Article Marketing – Did I Do It All Wrong?

I confess that when I started writing articles and submitting them to Ezine Articles I had no idea what SEO was, no real concept of how to use keywords, didn’t know the best way to put together a bio box, didn’t care about the length of the articles, and submitted only my best work.  So I guess you could say I went for quality, not quantity, and many article marketers would tell you I was doing it all wrong.

I have a little story to share with you regarding one of these articles.

Last week I was wondering why I was suddenly getting more than the usual number of opt-ins to one of my newsletters when Google Alerts told me why.  One of the first articles I wrote, in April 2007, was picked up and published on a website that has a page rank of 4.   Here is the fallout from that article getting published this time…

• 79 new opt-ins to my newsletter, and more still coming in
• 2 immediate sales
• 10 nice comments posted about the article (warm fuzzies for me )
• extra $ in AdSense income

This isn’t the first time this article has been republished, but these are the best results I could track.  The article is 2 1/2 years old and it blows my mind that it’s still out there and kicking!  I’m probably more excited about the opt-ins than anything because they are warm, targeted subscribers, not just people fishing at a Giveaway event.

So, if I was inclined to add a moral to this story, it might be “Write quality articles because you never know who might read them, how long they will circulate with your name on them, and how much money you might make from them.”

Articles as Real Estate

I was just thinking about articles and all the things you can do with articles.

Articles are valuable real estate, whether you wrote them yourself or they’re PLR.  Don’t have a product of your own?  Put several articles together, add some graphics and bam… you’ve got a product.  You can sell it or give it away to your list or use it as opt-in list bait.  And now your real estate is even more valuable.

The reason I was thinking about this is because of a project I’m working on with Janet Beckers at Wonderful Web Women.  Really, my part is pretty easy.  I’m writing articles, one at a time, around 600 words.  When finished, these articles will all fit together as a big package of information.  I can’t wait to see how Janet packages it and what the sales page will look like. 

This is something you can do – so get yourself some PLR articles or start writing your own!

Showing a New Product to the World

Wow, there sure is a lot to do when you’re ready to let people know you have a new product out.
 

*  Create a Warrior Special Offer for the Warrior Forum (to offer it at a special discounted price.)

Done – Rewrite PLR Quickly and Easily
This takes longer than it should because the new forum’s WSO area is a bit quirky and likes to remove my paragraphing and create it’s own.  :(  Oh well, at least it’s not trying to re-price my product or anything like that.

Then I have to fix how the payment link is working so it goes to the correct download page.  Good thing I set up an extra web page for opt-ins.  It came in handy today.

I also answer questions on the post and give my thanks to people who have complimented the product.  This is my favorite part!… well, if I’m honest, it comes a very close second behind seeing the “Notification of Payment Received” email from PayPal.

*  Change my signature links on the Warrior Forum.

Done – This was the easiest thing I did all day.  

*  Send notification of the new product to my list.

Done – 3 lists, and several different emails for split testing later… these semi-masterpieces have flown the coop and hopefully landed in in-bins where they are being eagerly read as I type this. 

*  Write a blog post here to let anyone who reads my blog know about my new ecourse. 

Done – I really am quite pleased with how it turned out.  Here’s the link again:
Rewrite PLR Quickly and Easily
Rather than describe it all here, just go to the link above.

*  Let all my friends know.  We like to support each other.   I should clarify – my internet marketing friends.  My other friends wouldn’t know what the heck I was talking about and wouldn’t care.

Done – Those who will listen have heard.

What’s next?
  – Put a plug for it on my main website page.
  – Decide how much I’m going to charge for it when the WSO is up.
  – Set it up for affiliates.
  – Article marketing.
  – More, lots more, but too tired to come up with them now.

Interpreting Your Article Marketing Stats

You’ve probably heard just about every internet marketer say “test, test, test everything.”  Well, I was just thinking about approaches to article marketing and the whole testing thing.  Do we write article after article, throw them out there, and hope something good will happen?  Are we taking the time to analyze our stats? Are we testing our articles?

 I confess I don’t always take the time to completely test or analyze what I’ve got but when I do, here’s what I try to look at:

I write articles on various niche subjects.  Which subjects get the most hits?  Why?  Are they the subjects I tend to be more interested in and thus write articles with more passion?  Are they the niches that I make the most money on in affiliate products or AdSense?  Are they just more popular niches or have the more pressing problems?  Was it because they were timely (season or holiday related)?

I primarily submit my articles to Ezine Articles and a few other article directories that relate more to a specific niche, like LadyPens.  The stats I look at are Ezine’s stats and my websites’ stats.

Another thing I look at is which categories get the most hits.  There are times when my article could fit in 2 or 3 different categories but I have to choose one.  Instead of playing pin the tail on the donkey, I look at the resultant article hits and website hits I get according to the category I submitted the article to.  Hope that makes sense.

While I’m talking about categories, I would like to say that if there is a main category, such as “Health and Fitness” I will submit to that rather than a subcategory under it.  I believe more people start their reading in the general category and don’t go much further.

Ezine Articles gives you stats that tell you how often your article has been read on their site, how often it has been downloaded, and how often your bio link has been clicked on, but that’s just a start.  You don’t know how many times it’s been copied and pasted onto another website.  There are 2 ways I check on this.

1.  I use Google and Yahoo to see where my article is being published by putting my title or an original sentence from the article in quotes and searching.  It’s pretty cool to see your article on legitimate sites (with your bio intact) across the Internet.  After I’m done feeling all important and branded, I analyze which articles are being picked up the most.

2.  I check my website stats for the hits from other websites.  One of my first articles was picked up by a well-trafficked site and I got 500-600 hits from that site.  I check out these sites and sometimes leave a big juicy comment as a “thank you.”  Also, when I look at the sites I think about why they might have chosen my article and how I can work future articles into something that could benefit me and them again.

I don’t have the time or desire to get too anal about it, but I do think it’s important to look at these things and ask why.  This is especially true when you’re just getting started with article marketing.

From there the logical thing is to test.   I test article titles,  keywords, article length,  bios,  landing page (squeeze page vs. blog vs. website vs. sales page), and which article directories get me the most traffic.  As I tweak things, is my AdSense revenue going up?  Are my conversions on the mark?  Is my opt-in list increasing in size?

The reason to analyze your stats and test everything with article marketing is because when all is said and done, you’re in this to make money.  

Some people would rather go the quantity route and write tons of articles and not bother to analyze what works because they know the more they write, the more chance they have of some of them hitting the mark.  I’ve not tried it, but I’ve heard it can work.  Personally, I would rather write fewer articles that are written with a formula that proves successful for me. 

I’d love to hear what’s working for you and what your testing has shown.  Leave your comments!