Today we have a guest post from Ghostwriting Guru and Content Marketing extraordinaire Tiffany Dow. She provides a concrete example of how you can write more content for your sites and for your article marketing faster and easier.
Many affiliates start out on a shoestring budget. You want to keep costs down using free traffic tactics, but in order to get a decent traffic stream going, you need a massive amount of articles at your disposal.
That’s where most affiliates cringe. Writing doesn’t come naturally for some people, so they not only struggle with a lack of talent, but they look at the clock and realize it took them an hour to write 50 words.
With this snail’s pace, you’ll never get anywhere, so you consider giving up.
Not so fast! I have a simple formula that can help you create 5 paragraphs – about 1 full page worth of content, so give it a try and see if it makes your article marketing efforts a bit easier.
There are three main concepts your affiliate article should convey to the reader for the best conversions: personalization, authority or expertise, and honesty in your recommendation.
You’re going to break it up into those 3 paragraphs – and lengthen this basic formula with an introduction and a conclusion for a total of 5 paragraphs, which should work out to about 400+ words – perfect for an Ezine Articles submission.
So let’s break it down so I can show you what goes into each paragraph and I’m going to show you an example, too. I’ve been doing a case study in the Bearded Dragon pet niche for a few weeks and I don’t own one, so that’ll be perfect to explain this from the viewpoint of an affiliate who wants to promote something he or she isn’t familiar with:
Introduction: 2-5 sentences (depending on length) introducing the topic. Remember the five Ws – Who, What, When, Where, Why (and/or How). Answer those questions. Here’s an example:
Parents of children (WHO) who have been begging for a pet lizard and are considering a Bearded Dragon will want to waste no time (WHEN) investing in a guide to proper Bearded Dragon care (WHAT) so that they don’t waste money on a pet that will die prematurely and cause lots of heartache for their child (WHY). You can download an affordable guide straight to your computer from a reputable resource online (WHERE) but you need to know who you can trust for the right kind of pet care information.
Paragraph for Personalization: 2-5 sentences letting them know your story. With free traffic sources, it’s often a web 2.0 socialization situation. That means peer to peer trust has to be built. Moms recommending products to other moms, for example. So let’s see an example – remember I don’t have a Bearded Dragon myself, but I don’t like lying in my affiliate reviews, either, so I’m going to be honest and establish a connection to my readers:
I’m the mother of a 10-year-old boy who has always wanted to pet. We already have cats, but as you know their mindset is pretty independent. A dog requires so much work – and I knew that would land on my shoulders if we got one. So we’ve been contemplating whether or not a pet lizard would be perfect for my son – and we’ve narrowed it down to Bearded Dragons and Geckos. I didn’t know anything about Bearded Dragons, so I went online to gather information and see how easy they are to care for.
Paragraph for Authority or Expertise – this doesn’t have to be your own expertise. You can talk about the product creator’s authority, too – like this:
After reading many websites, I discovered there are many things that go wrong for an inexperienced Bearded Dragon owner. I found a site by Bearded Dragon expert Chris Johnson, which explained some of the things that could result in a fatality of our new family pet. Chris wrote a guide called the Bearded Dragon Secret Manual, which covers issues like feeding, bathing, habitat set up and more. I was happy to find out that this expert guide is written for people like me – who have never owned a Beardie and don’t want to have a misstep. I love the fact that it’s a downloadable PDF file because then I can access it on my computer anytime we have a question – and there’s no fear of misplacing a physical book (which often happens in our hectic household).
Paragraph for Honesty – your honest feelings, even bad points about the product, are appreciated and come across as more realistic to your reader, so don’t make it always a glowing review. In fact, I’ve often sold more products as an affiliate when I have a slightly negative review than when my review takes a feel-good “Kumbaya” approach. Here’s how I convey the honesty of my review:
To be honest, I wasn’t too crazy about spending $27 on a book about a pet I don’t have yet. But Chris convinced me in his website that it’s important to know these things before you buy a Bearded Dragon, so I chalked it up to preventative medicine for our future family member. And I’m a frugal mom – I don’t like shelling out money on information I feel I could probably find for free online. The problem is, it’s all scattered across the web – and I don’t want to take advice from “just anyone” – I wanted an expert to teach us. Plus, once I found out about the bonus items, I couldn’t say no – it had a handy feeding guide and a guide for the most common health woes and the checklists included were invaluable. I printed them out and stuck them on the fridge so my son could refer to them when he gets his new Beardie, which we’re considering getting for his birthday.
