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

http://www.tiffanydow.com

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.

Thought we’d play around with Ezinearticles.com new Premium account today.

It’s got all kinds of interesting features, the most appealing of which…

was to be able to schedule your articles to queue them up for submission on a particular date, as well as faster review and approval of articles and much more.

I’d send a link but the info on it is only available when you’re logged into your EZA account.

Anyway, it’s a bit exxy at $500 and something for a year but I’ll have a play and let you know if it’s worth it.

Anyone else using this? Whatcha think?

In the spirit of transparency, and because it was so well received in Colleen’s article…

Plus because I think there are some interesting points to note here. I thought I’d share a shot from my own Ezinearticles.com account too…

So this is from my account:

I’ve posted 800 articles over the past – I suppose 3 years now – but most of them within the past 18 months.

As marketers we have to be always asking ourselves how effective is the method of traffic generation we’re using; how much is it costing us and how many new leads, or customers are we getting per dollar we spend or per day we work.

If you work 3 hours a day writing articles and submitting them for traffic – is that the MOST visitors you could get from that 3 hours of work?

If you spend $X to submit an article – is that the MOST visitors you could get from that $4?

Here’s some interesting calculations based on the above figures…

Fortunately for me, the majority of the 800 articles weren’t written by me But I have a cost in submitting them which is important for me to monitor.

So let’s say I spend on average $4 per article – written and submitted to Ezine articles. (which is true by the way – I usually pay $3 for an article of 300 words, and $1 extra for a submission)

That means 797 articles have cost me $3188

So I’ve spent $3 grand on traffic generation – what has it gotten me?

It’s gotten me 27716 url clicks, or visits to my sites.

So I’ve spent $3188 to get 27716 – let’s for the sake of simplicity say these are all unique visitors.

That means I’ve spent an average of 11c per visitor.

I think that’s not too bad – I mean, to contrast, if you were doing PPC marketing, getting visitors for 11c a click is pretty good – and there aren’t many decent markets left where you can do that.

So these results are ok, but we’re failing to take into consideration a couple of things…

First, these stats don’t count the traffic that’s come from people who have clicked on my article that’s been published on someone elses site.

This doesn’t count articles that I’ve published to multiple directories and the traffic they’ve generated.

So already, the 11c thing is looking a little shaky - that alone probably brings it down to more like 8c.

But there’s also MASSIVELY important factor at play here.

The thing is, that if I stop submitting articles tomorrow, the 800 articles that I’ve submitted will still be getting traffic and they’ll still be sending visitors to my site.

They’ll still be getting found in ezinearticles listings – they’ll still be getting found in the search engines, and they’ll still be getting found on other people’s websites who have republished them.

If you have a logical kind of brain, you’ll see that this means that over time, the cost of each visitor I generate through article marketing is always decreasing.

To give you an example, I refreshed my EZA account half way through this day and I saw that the number of URL Clicks (or visits to my site) had increased by 100!

I didn’t submit any articles during this time – it was just my old ones still getting found.

What this means is, that over a long enough period of time, the cost to me, of generating a visitor through my article submissions becomes negligible! Theoretically, over infinite time, the traffic to my site becomes COMPLETELY free – even though I’ve paid to submit the articles

Ok so that’s starting to feel a bit like a high school math class but the point I’m getting at is…

Article marketing even in it’s most basic form is cool.

It’s cheap, it’s effective and it’s something you definitely SHOULD do.

I hope this post has aroused your interest and inspired you to hit your article marketing hard if you aren’t doing so already.

I might post a litte more information on article marketing in the coming week.

I’ve got this friend Colleen…

You might have seen her testimonial on some (ok, lots) of my sites because she’s built an incredible income using methods that included my NMOC techniques, among others.

She’s been alot of help to the forum members at Firepow too, and she shared this cool post about Article Marketing recently… Tell me what you think:

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I have had quite a lot of people ask me, and I’ve also seen it on forums, about how many articles do you need to write to make money from them.

Currently I have 388 live articles in ezine articles.
Let’s look at my stats:
Article Page Views – 233,171
Articles Published – 3,516
URL Clicks – 21,673
Emailed – 28
Votes – 65

Now those results are not too shabby if I say so myself. And even if I did no more articles those statistics are still going up.

I went to the digital point forum and I paid probably under $10.00 for social bookmarking submissions for the article url and that’s it. Has worked wonders for me.

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Colleen’s a crazy cool marketer and someone you can learn alot from. You can see more of what she’s up to over at 60minuteaffiliate.com

I was making some updates to the article speed writing report last night and I added in the below snippet. I thought it was valuable enough to share with you here… so here goes:

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I thought I’d add in this little section to let you know how I write articles if I’m looking for sheer speed. This is when I don’t even bother with a structure, and for some reason I don’t even want to research. I just use common sense, and let it flow.

