles
Article ID               Article Title                  Views              URLClicks          Pub. Date   
         
709327 Doggy Treats or Pet Training Treats                39    2    08/30/2007
709325 Pet Training Videos Can be Worth The Cost    25    0    08/30/2007
707583 Dog Training Leash - Picking the Right One     53    3    08/30/2007
679082 Pet Training Partners Can Confuse Your Pet   21    0    08/15/2007
679074 Pet Training Two Dogs at the Same Time        72    0    08/15/2007
679067 Train Your Pets - Why More People Should    31     0    08/15/2007

Again, this is only one article directly. Over the last month I have had 6 articles have been read a total of 241 times.

I have not been as aggressive in posting articles for this site as I should be. I have been writing articles, but have been saving them for future submissions. More on that later.

But what you really want to know is how many times people visited my sites. A total of 10 times on seven articles. Sure it is not really a lot. But this is a numbers games.

I have submitted the same 7 articles to a total of nine directories. The total hits and opt-ins to the site is shown below.

Project Name: German-Shepherd-Obedience
Page Views: 151
Successes: 31
Avg. Conversion: 20.5%
Total Unique Optins: 31
Best Headline Conversion: 26.1%

Take note, that from seven articles, submitted to 9 directories, I generated 151 page views to the site itself, and a total of 31 opt-in sign-ups. That’s an average of just over 20%, and a single page headline is averaging 26% opt-in rate.

For the beginning marketer one of the hardest things to do is get started with your own opt-in list. I know, I have been there. Article marketing can bring in people who are highly targeted prospects because they have already read your article and are interested in what you have to offer.

Lets do a little bit of math for a second. I have 1 article directory that generated 10 views to my website on 6 articles. Assuming each site directory give me the same results, I would only have an average of 90 hits.

 6 articles = 10 URL Clicks per directory
 9 directories X 10 clicks = 90 clicks trhoughs

As you can see, I had 151 page views, that is a 68% increase over the average. I also gain the benefit of articles that will continue to increase in views. They are not going to stop working for me, even If I stop posting new ones. But that said, the more articles I post, the more visits I can get.

As I stated earlier, I used only articles marketing for this site. I did not do any search engine submissions or directory listing, no promotions of any kind, I did not tell anyone, you get the idea.

I then started writing a series of articles geared toward pet training as I have done it with my own dogs. Here is what I have so far.

First thing I did was decide on topics that I was going to write about. As this is an ever changing and growing list, I keep a copy readily available in my editing program. I wrote down a list of nearly 50 different topics that I could pull form and customize as needed.

Coming up with a list of topics in your niche should not be hard to do. Pick topics relevant to your site content. Pick it apart as much as needed. Think of things you needed to know and learn.

I then wrote out a total of 20 articles. My original goal was to write and submit 1 article per day and see what happened. Unfortunately time, energy, and other duties got in the way. Starting with my initial collection of 20 articles I then looked for article directories that I would submit them too.

If you do a Google search for article directories, you will find hundreds of them, actually closer to 200 at my last count. Before you go off the deep end, you will not need to submit to them all.

You can submit to directories one at a time, and it is a tedious and time consuming process. I only recommend that you do it once. The reason for this, is so that you know how to, and why you should automate the process.

If you want to make your life a lot easier, and who doesn’t? Then get the free version of Article Submitter

The main thing when considering where to submit your articles to are two factors: potential traffic and potential links.

Sure there are other factors to work on later on, but in the beginning you need links to raise your site PR and traffic to increase sales. The article submitter program helps with this as it gives you a list of sites along with their Alexa (traffic) ratings and Google PR rank of the site.

For this site I chose a combination of manual submissions and the use of article submitter. Using the article submitter I submitted a total article count as follows:

• Day 1: 8/7/07 – Submitted 3 articles to the EzineArticles directory
• Day 2: 8/8/07 – Submitted 2 articles to the EzineArticles directory
• Day 3  8/11/07 – submitted 1 article to the EzineArticles directory

Over the course of 5 days, I submitted only 6 of my projected 20 articles to this one directory. While I did submit these articles to other directories as well, I am only going to highlight this one directory at this time due to ease of statistical data.

EzineArticles only gives you 10 initial submissions until you get your account upgraded. This is a free upgrade, but you must submit 10 articles first, and then it can still take a few days depending on how busy they are.

Of 6 articles that I posted, 3 are live, and 3 are still pending approval.

These three articles have produced a total of 112 article views, and a small number of click-throughs at just 5.

Tomorrow I will go into more detail about other article directories I used, and the results from them. However a side note is that as of tonight I have a total number of 88 visits to the site and total number of new subscribers of 8.

Not bad at all, that’s an average sign up of 8.1%. I have one headline that is converting at this point at a rate of 13.5%.

First, if your not sure what article marketing is, the very basic principle is that you are simply writing articles based on a topic that you feel you can write about, submitting those articles to article directories for other sites to read or use. You provide content to other people’s websites, and in exchange you get to add a link or two to your author resource.

The topic of your articles can be pretty much anything, but should be relevant to the topic of your website. Else why bother writing off topic content.

For this discussion let’s assume you got your articles in one of two ways, you either wrote them or had them written for you by a ghost writer.

The case studies I will be presenting over the next few weeks is related to the pet industry. I have several sites in this category, and will present differences based on several topics, including articles written, website design, site purpose and more.

So let’s get started with the first one.

German-Shepherd-Obedience.com is a website dedicated to providing pet training tips to the masses. This site has sat dormant for some time up until 2 months ago. I had no website to speak of and no traffic what-so-ever. Basically a blank domain.

As I actually own and personally train my own two lovely German shepherds, Abie and Axel,  I felt this topic was one I could relate to.

My own background on pet training comes from having and training large breed dogs for over 20 years and being an avid dog lover. Until recently I was too busy to really work on article marketing for any larger number of sites, and had not used article marketing for a while.

In this case, I had to create a page of some sort. For this I chose to use a squeeze page design that was built through the use of MarketingMakeoverGenerator.Com

I chose this service for a number of reasons.

1) You get a 1 month trial for a $1
2) You get access to several Templates
3) The templates are highly configurable
4) You can upload your own pictures
5) You can add multiple headlines and audio clips
6) Tracking features that show which headlines or audio are producing better

It took me a day to setup the site. This could have been done quicker but I admit I tested the different templates, rewrote the offers a few times, and had not really given much thought to design before hand. If I had I could produce a site in an hour or so.

Once I had my site done, it allowed me to use a built-in auto responder or add my own. For this site I chose to use all the in-house tools for simplicity.

I created my offer, uploaded a single html page to my domain, and it does all the url redirects for me. You cannot even tell there is another system behind the scenes unless you are looking for it.

I wrote a small auto responder e-mail course of a total of 6 e-mails. In these e-mails I offer tips on training, an option to e-mail me questions related to pet training, and a simple recommendation for a single click bank program.

 Thats it, done. The site even has a checklist follow through that guides you from one step to the next. It is super easy to follow.

Then a started marketing this site through the strict use of articles only. Tomorrow I will give more details on the results so far.

-Derek

 I will get back on track this weekend with quite a bit to post for those who are interested.