After 2 Years of Direct Article Marketing One Change....

that resulted in some pretty substantial increase in traffic and sales. Direct article marketing is when you write articles that don't really link to a website. They are linked to domain names that you have forwarded an affiliate link to. While direct article marketing can be effective, it does take lots and lots of articles to get income. The reason for this I think is because a person has to click on a link something like 7 times usually before they make a purchase.

The good thing about it is that sometimes if they click on your domain which is actually straight to a sales page, often there is some sort of opt in form. If they do opt in, if the vendor has a good email strategy, they will get reminded of this product more than once. The cookie is stored and eventually you do get credit for the sale. That being said, I have to mention it's a good idea to make sure the product you are promoting has a good campaign and a way to keep it fresh in your readers eyes.

Now back to this change I made. I have written hundreds of articles that are considered direct marketing. They are linked to domains that I forwarded affiliate links to. These domains by the way are not very expensive. Anywhere from 4 bucks to maybe 13 bucks. This weekend I took all affiliate links out of my domains that I have accumulated over the last few years and reforwarded them to my Squidoo Lens on the same topics.

The result? It was a landslide. All those articles that were once connecting to sales page link directly to my little mini site. My lens soared in visits, not to mention they are moving up in the search engines as well. My rss feeds from my blogs are also linked to my lens. My blogs as a result also got a lot more visits.

The reader also gets to be exposed to more of my work. This will only result in more followers for me and increased credibility and help build my reputation as an expert.

Direct article marketing worked for me in the beginning to generate immediate income. It is a great bum marketing method. Long term though, I have found that it's more beneficial to have the traffic go to my sites instead.

The income part, which most are curious about, well lets just say I earned enough over one weekend with that one little change to pay my electric bill, rent and groceries for a month. This journey into affiliate marketing for me started here, almost 3 years ago. I love Squidoo and it is an excellent tool in affiliate marketing.

How I Created My First Ebook Free

I have come a long ways since I first started online marketing two years ago. I just finished my first ebook and had it up and selling in less than a day! That is pretty good for someone as technically challenged as me. I admit I spent $5.00 bucks on Fiverr for a cover design, but that was it.

You see I was clueless. I had a document written as a book in Open Office, which is free. I knew I could convert it from there to a pdf which is very very simple. It was the next step that I did not know where to start. I did a lot of online research, mainly on youtube and watched many tutorials. It started clicking in my head that creating this ebook and actually getting it up for sale was not as hard as I had thought it would be. It was simple actually.

Seems we fear the unknown until it grows in our heads into a huge unconquerable monster which is what creating an ebook had done in my head. Once I approached and faced this fear, I realized there was absolutely nothing my technically challenged ass could not do in the process of creating an ebook for free.

I went to webstarts to create my landing page and my download page. I found how to videos on youtube. The thing that was scaring me most was I could not for the life of me figure out how the book was going to download to the buyer automatically. I could not get my mind around this. Turns out, it's simple as pie.

So once you ebook is written in Open Office and converted with the touch of a button to a PDF file, you are ready to get started. Note here, if you are an article marketer and have a lot of articles out there, why not put some of them together and in order in Open Office a create you pdf document which can be an ebook.

To use webstarts as your landing and thank you/download page is simple. I started by watching this video.
You will need only two pages. One for your sales page/landing page and one for your thank you download page. Once you have your sales page up you then add a paypal button. This is very simple, you can find directions here. You will need a business or premier account from paypal to do this. Here is another video I found on how to have a pay now button in less than five minutes.

So you have a landing page with a paypal button. You have a download page where you actually have your pdf file attached for download. Paypal does the work of directing your visitors after purchase to the download page. So the process is visitor lands on the landing page, clicks the button, goes through paypal to make purchase, purchase is complete, then visitor is redirected to the download page where they now have access to the digital product.

The catch here is this. That download page needs to be hidden, otherwise anyone could land there and get your book without paying. This is simple in webstarts also. You go to the dashboard and unclick it's visability in the menu bar of the site.

I literally got my ebook up in less than 3 hours. Sure it needs tweaking and the landing page needs some work, but it made me enough money to pay my electric bill and buy groceries the first couple of days, so once I do get it tweaked, I can only imagine what it will do. You can view it here. The Charms of Southern Women.

If you are new to internet marketing, don't let all of this stuff scare you, it's simple. I started two years ago with this program and the rest is history. One Week Marketing.

The Facebook Market - How it Strengthens My Business

I can't say enough about facebook and what it has done for me personally and for my business. I don't use it like most. I don't do paid advertising, I don't do fan pages or any of those things. First to understand how it benefits me, you need to know I am huge on the laws of attraction. I believe like attracts like.

I don't promote money making products by the way. I am into relationships and the dating niche. Pretty competitive. I started with a small group of friends. If you have read my blog, you know that I am not out to get rich quick and I take the slow boat instead. I still am hovering just under 600 friends, but these friends I find are like minded individuals. Somehow I have attracted them over the last year. My market is targeted so to speak and it is growing daily, slowly but surely.

