I recently wrote about the difficulty we face in attempting resolve a contradiction in article marketing.  In a nutshell, the problem is that we often want to use links in our articles to our “money pages” for the purposes of search engine optimization, but the readers are not yet at the buying stage in terms of their mental set as they are out gathering information (the reason they found our syndicated article)..  I pointed out that this is compounded by the marketing commandment that any effective page should satisfy the major goal of our website visitor–at that time.

Simply bringing the problem to the attention of article marketers was my goal in that previous piece.  Today, I’ll go that one additional step and give one answer to the quandary.

Two ways to solve the problem present themselves.  One is to violate the rule of website design by letting our linked page offer two alternatives (both learning more and buying) for our readers who click through.  The other is to provide two kinds of links in our articles.  One link option or type will take the clicker to a landing page dedicated entirely to providing valuable information (and an opportunity to learn even more by signing up for our newsletter); the other type of link leads to our “money page,” primarily for the purpose of search engine optimization.  Of course we must make clear from the context of the link what the landing page will offer.

I recommend the second of those two options.  I’ll explain why I believe that this approach is a workable solution, and then I’ll describe, in general terms, the landing page of each of those article links.

Remember that our distributed article attracted the readers because those readers intended to gather useful information.  The only likely way we are going to attract those readers to our site is to offer them even more information than our article provides.  Of course, we always follow through with our promises or we shall immediately lose credibility.  In order to encourage our readers to actually click our link, we must give them truly interesting and valuable information the first time, while simultaneously leaving them with the impression that there is still more to learn.  Hence we link to a content page.

We also want to move them along that decision making continuum by implying that there is a product or service that will provide the ultimate solution to their current problem.  By including that information, we have an opportunity to link to one of our selling pages largely for the purpose of search engine optimization.

It is always easier to logically include both types of links within our articles if we syndicate directly to websites that are within our general niche category; in those cases we can make our links contextual within the article, itself.  However, if we limit our article distribution to article directories, we can still accomplish our task by cleverly using a well written resource box to provide the rationale for linking to both kinds of pages.

On our content landing page, we focus upon bringing our readers much closer to the buying decision end of the decision making continuum.  We have already made progress by getting the readers to click the link in our syndicated article.  They are no long “just readers,” they have become serious prospects.  We shall offer them a link to the page where they can actually buy, but we really put most of our efforts into getting them to give us contact information in exchange for a free buyers guide, a free report, or a free short course. 

In our syndicated article we use our content to sell our expertise.  What we sell on our linked (landing) page is our integrety, by establish our credibility.  Once we have their contact information we can begin selling our product, subtly at first and then with increasing urgency.

Remember that the other type of link takes the clicker (or the search engine robot) to our page where we directly sell our product or service.  The primary purpose of that link is increasing our SEO, so we must be especially careful to research and have anchor text that is a long tail keyword with implicit commercial intent.

As marketers, all of our efforts are toward increasing revenue through a sale.  As writers we must make the sale without disrupting the prose of our content.  First we sell the article readers on their need for more information and convince them that they can find that information by clicking our link.  Then, with the second link type, we need to demonstrate to the search engine spiders that we have provided linking text that is a truthful name for the content that we have on our selling page to which that link leads.  Thus our anchor text and the landing page content must be similar.

I have some data to report, but before I do let me provide some context with you.  Almost fifty days ago, I made the wise choice of becoming a member of an article marketing service.  While I don’t actually know the guy that designed this remarkable tool for online marketers, I think he should let me borrow it for my next vacation].

Because of my past experiences with this guy, I knew that this new concept would give me what I was looking for: An innovative way of distributing my articles.  I’m no different from any other online marketer, I’m always wanting more and more quality traffic, and is there anyone who isn’t on the look-out for a way to add external links pointed toward our virtual real estate?  In order to achieve both these objectives–traffic and improved SEO–I rely heavily upon article marketing.

This service has some advantages over traditional submission to article directories, though.  For example, I can now put my links directly into the body of the article rather than assigning them to a resource box.  That’s something that isn’t allowed in most article directories, but contextual linking offers greater benefits in terms of search engine optimization and traffic maximization.  Second, the articles go directly to websites for publication, sites that are in my niche or a closely related niche.  Once again, great for traffic and SEO.  Third, since some of my business involves affiliate marketing, with this service I can put an affiliate link directly in the article, if I want–another thing that the article directories don’t allow.  Fourth, the distribution system has a built in article spinner, so that the version of the article that each website publishes can be unique.

Let me tell you what my membership has helped me achieve in the less than seven weeks that I have been a member.  Here are just a few of the highlights of my experience with My Article Network.