Conclusion – Wrap it up here. Reiterate why it’s important for them to get this guide sooner rather than later. Here’s how I do it:
If you already own a Bearded Dragon, or plan to get one soon, I highly suggest you educate yourself about this pet thoroughly. There are so many seemingly small details that could cause severe problems for your lizard if you don’t know them. If you’re looking for an expert to trust, I can give the Bearded Dragon Secret Manual my seal of approval. It’s made my family feel confident that our new pet will live a long, healthy (and happy) life in our home.
That article example if 565 words and I would hyperlink the guide’s name twice in the article. You can shorten it by quite a bit. The best affiliate reviews are created when you put your personal slant on it.
Give this formula a try on at least 5 different articles and see if it becomes easier for you to write a good affiliate review. For added speed, try a tool like Dragon Naturally Speaking. I use it, and it sped up my article content creation by four times the speed I was previously writing at. You simply put your headset on, speak out loud, and it types it onto the computer for you. It’s an invaluable tool for affiliates relying on heavy content creation.
Tiffany Dow
Tiffany is the former “Ghostwriter to the Gurus” who morphed into a full time marketer of info products, teaching others to use free web 2.0 traffic portals and showing them how to become info product creators and recruit an army of affiliates who sell for them.
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Wow what a fantastic post!
Such an easy but effective template.
I’ve sent this out to all my staff to read
Thanks Andrew & Tiffany!
I have been outsourcing my writing, however as of late I’ve been trying to do it myself, just so I have a better understanding of the process. I am not a natural writer, so it’s a struggle. This is a great post and template for writing. I am going to try this out on my next article. Thanks!
I totally agree Andy, I’m broadcasting this to my subscribers as well – thanks tiff and Andy
Colleen
This is a terrific and very useful article. I especially like that this article promotes HONESTY in the technique for writing a good affiliate review. In the past year or so, I have seen an alarming rise in the number of affiliate marketing gurus (some very well known names here) that are promoting affiliate marketing methods where one creates a fictitious “character” that states all sorts of wonderful (and fictitious) facts about how such-and-such product works wonders. In short, these gurus are teaching people to create fake social proof websites that are at best unethical and more likely are outright fraud. Do those techniques work? Yes they do. Are they ethical and legal? No and probably not. Anyone who thinks that using fake social proof sites is a good idea should look at the cautionary tale of William McCorkle, the former real estate investing guru who is now serving a lengthy sentence for fraud. There is a good Wikipedia article on this that all affiliate marketers should read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._McCorkle. The bottom line here is that it is very important to only provide honest information about any affiliate product you are promoting, and never pretend to be someone else with a bunch of fake proof, unless of course you want to risk spending 20 years in federal prison.
Nice one, Mate. Gotta love Tiffany Dow.
Tiffany — Dragon is a great tip. I just switched to a Mac and I am coming up to speed on MacSpeech dictate. It uses the same engine.
Another tip — dictate into a voice recorder and hire a transcriptionist. They are cheap, and if you follow the formula above, the transcription is sure to pay for itself.
Thanks!
Mark
Excellent article. I have been experienceing the same problem. Writer’s block. This method should make it much easier.
Thanks for the tip.
Mark
Tiffany Dow (who)
Reading your 1,000 plus word explanation of the three main concepts for our affiliate articles today (when) Was truly inspirational (what) I cant remember reading something so simplistic on writing, you make it so simple for us to get TRAFFIC (why) I really mean it when I say thank you Tiffany, and Andrew for his amazing selfless blog at http://andrewhansen.name (where)
That was fun, now that I know the Who, When, What, Why, and Where, it will be so much easier.
Seriously Andrew thanks for having such good friends like Tiffany to help us, together you make learning affiliate marketing fun.