Just today a facebook friend posted this "I have grown to love this book of faces. Last week, when I was feeling badly, I felt lifted by the support here. With the right intention, FB is a perfect place to bridge to humanity and to work together to elevate and enhearten consciousness. Out in the world, the unconscious media can muffle our message, but here, they can't stop the soulnami of goodness from inspiring humanity. Sacred purpose, everywhere...".

The above says it all for me. The people that have come into my life and my path are amazing. I have had complete strangers mail me offering support, seeking advice, and encouragement. It amazes me.

On my wall you will find all sorts of things. From gratitude, to struggles, to inspiring quotes and yes all my articles and Squidoo lens post there when I update or publish. People actually read them. I think they read them because they have learned to trust me.

Another amazing thing that has helped me so much in business is the groups I have been invited into. Motivational groups, intentions groups, dating groups, all sorts of groups that allow me to get my message out. I never spam. I contribute more to these communities in the form of posts and get to know the group members more than anything else. I build relationships and these relationships build my business for me.

Yes this is a slower way, but it works for me and I can sleep at night because I know what I am doing is right. I know I am giving back to these communities. I love facebook, that much is very very true. I love my facebook peeps and fans and I think they honestly feel this, therefore, they trust me. It's real.

So maybe I am not a technical guru on facebook and maybe I don't do all those marketing tricks, but facebook makes me about $700 dollars a month with just under 600 friends and all I do is have fun and post and interact. In honesty, I think facebook has enriched my life more than I could ever make in money.

I started all of this a little over two years ago with this little thing here. One week marketing. Today still it is still my main cash earner.

Become an Expert in Your Niche

It happened to me by accident. Rather is wasn't in my plan. My plan was to be an affiliate marketer and make money selling the product of others. Had you told me 2 years ago that I would have been interviewed by David Shade, become friends and work with Nicole Gayle and have Evan Marc Katz as a guest poster on my forum, I would have never thought it. If you had told me that I would make money helping others find love and go through break ups and have my own site, I would never have believed it. Writing my own book? Me? Yet all of the above is happening and now I can imagine and believe that more is to come my way. Being a weekly co-host on a radio talk show, Getting man out of the cave? Me, nope never, but it's real and it's happening.

I started with blogs and Squidoo Lens. It all started when I purchase Pot Pie Girls One Week Marketing which I highly recommend for a newbie. Her plan was simple and I started blogging and low and behold, people started reading my blogs and lens and money started coming in. I little at first, but now I support myself on this plan alone, the becoming and expert and my own site I believe is going to be the icing and cherry on top.

I wrote a lot of articles as well. I have thousands out there and became an expert at that as well, but it's no longer my focus. It is a way to drive traffic, build credibility and a reputation. It's very important to provide useful information for your audience and build trust.

So will you see me on TV one day? I think you just might. It all started with a work at home forum that I joined and the rest just started spiraling. With a lot of hard work, dedication and never giving up.

Entering a Competetive Niche in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is not easy, and you won't get rich overnight, that's pretty much a fact. Some say steer clear of competitive niches, especially if you are new. This is a warning I did not listen too. It seems to be turning out well for me, but perhaps my approach was different. I focused on long term satisfaction and still do. I don't go for instant gratification. It's fleeting.

I choose the dating industry, by pure accident to be honest. I was searching online for a means to make money as I have stated in previous posts here; I hated my job. It just so happens I got dumped the day before I lost my job. So I was online looking for help with dealing with this and looking for a way to survive at the same time.

I found an ebook, get your ex back. I purchased it and read it, to later discover I could actually be an affiliate of this book. Great book by the way. I didn't get him back, but I did get my peace of mind back. Once I discovered this book, I searched for others with value. I purchased and read them all. I never promote something I don't believe in.

Then I landed on a forum for women. I went to the break up section. There were women posting everywhere about their heart break. They were all devastated, hurting and so sad. I created a thread there called No Contact Support and got them all together in one place. I led them through it. I healed in the process.

I discovered I was pretty smart when it came to men and I discovered I had forgotten more than a lot of those women knew. I started posting all over that forum. The owner offered me a non paying job as Moderator. I took it.

In the meantime I was still building my blogs, Squidoo Lens and writing article after article. Money was coming in, slowly but surely.

Funny thing happened on that forum. The ladies started emailing me privately. Some days I struggled to keep up. Fast forward 2 years and it's announced the forum is shutting down. Uh oh! Emails started pouring in again, asking me what were they going to do. It truly was a tight knit community, and it seems I had become the glue.

My door opened, I started my own forum, with help from a member of the Warrior Forum, God bless her. Week one I had over 100 members and it was still in beta testing, still is actually.

I also interacted on facebook a lot. My contacts started connecting together. On my facebook page I have women from the forum, followers from my blog, followers from my articles. I have a growing group there also. It's for Goddesses like myself. ;-)It just keeps growing.