You need to realize that the system gradually distributes articles to websites, so every article I’ve submitted so far is still yet to be published on some of its sites and other articles have just begun.  I have written not quite sixty articles for the system, so far–all very well spun.  Unique versions of those articles now appear on over 1900 pages on the web.  I am allowed to insert up to three links in each article, but I vary the number of links, so my conservative best guess is that my sites singled out for promotion through this system have received somewhere in excess of four thousand links.  Obviously, it will require additional time for some of those links to be noticed by the various search engine.  Some of my links are actually pointed at other of my articles published on article directories and some of the sites in the system to give them a little more “link juice.”

I started a new site in a very competitive niche about three months ago, and I have directed the links from more than half of my articles toward that site’s promotion.  Alexa couldn’t even find that site when I first joined this system, and now it has climbed in the Alexa rankings more than two million positions.  I’m a bit embarassed to admit it, but the new site gets more traffic already than some of my old sites that I have been working on for years.  For example, I have done nothing to my oldest site (no pages added, no new SEO, only 9 articles in this system pointing at it), and it has jumped 120,000 positions.  As far as I can tell, that additional traffic can be attributed only to this network and my measly efforts in writing content for distribution that is related to this niche in the past seven weeks.

I’m quite pleased with the results so far, but I have been lax in my tracking.  Only six days ago, I decided I should just keep records of the results, so I set up a spread sheet.  In that one week (little less) the eight sites that I have directly promoted through the service have increased a cumulative total of over 5 million positions in Alexa.  Not bad for six days.

I became so enthused, I actually started four new blogs just to take advantage of all the free content that is available in this system.  By the way, adding websites is free; maybe that explains why there are over 10,000 sites in the system ready to publish articles!

I strongly suggest that you become a member of My Article Network.  Yes, you affiliate marketers out there, you can become an affiliate–after you join the article distribution service.

It is a known fact that almost 90 percent of affiliates earn less than hundred dollars per month. So, you cannot rely on affiliate marketing. But if you put in some extra effort, then you can increase you commissions. Before entering into this field, a lot of people are under the false assumption that affiliate marketing is basically a short-cut way of becoming rich without much effort. Actually it is not such an easy business. Do not think that you will put a couple of banners on your website and you will start profiting. A great place to start is with the tips below or the course Commission Ritual.

There are some tips to increase your affiliate commissions:

1. Build a good website

Good website means, a website that draws the visitors’ attention. It must not be rich in graphics. It should be simple and easy to navigate. It should be simple for the visitor to find anything that he wants.

2. Do Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is very necessary to drive steady traffic to your site. This is a very big topic. There are a number of approaches to raising your sites page rank. Banner exchange is a famous technique. Search engine friendly URLs is another search engine optimization technique. This is covered in the Commission Ritual review.

3. Find the Best Merchant

Pick the right merchant to start with. Don’t look at the profits offered. Look at the expertise and experience of the merchants. See their history. How many products they have launched in the markets and how many were successful. Are they good in marketing? Are they providing good service to their customers?

Find the answers of all above questions and you will discover the right merchant that will give you good and consistent business.

4. Increase Traffic to Your Website

Getting a lot of traffic to your site is basically the key factor in this field. You must consider that not every visitor is going to be a buyer. Only a few of them will buy your product, so it is important to get more and more traffic to your website. Some important techniques are email campaigns, banner exchange, RSS feeds, selection of the right keywords, writing search engine friendly content on your website etc. Check out the Commission Ritual bonus for more on this.

5. Pre Sales

An important point is to read the minds of your visitors to understand what they need and then offer them the right thing at the right cost. Try to attract people with the additional things that they would like. For example, if you are selling laptops on your website, then you can put some useful articles on how to troubleshoot laptops. This will attract your visitors. It is possible that your visitor might not make a sale in the first visit. But if he likes your articles he will come back to study your articles and it is possible that he may make a purchase after some visits. This concept of offering some useful free gifts to your visitors is called pre sales. It is very helpful in increasing your sales.

You cannot get the desired results in a few days, but it requires some time. Concentrate on how to improve your business by building a quality website and driving more and more traffic to your website. Select the best merchant and bring visitors in by promoting relevant products and gifts. Just 1 happy customer will bring you 10 additional customers.

So you are wanting to find products for affiliate marketing which will get your wallet full? That’s what most of the people are desiring to do the hard thing is knowing what to sell. There are things that may get you worked up about selling or you believe are just wonderful products for some niche that you are targeting but it may not do much for you.

While it is important to focus on a product that you have an interest in so you can establish some credibility simply, there are some other things that you have got to be aware of. You want to find hot products for affiliate marketing? Look around for services like Clickbank Pirate.

If you want to understand what to sell, look for the things that are selling good already. It might take a little bit of research to discover what things will be good to supply as products for affiliate promoting.