Using Article Marketing To Boos Your Affiliate Sites

Almost every marketer talks about article marketing these days. It has become a chief strategy for those creating online home-based business ventures. Due in part to the popularity of the "bum marketing" method, article marketing has two significant characteristics: it works, and it's free.

Article marketing provides Internet marketers with two important benefits. First, it creates wider exposure for the author and their website. Secondly, it provides valuable inbound links or IBL's.

Just like the other bum marketing strategies, article marketing is all about numbers. It's effectiveness relies on consistent and ongoing effort. A single article has limited benefit, however daily submissions have an overall benefit greater than the sum of its parts.

To get the most out of your article submission strategy, it's important to focus on one individual keyword or phrase for each individual article. It's also very important to optimize each article, in much the same way you would optimize a website. Once an article is submitted, it becomes a one-page mini site.

You optimize an article for the search engines the same way you would for a web page. Put your keyword or phrase in the article title, as the beginning of the first paragraph, the beginning of the last paragraph, and for the anchor text in your link or resource box.

By following a few simple steps, you will gain maximum return for your effort. As part of a multi-pronged approach, article marketing becomes an extremely effective and inexpensive technique in your arsenal.

A Newbie's Experience With Affiliate Marketing

As a newbie in the affiliate marketing world, I have had my share of ups and downs. For the last two months I have been managing an affiliate program that was left with no care for awhile. I read books and spent hours going through forums to make myself as knowledgeable about the business as possible.

I've learned that hands on experience is more effective for me. I've learned that I also have it a little easier than those who have had to manage a program started from scratch. The one aspect that interested me the most is the lack of business or quality of business some affiliates have provided because there was no one managing it.

It shows me that with some of them, I basically have to hold their hands. I have to entice them with incentives and bonuses. Something as simple as uploading a datafeed I found that unless you remind them or reward them for it they won't do it. Now I know this isn't with all affiliates. There are some really good ones out there but this shows to prove that being an affiliate takes a lot of hard work and dedication.

The same goes with Affiliate Management. I have to make sure all 500 affiliates are doing what they are supposed to do and if they aren't I have to figure out why and fix it in the most subtle way because another thing I have realized is that some affiliates are sensitive. They don't want to feel like they are working for someone. They want to feel like you are working for them. I've read forums about how some get into affiliate marketing but expect it to make the money for them without any hard work. These affiliates are the ones in my system who haven't had a sale in the last 6 months.

Everyone wants to get rich fast but affiliate marketing isn't going to be the way to do it. Yes, eventually you can live off of it but you have to put the work in. It's a job like any other job. Serious people need to be in this business or they are just wasting time. Tender love and care, that's all you need for a successful program.

"Affiliate Marketing" written by Mark Anderton

Strategies for Succeeding in Affiliate Marketing

The practice of affiliate marketing on the internet is one in which an affiliate places either a banner advertisement, a text link advertisement, or some other sort of referral on their web site which leads a customer back a merchant’s site. The three players in this relationship are the merchant, the affiliate, and the customer.

One specific example of this dynamic relationship is affiliates placing Amazon banner advertisements on their site to refer visitors back to Amazon to purchase products. There a literally thousands of affiliate marketing programs available to web site owners and these include the huge influence of Google and down to smaller targeted merchants.

But the question is how to succeed with affiliate ads to make money? For sites with large volumes of traffic, succeeding with affiliate marketing can be easy, but for sites with less traffic, much hard work must be completed to succeed in affiliate marketing. Below are some time-test strategies for succeeding in the affiliate marketing game. (If you're just starting out, you can get the IM Toolchest with hundreds of free Affiliate Marketing resources. You can also get a lot of information and tips about starting & building an Internet Marketing home-based business at the Home Business Reader.

One successful technique is to highlight only one product per page. Many affiliates will clutter up a web page with dozens of advertisements, but the best strategy is to minimize ads allowing viewers to focus on the singular ad. The affiliate marketer must provide value to the reader of their site. The content that is contained on the page along with the affiliate advertisement should provide the reader with valuable information or an attractive offer the reader cannot ignore. Always place the affiliate ad in a place on your site that it is hard for readers to miss. Affiliate marketers must also find a way to bring in traffic. One way to do this is to publish articles or reports in online e-zines. Past history has shown that the practice of publishing two articles per week of 300 to 350 words on e-zine sites can increase traffic to a website greatly. One specific tip in this area is to always place a compelling call to action for the reader at the end of the article.

Site optimization is another critical step to succeeding with affiliate marketing. Content on your site should be keyword rich with engaging and informative information. Sites should have pages with consistent look and feel to allow readers to easily navigate through the material. The arena of affiliate marketing is extremely competitive. If those that enter this area follow these foundational steps they will find they have a big advantage over their competition in the drive for profits through affiliate marketing.

Keyword Density: What Is Ideal?

What is the ideal keyword density? Some believe that 2 to 8 percent is the ideal keywords density for SEO purposes. Other think that 2 percent is optimum and anything higher than this will get the site penalized by Google. 5% keyword density is preferred for search engines such as Yahoo and MSN. However, the question is whether this percentage is really ideal.

Being an SEO writer, I feel that most online marketers need keyword seeding density that amounts to at least 10 percent or higher. Google is considered to be the most popular search engine across the World Wide Web. Now, if Google starts penalizing websites with keywords seeded at more than 2 percent, it will be senseless for all my clients to ask for more than 2 percent seeding.

With major search engines online such as Google, MSN and Yahoo incorporating keyword relevance to the web content, the main focus at one time, keyword density has taken a back seat. In fact it is not give a lot of importance.

However, the sad part is that most web masters still rely on keyword density and ignore content relevance. For instance, the words 'car', 'shopping' and 'book' are used most commonly in online searches. In case, you had these words in your website, you have already ensured a hit. However, this system does not work any more. Earlier, you could easily use sex as a keyword wherein your site is about farming.

So, in order to lead the right people to your site, you need to use keywords they may use when looking for you. This is the way to generate the traffic that you want and what can ultimately bring turn your traffic to customers.

If you take out some time to read newsletters or articles online, you will observe that the main focus was given on keyword relevance. In case, you write an article with keyword seeding relevant to you product or idea. You are doing a lot of things at one time! You are aspiring to get higher search engine result ranking and attracting a lot of traffic towards your website. You are also satisfying your clients via providing them useful things. Lastly, you don't lose out on potential customers.

To your success,

Jason

P.S. I am unable to emphasize on the importance of keyword relevance to the content. However, this importance is very valuable to the search engine in order to attract the right kind of traffic.

About the Author:

Jason has given tips on how to make money for many years. Make sure to visit his site to get more Free Tips on Creative Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Website - www.WhoIsJasonGlover.com.