Boy, you have really laid out a nice plan. I for one do have problems sometime trying to write out something especially for affiliate products. You make it look so easy. I will certainly use this as a guide as I try to write more articles.
Ah between the two of you how can anyone go wrong. Andrew your traffic generating ideas are stellar, and Tiffany…well you know I have been a fan for many years.
This post is no surprise, I mean the fantastic quality and you shared it free of charge.
Thanks
Great guest post,
This will really help me as I write article after article after article on the same topic. Just change the 5 w’s and you have a new article.
Thanks for the insight.
Hey Tiffiany and Andrew thanks so much for the killer writing template. I’m just starting to write articles and have already experienced writers block. With this template I know I can write some great articles. Thanks again for sharing!
Well well well, Cheers Andrew & Tiffany,
I am so many who are passionate but find it hard to put into words when it comes to writing for affiliate marketing, I have always wished I was more gifted when it comes to writing.
Reading these tips from your site here, I realise that maybe everything I wished for I may already have within…
Thanks again for showing s that we should all just trust in ourselves a little and try the real affiliate buddy approach. I know that I will see a big change in my article writing efforts If I just stick to this awesome template.
Just going to check out Dragon Naturally Speaking
I particularly appreciate Tiffany’s style of explaining the formula, and providing an example as she steps through it. So many times I find good advice, but get to a step and think, if only there was an example to show me what they mean and what I am shooting for. Thanks!
My readers (who) at Innovative Passive Income (were) are always (when) looking for better ways to create cash generating systems that will allow them to live better lives (why). Tiffany’s formula for writing credible affiliate reviews (what) is a fantastically clear system. I would be honored to have Tiffany share her ideas with my readers.
Thanks Tiffany – I’ve been writing articles, blog posts, info products and promos/sales letters for years. This is the first time I’ve heard this system in such clear and understandable terms.
Thank you!
Cathy Perkins – The WordPress Wizard
Super post! This is the method I often use to write articles fast
Belinda
Cool post – thanks for sharing. Will be giving it a go shortly and see how it can be adapted for email marketing as well.
Thanks again!
Superb piece of guidelines with simplified manner. Thanks so much…
I had heard about this software a long time ago, but then could not find it. Thank you for the quick article writing tips! Briliantly simple!
Just starting out it is so easy to get in a slump or block as I know to well. Thanks for the great info. I will start implementing it at once. Great job Andrew as usual putting something of sound quality advice for us all. My hat is off to you Tiffany also, I’ll be looking for more of you on the web to learn by. Fabulous job both of you.
Andrew, I’ve followed you for a while as you are one a few people I’ve found who actually give out quality content. One of the others is the fantabulous Tiffany Dow. Tiff, not only was your template VERY useful, it was refreshing to read one of your affiliate articles. It gave me so many ideas on how to tweak my own to convert hits to sales. EXCELLENT post!!!!
Some good advice in this post. I will definitely use it… it’s not only about writing an article it’s about making clicks and sales from your resource box…
This is amazing, great stuff Tiff, at last I got hold to a real show me “how to…” . Sure gonna use this content. Andrew, thanx to you to bro. Tiff content example plus Andrew article writing plan it’s gonna be explosive for my campaign
Awesome post!!! I have to share this one. Article writing is so tedious and time-consuming. Using PLR makes it a bit easier, but still takes time to spin the way you want it. This info make a world of difference. Thank you so much.
Glad y’all liked it – and thanks for the tips YOU gave me too – someone said above something about “just change the 5 Ws and you have a whole new article.” Yes! Even on the same topic. You could even do an xcel spreadsheet with columns for who what when where and why (or How) and kind of randomly pick it for fun – as long as it makes sense. You don’t want it to turn out like a Mad Libs read of course
Thanks for letting me guest blog, Andrew!
KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid, Excellent format for us not writers. Tiffany is an excellent communicator, and I am learning she is also an excellent teacher. Thanks.. saved..printed.. and next learn to execute.
it’s fantastic tips. I’ll try to do it soon. Bravo tiffany.
Very informative article.
thank you for the valuable post.
keep going on.
Great post with a lot of very useful resources. Thanks for sharing!