I recently began working with our resident affiliate marketing mastermind Anik to learn the basics of article marketing in the acne niche. He’s a firm believer that everyone on our team should try their hand at being an affiliate – and it was my turn to learn.

You’d think since I studied English in college the thought of writing 5-10 articles wouldn’t make me feel so panicky, but it did.

Fortunately I discovered that getting past that point where you’re staring at a blank word document with no idea what to say is the biggest obstacle. After you’ve figured out what to say it’s really not so hard.

So how do you figure out what to say? At first the situation felt a little reminiscent of being locked in my dorm room the night before a paper was due, but then I realized that I was just freaking myself out needlessly. I had to write about acne, and I know about acne!

You’ve got to start with what you know. I made a list of all of the home remedies I’d heard of and tried, all of the products I’ve used that did or didn’t work, and before I knew it I had outlined enough information for 6 articles! I did have to research some of the tips and topics that I had heard of to flesh out some of my ideas, but I no longer felt like I had no idea what I was doing.

Even if you’re working on a niche that you think you don’t know anything about, you probably know more already than you realize. For example, I don’t know anything about online dating and dating services, but I have been on enough dates to come up with a few articles on what to do and not do on a date.

I don’t know much about debt consolidation either, but I’m pretty sure there are many strategies to get out of it, so with a little research you can quickly come up with an article on the top 3 strategies to manage debt.

Once the articles are written and submitted, you just have to sit back and wait for the traffic…but that’s a lesson for another day.