Posted at 4:41am February 27
Jason McGovern wrote:
Hi Brandon -First off, I love your blog. Second, I was reading your link building in 2007 post, and wanted to request an expanded post on article submission. I would love to get your thoughts and ideas on this when you get a chance!
Thanks for the email Jason! Articles. One thing I always wish I had more time for. However, also something I can’t ever justify outsourcing.
For me, article marketing plays a crucial role in two ways. Whenever I decide to try out something new like Build a Niche Store or ClickBank ideas I always start with articles to test the waters.
When starting a new site in a niche, articles are one of the first parts of my marketing plan. The reason behind this is that you can get a few easy links and some easy traffic. Once those articles are spread to the thousands of crappy article sites, the value of the link degrades, but you’ll still see some traffic every month in my experience.
When I write articles, I try not to target a flooded market, or the main keyword. I like to write my articles with a focus on a long tail keyword. Once you can lock in a good position with a long tail keyword, it’s easier to build traffic and a following. Think of it like a snowball rolling down a hill, all you need is a little push (article) and you collect more snow (rankings) on the way down!
In addition to building links and testing the waters, articles can actually convert to sales. I used to have a Squidoo lens and 99% of my marketing for that lens was with articles. Consistently I sold about one ClickBank ebook per month. The net revenue was not much, but neither was the time commitment.
All in all I still like articles as much today as I did 2 years ago. I do however avoid owning article directories. Too much work without enough reward.
Thanks again for the question!
Posted at 12:10pm November 1
During the month of November, Andrew and I will be focusing as much as possible on a joint venture. Our joint venture will be all about the call center industry, especially targeting the keywords call center consultant. During November we have 3 goals:
- 2,000 unique visitors. For the past few months this site has had about 30 uniques total.
- $100 revenue. This site currently generates $0 revenue.
- 150 total articles. So far we have about 6.
As the title says, we’re going to take this site from 0 (nothing) to hero (generating income) in one month. If we can do it, so can you!
I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it, but I sure do hope we can. For me, it’s fun to be working with a partner on a project like this. Andrew is an exceptional writer and we should have great success with this. I’ll keep you updated with how our goals are coming along, and if you want to help, just link to the site!
You can also view all of the posts from this project.
Posted at 12:57pm March 21
I have an old site (old by my terms, not in years) that I haven’t done much with other the last year. I post to it sporadically, but when people are looking for
Internet Business Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses, they don’t find my site. Before today, my site was about business marketing ideas, but that has been a tough market, the market is flooded with sites, and a lot of good sites as well. As of today though I’m sticking to what I know, and putting a spin on the entire site.
It will no longer be about generic business marketing, but will focus on online marketing for businesses especially small businesses. Hopefully this will revive this site, and make it into a formidable competitor.
By the way, this is the same site that is suffering from supplemental issues still. Yes, I still do have too many websites, and I’m trying to redefine my focus toward sites that I know I can do well with. Also, sites that I can write easily for that play to my strengths, rather than sites I don’t know anything about.