I know I am rambling here, but the bottom line is if you are passionate about it, you can make it if you don't give up. Today you could be struggling, but keep pushing. Two years down the road you don't know what doors will open.

I like to think it's sort of like Karma. The hundreds, maybe thousands of women I have helped is all coming back to me now. If I had done it witout a heart, I think others would see through this and what I offer would hold little value.

Perhaps I should send a thank you to that man that dumped me.

It's all a journey and you won't reach your destination if you give up.

Do Article Spinners and Submitters Work

I promised to be back with a new post regarding the article spinner and article submitter that I had been using. My first step was to try it out via someone else. In other words I outsourced it to an individual who already had this software in place. I paid him 10 bucks to generate a new article and submit via his software.

My test site was a Squidoo lens I had just built. I did nothing to send backlinks to it I just left it up to the spinner and submitter. This was a month ago, perhaps a little more. My lens now has 58 unique backlinks. Not so bad for just one article and 10 bucks. I made that back with one sale.

So with evidence that it does do something apparently, I made the purchase. I bought magic article spinner and magic article submitter and went to work. I won't lie, it took me two days to figure out how to use it. Then again, consider the fact that I am technically challenged to a huge degree. I cringe thinking of learning a new software or stepping out of my comfort zone of ezine articles.

After the two days though and a lot of hair pulling, I figured it out. It now takes me about 30 minutes to rewrite one of my many already existing articles and submit it to hundreds of article directories. I am now getting traffic from places I have never even heard of and a lot of it is very targeted.

Moral of the story, now I incorporate the article spinner and submitter into my weekly things to do. My goal is to spin at least 5 articles a week and submit. Imagine continuing to do this and the impact it will have over time. It is just one of my many duties as an affiliate marketer going at this mostly solo.

Affiliate Marketing to the Next Level

This May marks two years I have been affiliate marketing . For those of you who have followed me, you know I am one of the slow boat to riches girl. I use all free methods for the most part and have spent less than $100 until recently. I have been making money and I do support myself with this. Some days are better than others.

I have primarily used article marketing to drive traffic and generate income. It works for me. The fact that I hate trying something new or having to learn to use a new software has greatly hindered my progress. I shiver at the thought.

I posted on a work at home forum asking for advice as to what would help me take this to the next level. I now make enough that I have a little extra to invest back into my business. I got a few suggestions, but nothing really stood out. One gentleman blatantly suggested I just try a few things out and see for myself. I thought well he might be onto something.

I purchase Article Dominance first. Very inexpensive, but to a Newbie at affiliate marketing, well it is priceless. I wish I would have bought this a long time ago. After I purchased it I have since received updates that are packed with new techniques on writing and getting your articles ranked. Well worth the small amount I paid for this.

If I were to review Article Dominance, I would say for the Newbie it is a must. Don't wait almost two years like I did. I have since changed my resource box and my click through rate has increased dramatically. This product paid for itself after editing an article that had been live for ages.


I have also recently purchased an article spinner and submitter. Shiver again. I have been struggling with this piece of software, but slowly am getting the hang of it. I am currently in test mode with it, but have already seen some results. This will be another topic. So far it looks like this will be another product that will aid me in getting to the next level. Stay tuned.

Making Money With Direct Article Marketing

I recently ran a little test on my direct article marketing efforts. Direct article marketing is when I write an article, and direct it straight through to an affiliate link via a domain forwarding. I don't send it to a website, blog or lens.

I can track these sales via the hoplink clickbank code. I forwarded this clickbank link to a domain and use this domain exclusively in my direct article marketing efforts. I did this a month ago and have written 5 articles with this link in them. I am amazed really. In 30 days, I have made over $400 dollars just from those 5 articles. Not really bad, considering I can now write an article in less than 10 minutes.

If you are a newbie visiting my blog this may not make a lot of sense to you, but it is the easiest, least time consuming way to make money online. You will have to purchase a domain name, but you can purchase a dot us for under $4.00 per year. As you can see, I got that back 100 times over.

Now not all articles perform equally. It has taken me a while to get the hang of how to get a higher click through rate on my articles. It's been trail and error all the way. The great thing is those articles are out there forever making money for me. I never have to touch them again. I don't have to add content to a blog or website, I don't have to do anything else. Write the article and I am done.

Of course there is a little more to article writing than this, but it's the fastest, easiest way to start making money. Once you get the hang of it, you can zip out an article in less than 15 minutes and have it working for you.

As I have posted many times on this blog, I am a true bum marketer and rarely spend much money. Now though that I am making a steady income I am able to start investing, baby steps, into learning more. I promise never to suggest a product that I have not used and tested myself.

I recently invested under 20 bucks for a product that helped me. Article Dominance before I started this test and low and behold, learned a lot of new tricks with article marketing. If you are relatively new to affiliate marketing and use article marketing, this guide is a must. For more on article dominance, click here.