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Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Article Marketing - An AMAZING Technique That Pumped My "Click-Throughs" From 0.82% to 15.64%

OK. Let me ask you a really SIMPLE question. Why do you write articles? Is it to:

  • amuse yourself?
  • give you something to do when you are lonely?
  • present yourself as an authority on something?

Well, maybe. But for the vast majority of article writers the ONLY reason is to drive traffic to your website. Correct? Correct!

So, I would assume that you would be interested in a little thing that I have discovered that has shot my click through rate from a paltry average 0.82% to a very healthy current average of 15.62% - and in some instances even way beyond that. Yeah? I thought so.

Oh, damn it! Let me brag for a moment, some of my articles are averaging 28% to 35%. Do you have that? Want to know the secret to it? Yeah, I thought so.

Before I even start let me say one thing that should be as obvious to you as the nose on your face - write about something that people are INTERESTED in. Why would you write about the catalytic converter on the Gumball Space Machine? Huh? NOBODY except some geek will be even remotely interested in that. If you got even 10 views I would be AMAZED. And if you got even a single click-through I would be DOUBLE AMAZED. In fact, I'd be shocked!

Obviously the most popular subjects are those that are sexually oriented (surprise, surprise). But not everybody is interested in writing about having a giant horse penis or shaving all their pubic hair off or having a blazing affair with a 48DD hooker or Johnny Donger. Excuse my attempt at humor. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Pick a subject that has good interest and that you have some expertise in. Also, write about something that your website promotes. Now, having said that, I don't have a website about "Article Marketing" but I do have a website about making money and, after all, we write articles to get clicks to our websites to sell products and I do have an excellent e-book on... Anyway, on with the show...

It's all there for you in the statistics. Pretty much it will be staring you right in the face if you care to take a look.

You should try to get at least 30 articles up before you can start analyzing your statistics. The more articles the better. When you have over 100 articles the results will become more glaring. Personally, I have over 250 articles and they have been syndicated all over the web in all sorts of languages. So, I have a good spread to look at. Here is what I did...

First, go to any article site that collects statistics. A good one is (ahem) Ezine Articles.

Look at your top performing articles and compare them to your worst performing articles. You'll find them easy enough. Look at the subject of the articles, the headline, the teaser summary, the keywords, the number of views, the click through rate and the resource box. What is the difference between your best articles and your worst? I'll tell you one of my stats.

My worst article - 1304 views for ZERO clicks - yep - a big FAT nought.
One of the best - 2667 views for 400 clicks - wow! - a 15% click-through rate!

Now what does that tell you? I'll tell you what it tells me...

The headlines and keywords were both pretty good. The teaser (or summary) was also pretty good. I know all that because, in both instances, I got pretty good viewing rates and I continue to get more views. So what else? One article enticed 400 people to want to know more while the other enticed nobody. The loser article was just a tell all, feel good piece of writing. Also, the resource boxes were drastically different between the two.

So, you see, by examining these statistics you can learn a lot about what will encourage people to click through to your site for more information. If you ignore it you will stay in the click-through doldrums.

Examine your statistics. Look at headlines, the teaser summary, the keywords, the article body (copy) and the construction of your resource box for the greatest number of click throughs. Replicate what works and chuck out anything that just hangs around like a stale bottle of beer. You will be amazed, like I am, at what you can refine when you know EXACTLY what is working for you and what isn't. My click-throughs have risen dramatically from 0.82% to 15.62% and some are much higher.

You can do this too. It just takes a bit of analysis to see what causes the statistics that you receive.

Like I said, I don't have an Article Marketing website. But I do have a wealth creation website so if you like what I have presented in this article and want to know how to make a lot more money and increase your personal wealth then click HERE

A Do It Yourself On How To Efficiently Get More Quality Link Partners & Exchanges With Your Site?

Requesting Links

Ahoy everyone! Here is my secret out to build a quality link exchange program for your site. Lets get straight to the point shall we?

Remember: Not every link you request requires giving a link back. Sometimes it is cheaper and more efficient to just to go target higher quality links. Sometimes you can just request a link and get it by being personal and empathetic. Other times links may require payment ( I personally never buy links cause I personally feel it is not really necessary for my niche and I have enough unique and quality contents in my site's portfolio).