You know, you’d be surprised about how much knowledge is already in your head about many topics you think you’d know nothing about!

Basically, what this comes down to is being able to be “verbose” (I’ll talk more about that in the next chapter). It’s being able to take a small amount of knowledge and expand it into a larger piece of writing than it should normally warrant. Keep in mind that this is specifically for directory submission articles where you don’t know much about the topic. If you have knowledge of your own you can utilize it and don’t need these techniques.

I thought the easiest way to do it might be for me to pick a topic out of thin air and write something on it right here in this report then deconstruct it so you can see what I mean.

Ok let’s pick a topic… let’s say How To Grow Tomatoes. I know nothing about growing tomatoes but as quickly as I can, here’s what it might look like if I had to produce a piece of content on that topic (you’ll have to take my word that I’m doing this with no research).

How To Grow Tomatoes: Grow Ripe And Juicy Tomatoes With Minimal Fuss

For the informed gardener, growing a great tomato is a piece of cake. Combining the correct tactics with the right attitude and a little practice, anyone can have home made tomatoes that will turn all your friends and family into raving fans!

Ok so that article’s a little short – only 252 words. And you’ll have to take my word for it, but I wrote that just now in a little under 10 minutes with NO research what so ever.

Let me explain a little further some of the important points of this article.

1. You’ll notice the lack of real “meaty” information. Guess what? That’s not what a directory submission article is meant for! (note: depending on the niche, there might be advantages to providing AMAZING quality in your articles – Tomato Growing isn’t one of those niches) This kind of article is a preview – it’s a little taste of what to come, including certain factors that motivate the reader to want to learn more.

2. Motivating Factors: We’re assuming this article is for my blog that promotes a product on Growing Tomatoes. You’ll notice I include elements that are almost salesy. I mention some of the benefits of growing great tomatoes, and I even hit at the emotion that the aspiring tomato grower is desiring. “Imagine how your friends and family will love your cooking when you get the perfect tomatoes!”. I’m arousing their emotion, imploring them to want more from me and to REALLY want the solution I already know they’re looking for.

3. You’ll notice I mainly just used common sense. I don’t know anything about tomatoes, but common sense tells me you’re probably going to have to grow them in some specific conditions, you’re going to do certain things to the plant as it grows (water it?) and you’re going to have to make sure it doesn’t get eaten by insects… See what I mean by common sense? Remember, the kind of person reading this article isn’t a Tomato expert, that’s why they’re reading!

You’re the one who’s written the article – they don’t know you’re just some guy/gal sitting at home. And this is not unethical in my view – you’re going to pass them on to a merchant who DOES have the expertise their looking for (assuming your product is quality) so they are going to end up with great information as a result of your guidance.

4. Blabbering: Look at the first two paragraphs of my article. Do you think they required any knowledge from me? Nope. It’s a general, random introduction. That’s what people expect from an article. Not only that, but the whole way through I use unnecessary description, unnecessary fluff sentences, whatever I have to, to fill out the word count. Remember I’m talking directory submission articles for subjects you know nothing about – for articles where you NEED quality, this isn’t the answer.

Are you starting to see how easy it can be to write articles for directories? With a tiny bit more thought I could have probably spewed out another 3 articles on this subject before I even started to research. A little common sense, a little blabber, and a little presell can go a looooong way.

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Hope you enjoyed!

Andrew

This is a post I made in the Firepow forum as part of my case study demonstrating the niche marketing methods I teach.

I’ve been following a couple of the discussions happening on popular blogs lately about duplicate content and I decided to incorporate a little test of my own into the Firepow case study.

I hope you enjoy…

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Hey Guys,

Just wanted to make this update to the case study thread out here too so everyone can see, because it’s an important issue.

So basically if you’ve been following, the latest update is that this page I’ve been building links to, on a brand new domain, is now ranking page 2 just below by Squidoo lens on the same keyword – for the term I’m targetting. (UPDATE: the page is now page 1 position 6)

It’s taken quite a few links, and I think this page will keep rising.

What I didn’t mention so far is this…

That page, is NOT a unique article, I didn’t have it written.

It’s pulled STRAIGHT from the affiliates promo tools page for this popular product – I know hundreds of other people are using the exact SAME article.

BLATANT duplicate content.

But my page is dominating anyone else using it AND dominating plenty of “unique” pages too!

Why?

Because duplicate content is BS – no content is banned for being a duplicate – in fact posts aren’t even ranked by how “unique” they are – they are ranked by how AUTHORITATIVE they are… which is to say… how many links point back to them, how old and strong the rest of the domain is etc etc.

I used this duplicate article right from the start to prove this point and now it unfolded just like I wanted… muahahahaha!! (sorry, that was childish)

I hope the lesson here is clear.

