Category: Free Traffic
8 Ways Article Marketing Can Improve Your SEO
Posted by AC Editorial Team in Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing, Free Traffic, Link Building Monday, 21 July 2008 10:32 6 Comments
One of the best link building tactics – and the favorite of many affiliate marketers today – is submitting articles authored or owned by you to article directories. When experts on SEO advise new site owners to acquire natural incoming links, look to article directories to give you those first links easily.
1 – Links are one-way. Some SEO experts believe that search engines downplay reciprocal links in their results calculations. While reciprocal links can still be valuable, they don’t count as much as one-way links to your site. Article directories give you a one-way link.
2 – Links are guaranteed. If you’ve never asked a webmaster for a link before, it can feel a bit intimidating. But when you submit articles to directories, you know you won’t get turned down. Seeing those backlinks show up in the SERPs is a nice confidence booster, especially if your site is brand new. As long as your articles are of good quality, they will also send you targeted visitors for a long time to come.
3 – Links per page are fewer. This is a little known, but valuable benefit. Some SEO experts believe that the higher the number of links per page, the less SEO value each link will have. But the link back to your site in an article directory is usually only one of only a few links on the page.
4 – Backlinks soon multiply. Article sites exist for a reason – to provide other webmasters with access to free, quality content. So just one article, in just one directory, can actually turn into hundreds of links, as webmaster after webmaster finds your article and uses it.
5 – Speed. Submitting requests to other sites for reciprocal links, listings in directories, and other methods are excellent long term SEO tactics, but they can take ages. Articles, however, can appear very quickly online, getting you those backlinks right away.
6 – Your time is valuable. You write an article and submit. Usually, that’s the end of your involvement! You can move on to one of the thousand other things on your list – and while you do them, that article is sending traffic to your site without any additional work on your part.
7 – Reliable. Many site owners will not enter into reciprocal link relationships. Sometimes they don’t perceive you as offering sufficient value. Maybe they don’t have time to respond to requests. Or it could be that their spam filters catch those requests – and delete them – before you can even make a case for a link.
But most article directories want all the articles they can get! So even when other webmasters say they can’t add one more link, article directories will be actively seeking submissions.
8 – Content for you. The more content you write and submit to article directories, the more content you’ve got to use on your own site. Just make sure you tweak the articles a little, if you’re worried about duplicate content penalties. All it takes is a brief introduction or summary of the article to freshen it up.
5 Reasons I’m Even MORE Committed to Article Marketing
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing, Free Traffic Monday, 9 June 2008 09:04 5 Comments
Ever since the AffSphere launch, I’ve become even more convinced of the importance of article marketing for affiliates. During the time we were building AffSphere, I kept trying to boil down my own article marketing to a real simple system – something that would be low-cost, newbie-friendly, and generate some cash profits pretty quick.
It took a while, almost a year. I experimented with various article marketing strategies – to be honest, some worked a LOT better than others – and I think I’ve just about gotten it down to a science. Naturally we’ll be turning it into a course, and we’re pretty excited about the uniqueness of the material.
Before we release the course, though, we’re actually going to test the whole system out on one of our new hires here at our Affiliate Classroom office. She knows NOTHING about article marketing – Sarah’s got her own blog, but she hasn’t syndicated even one article online, ever. So she’s pretty much starting from complete scratch.
The big experiment will be starting in about a week – Sarah’s already calling herself the “guinea pig” in my mad scientist article marketing “laboratory” LOL!
Seriously, after my dozens of experiments in all kinds of niches, I’m even MORE excited about article marketing than when I first discovered it. Here’s why:
1. Articles generate the highest quality FREE traffic. Don’t get me wrong – ANY free traffic is fine in my book – but with articles you get HIGHLY targeted traffic.
2. With articles, you can reach targeted audiences that might NEVER click a PPC ad. We all know that not every product lends itself to paid search advertising. Sometimes potential customers need to be educated about the product and the problems it solves BEFORE they can even THINK about buying – so your articles can help them learn AND guide them straight to your recommendations.
3. Conversions from articles can rival or even exceed PPC conversions. If you research article niches and products ahead of time – and choose products wisely – you’ll get solid conversions. Plus you get great ROI – after your initial investment of time in writing and submitting the article, all the traffic is free.
4. Articles build credibility – for you, your sites, and the products you recommend.
5. Google LOVES articles! When you search, do you notice how many articles show up on the first page of Google results? And not just from the big article sites – we’re already getting nice Google indexing of AffSphere article pages for some niches. Google loves content, and articles are about as “pure” content as you can get!