Be Personal

The best way to go about acquiring links is to be as personal about it as you can. Look around their website and try to find personal information. The more you find, the better you are.

When e-mailing them, try to submit it to the person who runs the site, not a general info submission. If you can state where your link should go on their site and how it would improve their user experience, you stand a good chance of getting a link.

Off-topic, somewhat personal statements showing you share similar interests may make you seem more human and more connected with them and will make it easier to get links. For instance, if you found out that I like peanut butter, somehow mentioning that or joking about it in the e-mail will make me far more likely to link to your site.

Proper Link Request Buy Line

Another good idea is to make the buy line of the e-mail appear as a suggestion. If I see the subject line of the e-mail as "SEO Book website suggestion," odds are that I am going to open it. Feedback is a fundamental part of any successful business so I have to open it.

I like using the word suggestion versus feedback. If you use feedback, they may feel like you are tricking them. If you use the word suggestion, they are highly inclined to open the e-mail. Remember, getting someone to open the e-mail is half of the battle.

E-mail to Use

When building links, you are more likely to have a higher close rate if you use an e-mail address with the same domain name with the site for which you are building links. Hotmail and Yahoo! mail type accounts probably do not close as well.

Some people also send their link requests as though they are cute females.

Scouting Out Potential Link Sources

A good way to find candidates for links is to use the Yahoo! link search. Do a search on Google to find your top few competitors. Go down the list and perform a backward link check on Yahoo! for each of them. See the sites that link to them and see if you can get links from those same sites.

Also, look at the categories those sites are in and use the Google directory to get the best sites from those categories to link to you. (Once again, to do a backwards link check of a competitor's website, go to Yahoo!'s search box and type "link:http://www.evilcompetitor.com.")

The Cost of Links

Some people are afraid of certain links because they think those links cost too much money. An expensive link can also be a good deal though.

If a link is expensive, or if the cost of obtaining it is a significant amount of effort, money, a long wait, or the approval from a webmaster who is a stickler for quality, it means those links are not going to be easy to get. People who create $5 sites hoping to double their money will not usually be acquiring links that take hundreds of dollars or many hours to get.

As people continue to abuse lower quality links the high-quality links will only count more.

Finding Niche Link Sources

You can do a search for " + directory," " + add URL," " + submit site"...any of them. Start thinking of ideas like that and finding sources of inbound links should be no problem. You can search across multiple search engines and even search for various file extensions.

If you have a resource about the ASP language, it may be a good idea to search for ASP file types.

If you have a golf site with a Flash game on it, try to get golf links, but also see if there are some game sites or Flash sites that might be willing to link to your site.

If you have a beautiful site design or an XHTML and CSS compliant design, try to list your site on sites about beautiful web design.

If you are a site designer, consider creating free open source site designs and promoting them on OSWD.org.

Let the Link Sources Come to You

If you know how to create and format truly remarkable information then you might be able to gain a top ranking by

  • Creating great content
  • Buying AdWords ads for related keywords
  • Letting bloggers and the media find your content via the AdWords ad
  • Watch them write about you, and see your rankings improve as you build links.

If you buy AdSense ads, you can run Google's position placement report to find where Google was syndicating your ad to. Webmasters who own these related pages might be willing to sell you links if you contact them.

Affiliate Program Links

Most affiliate programs redirect your links through third-party websites that prevent the link from parsing link popularity.

In addition, many other websites use query strings on the links. These typically will not parse PageRank to the destination page. A query string is something like "?affil=34565" at the end of the link. This identifies the affiliate for tracking purposes.

Even if affiliate programs do not provide static text links, they still help raise your brand awareness and build trust in the eyes of your prospective customers. A well-run affiliate program can also mean that some of your affiliates are crowding some of your competitors out of the search results.

Problems With SEO-Friendly Affiliate Programs (How They Can Hurt Affiliates, But Help Merchants)

If you build enough link popularity pointing to an affiliate page, it can outrank the regular version of the document. But if many good affiliates are promoting a product and those pages link back to the home page of the site they are promoting, then you can end up pushing a ton of PageRank to the home page of the merchant site. That PageRank can filter down to the regular (or non-affiliate) version of the page, which may eventually outrank all the affiliates.

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Ishtiaq Saddam
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http://www.nokiasymbianthemes.com