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In case it’s not clear, the implications are this:

You can literally rip an article straight from an article directory, build more links to it than any other copy of that piece of content, and you’ll outrank the original, or any other version, for the keywords it targets… I think that is pretty damn good news.

It was noted correctly in responses to this thread that the only type of duplicate content that will get you in trouble is having two pages exactly the same within your OWN site.  Of course I hope none of us are doing that.

I have to credit Robert from the thirty day challenge for putting this idea to me about two months ago – I’m just glad I bothered to test it for myself because it’s going to prove hugely beneficial!

I hope you find this valuable.

Andrew

There are two article directories that you don’t hear about much but that are very worthy of your examination.

They are…

1. AssociatedContent.com – This is seeming to me to be becoming a more and more trusted article directory.  I see articles in there popping up for search terms in high spots all the time, often in front of other directories that are more popular. Not only that but you might have heard of this directory being the one that pays you for certain article submissions, and also for certain circumstances monthly for having submitted unique content. Don’t count on it being a steady source of income or anything but if you’re using it anyway, it can be a nice bonus.

2. Ehow.com – this site is actually ranked like 2000 ish in Alexa, almost 7000 spots higher than the popular Goarticles.com. It’s a nice high traffic directory. You can go straight to the how to section and submit your articles.

That’s my hot tip for the day. Feel free to contribute with any other cool article directories that you’ve been using with success.

Greetings Friends,

I hope you’ve had a great week and that your grand schemes for online money making greatness are gradually blossoming to fruition

I’m fresh of the plane from LAX this week and ready to share with you some of the wisdom I’ve picked up from the trip!

Firstly, I was reading a post in a popular forum this week about [tag]article marketing[/tag] which contained some information that I thought I should both respond to and share with you in regards to Article marketing..

If you have niche sites and you’re not using articles to promote your sites, there had better be a good reason for it – but at the same time, there are ways to market with your articles, and ways to REALLY market with your articles!

The guy who made this post brought up the relevant point that alot of people use the majority of their article content (that they either write or have written, ie it takes time!) in submitting it to directories all for the sake of a few measly backlinks…

He went on to say that article directories are popular only because shmucks like us submit all our great unique content to THEM and that if we published the same hundreds of articles on our own sites, WE’D have a great PR and become an authority domain too!

It’s an interesting point and while it’s a matter of contention, it’s a point we should on a certain level remember.

Firstly I want to clarify HOW you should be marketing with your articles.

Let me state clearly that there are a TONNE of ways that articles can be used to get you more traffic (and the above theory is relevant only based on WHICH of those ways you utilize) but here’s one of them that will give you a reason to keep posting to directories in spite of the above thoughts:

1. One of the ways I’ve been able to generate a TONNE of traffic to my niche sites is by isolating lowly competitive keywords related to my niche and writing articles on them to submit to the directories – call it bum marketing if you want – it’s just smart article marketing..

If you write an article on a particular keyword, you’re trying to have that page (the page at the article directory that contains your article) rank in the search engines for that term so that the author bio can be followed to your site.

Now why is it better to submit this article to a directory rather than your site?

If you have a new site and you post up your article on “new celebrity diet secret” the truth is, it has LESS chance of getting a high ranking in the search engines when it’s on your brand NEW, low content domain, than it does if it were at a high authority domain like ezinearticles.com

Simple as that..

In fact ANY article, on ANY keyword, is (generally) likely to bring you more site traffic if you submit it to the big authoratative directory than it is when submitted to your site…

HOWEVER.. (and here comes the big secret)

There has to be some balance!

At the same time as leveraging the authority of the article directory you have to be gradually building towards a point where YOUR site could have the authority!

I mean, if you’re domain was a PR7 and had thousands of pages of content – would you submit to IT, or to ezinearticles.com…

No brainer right?

And the only way to get your site near a PR7 is to make more content on your site too…

More content = more backlinks = more authority = higher rankings.

SO…

Ultimately you need two sets of content – but who wants to DOUBLE their article production?! Writing ONE set of articles continually is enough!

So what do we do…

I was going to make a reply to the thread stating the following but some smart chap beat me to it!

What I’ve been doing to overcome the problem is this:

The article gets completed and I ship it off to ezinearticles.com..

After its done (and this is super tricky) I change the article a bit – keep the same title because I AM still targetting that keyword – swap a few paras – rewrite it slightly (after all it’s MY article) and then BOOM, I post it to my site!

Genius right… Hardly!

But what I have done, is taken advantage of the exposure I’ll get from the article directory, while at the same time growing my site toward becoming an authority too – maybe one day I wont even need ezinearticles.com anymore and to be honest I can’t WAIT until then but … until then, this way gives me the best of both worlds.

Phew that was longwinded.

nyhow, I got plenty more cool stuff to share over the next few weeks so get ready…

Andrew