To sum up, article marketing is a LOT more powerful than most affiliates realize… when you do it right. That’s what Sarah and I are going to be refining in the coming weeks… so watch for more updates on our “lab experiment!”
Niche Marketing – Think “Reader Loyalty”
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Marketing, Free Traffic, Niches, Web 2.0 Marketing Wednesday, 7 May 2008 11:29 1 Comment
Patric Chan has started this new thread of thinking for me with his “Niche Marketing 2.0” product release lately and I realized something…
One of my strong points the last 2 years in my own affiliate marketing business has been my focus on “reader loyalty.” By nature I have never been a HEAVY PPC hitter, sure I know it and do it, but my brain still wraps better around the concept of FREE natural traffic.
> Links
> Word of mouth
> PR
> Social media
> Content
> SEO
…I just seem to “get it” better with those types of traffic.
Well, by default, to build communities you have to be “content focused” and so THAT helped me better understand why my affiliate businesses do so well and grow so organically.
Start thinking even more into Web 2.0 and get creative. You’ll see JUST what I mean VERY soon with a new “dream project site” that I’m getting ready to launch.
I’m going to be using Web 2.0 but in a VERY creative (my own spin) kind of way.
For now, if you haven’t checked these sites out, do it (they’ll help you build communities)…
1. Twitter.com
2. Ning.com
3. Facebook.com
4. Aweber.com (Helps you communicate)
5. More coming soon …
Just take an hour and play around with the sites above, they are not complicated to use and when you “get it” – you’ll really “get it.”
Clever Trick For Scraped Content
Posted by AC Editorial Team in Affiliate Marketing, Best Business Practices, Free Traffic, Web 2.0 Marketing Monday, 10 March 2008 17:36 6 Comments
Every now and then I go out to the web and search on one of the article titles that I have posted in my blogs, or some keywords from the content.
Sometimes, what I find is very interesting, and not at all acceptable – It’s scraped content!
There are a few software programs (and individuals) out there that go out and scrape (copy entirely) a complete page of content from your site to theirs. This is the biggest form of spam of them all – worse even than mass posting to blog or forum comment areas.
Currently, the most popular way to scrape content is by using other people’s RSS feeds. The spammers just get ahold of a feed and copy away.
Unfortunately, this is the way of the Internet today. And tracking down these spammers and trying to get them to stop may or may not lead to success – mostly it will probably be a waste of time.
So, what can you do?
Heres one simple and ingenious way to use this practice to your advantage (I learned it at the Affiliate Summit from one of the top marketers):
Put your Affiliate Links and Ads into your RSS Feed!
Make sure to put links back to your site and maybe an ad or two in the first paragraph of your posts. That way, if someone scrapes your content, at least their visitors will lead back to you.
And, they will likely stop using your content as soon as they discover what you’re doing. The really don’t want to help anyone else!
So, you’ve basically killed two birds with one stone. You have a few more linkbacks to your site, and hopefully you’ve gotten rid of the scraper.
I think it’s definitely worth a try.
May Affiliate Classroom Magazine – Turn Traffic Into Sales
Posted by AC Editorial Team in Affiliate Classroom Magazine, Free Traffic Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:42 2 Comments
Affiliate Classroom magazine’s May 2007 Issue – Traffic Techniques – will help you turn traffic into sales!
Believe it or not, this is issue #29 of the Affiliate Classroom Magazine! That means we started publishing this eMagazine over 29 months ago! That’s 2 years and 5 months!
This issue highlights one of the most important things an affiliate marketer needs be able to do – generate traffic to his or her web site!
The May 2007 issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine will teach you a few easy ways to start directing traffic your way.
You’ll get a Step-by-Step 5-day action plan for acquiring traffic after you read “5 Days To more Free Traffic.” “Turning Traffic Into Sales” will teach you the best way to handle all that new traffic. It’s important to know where those visitors are going after they reach your site. And that’s not all.
“Measure That Traffic!” will teach you how to track your statistics. You will know know if the changes you are making are getting results!
Affiliate Classroom magazine is free – and so are most of the traffic generation methods mentioned in the articles. Get Yours Today!
Remember, the AC Magazine is brandable! If you’re an AC affiliate, be sure to brand the magazine with your personal affiliate ID’s. If you’re not an affiliate, sign up today!
