There are many ways that you can earn money online – some more lucrative than others. For instance, an author can look on Elance.com and find people who are offering short term contracts in return for articles or copywriting.The problem with this method of earning money is that you won’t ever get rich doing it unless you are really a talented individual and have a name that is in demand. 99% of authors on Elance.com expect to get paid a flat rate for an article which is fine in that they get their cheques to pay the bills but not fine if they want to have an internet marketing lifestyle.
That’s why I like article marketing. With article marketing you can use your writing skills to direct traffic to your web site, promote other people’s products (or your own if you have one!) and make a profit. The upside of this approach is that once you find a winning strategy then your return on investment (ie. The time spent to write the article) is far greater than writing on a per contract basis. What’s more, you can actually earn money without working. In other words, article marketing can help your income grow on auto-pilot.
How Does It Work?
As an author it is your job to get your content in front of the right target audience. There are many ways of doing this. You can submit your articles to article directories, you can write press releases or you can even do “guest posting”.
Guest posting is a particularly powerful method because you can put your articles in front of a large number of people and such great exposure can bring incredible traffic. Publishers are happy to post your guest articles as long as they contain quality information that will benefit the readers. In return they will let you have a link back to your web site or, in some instances, a link to the sales page of the affiliate product that you are promoting.
How To Write An Article
The most important thing to realize when writing an article is that the body of the article must add value to the reader. If the body doesn’t add value and comes across as a sales pitch then this will drastically hinder your chances of getting published and, if it does get published, of making any sales.
Your Resource Box
Probably the most important part of any article is something known as an article resource box. This always comes at the end of your article and is where you are allowed to make a one or two line pitch of your web site.
Many people really struggle to write a good resource box, but it is oh so important. You need to make sure that your resource box is benefit driven, blind (for curiosity), has a strong call to action (ie. “click here now”) and is highly targeted to the audience in mind. You should really be aiming at a click through rate of around 20%.
What’s The Earning Potential?
I’ve heard many of my fellow internet marketers claim that there isn’t any money in article marketing. Unfortunately, they are just doing it wrong because there is plenty of money to be made – in fact my full-time income is a result of article marketing alone. At this point, I don’t focus on any other type of traffic generation – that’s how powerful it is.
Author Bio:
If you want to learn more about article marketing, internet marketing and how you can make a full time income working online then this is the quickest way to succeed bar none: http://www.amshortcuts.com/cfs.
