When I first started trying to earn an income online, I was working on a shoestring budget and refused to spend any money. Looking back I realize how much faster I could have gotten things off the ground if I only had some extra change to spare, but I don't regret doing it the hard way one bit. It was an invaluable learning experience that forced me to learn how the affiliate marketing strategies and techniques that actually work.

My most successful technique that helped drive the most traffic that actually converted to paying customers was writing affiliate marketing articles. To this day I still get loads of traffic from these articles I wrote years ago. It took me a while, but I eventually had writing an affiliate marketing article down to a system, and I had to. I was juggling about 10 affiliate products that were all making me money, and even though I wanted to promote more, my plate was full. But with promoting so many products at once, I had to learn how to pump out as many articles as I possibly could in as little time as possible, while still making them well written and valuable.

Here are some tips that help me write affiliate marketing articles fast:

1. Before you start writing, do your keyword research. You can write an article that a few people might find on accident and then maybe click your link, or you can do the upfront work and get your article exposed to hundreds of viewers a day just by using the right phrases effectively.
2. Know your topic so you can write off the top of your head, but if you don't know anything about the niche you are targeting, do a Google search on your keywords. Copy the main ideas from the top search results until you have three main points to discuss.
3. Need more ideas? Go to EzineArticles.com and find the popular articles in your category. Then just copy the entire text from those articles, paste them into a Word document, and then use the AutoSummarize (under tools) feature to highlight the main points.
   
4. Start writing your original content and remember to use your keywords. You only need about 400-500 words, which you should be able to do in about 10 minutes or less if you know how to type. That's nothing. By the time you write an intro and introduce your main points, it's time to wrap it up.
   
5. Check spelling and grammar and your done.

Doing the research and finding your ideas really takes longer than actually writing your affiliate marketing article, which is why you should promote products in a niche you are familiar with. It will cut the work load at least in half. Without the research you could pump out an article every 10 minutes or less.

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So you found a great product to promote, you wrote the perfect internet marketing article, and now you're ready to submit it and start making some money, right? The question is how many article directories should you submit your article to, and which ones.

This is quite a debatable topic even between internet marketing gurus, and there doesn't seem to be any right answer. You have to remember that article marketing really serves two goals. The first is that it brings traffic - bot immediate and long term. Secondly, it provides backlink juice to your site.

But not all internet marketing article directories are created equal by any means. Some have a Google PR of 6 or 7, and others have a 1, but those PR 1 sites may have a publisher that picks up your article and gets it in front of 100,000 people. The argument is if it's worth submitting to all of these little sites.

The second issue that inevitably comes up is duplicate content, and the fact that Google punishes sites for having identical content as another site. First off, the notion is all wrong. What Google slaps people for is publishing the same content over and over on one single website - so the theory is crap. There are plenty of news aggregegators and other sites that only publish duplicate content and they are doing quite well. Secondly what people forget is that the duplicate content penalty, if it exists, only hurts the sites that your articles are published on - not your actual link. So if you're concerned, only publish unique content on your own personal website, which should be the case anyway.

My experience, however, is that EzineArticles.com really brings 80 percent of the traffic. Everyone looking for content uses this site, but with that comes more competition. However, it still seem to trump all other article directories.

So, my suggestion (for what it's worth) is one of two things. If you want some free high PR backlinks and traffic, manually submit your site to EzineArticles and Go Articles, and maybe Article Dashboard. Outside that it becomes a real pain in the ass to submit articles manually.

Your second option, if you want tons of backlinks and don't want to miss any opportunity to get your internet marketing article picked up by big publishers, is to use an article submissions software program, the best being Article Post Robot. Most article submission programs are semi-automatic, which means you still have to fill out some fields on each website and click the submit button (doesn't that defeat the purpose of automatic submission?). Article Post Robot is fully automatic, which means all you have to do is upload your article, add your keywords, title and suggested topic, and click submit once. It actually does all of the work for you - putting your content on nearly 600 article directory sites.

Submitting articles can take a hell of a lot more time than actually writing them, which is why most people quit doing them after a week. Once you start earning some income from all the articles you submit, you'll be able to figure out how much each article roughly earns you. If you're making $40 an article for example, it would makes sense to outsource the writing by paying someone $5 per an internet marketing article. Then use the automatic submitter, and your job is done for the day. You'll make your money back a billion times over.

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Okay, you've got to be wondering how the hell an internet marketing article makes money. Here's the deal . . . Most people using the internet are browsing around trying to find an answer to their problem. When they come across your article, and it is well written and helpful, it immediately establishes you as an expert. When that happens, and you effectively left them hanging a bit to want more, the reader is going to click the link in your author resource box to learn more about you and solving their problem.

That is part one of the process. That is, to get people to first read your article, and then convince them that they should click your link. How you make money is where you pull them to when they click that link. Hopefully your link is related to the topic you wrote about, otherwise the reader will leave your destination page faster than they got there.

Once you've gotten your reader to click your link, in my opinion you have a "hot lead," and you need to capitalize quickly. How that happens depends on what your goal is. For example, if all you want to do is sell an affiliate product, you can direct them right to the product's sales page and let them do the selling. That way you don't even actually have to own a website to make money online (note that EzineArticles.com and other popular sits have some restrictions on doing this).

The better strategy for your internet marketing article is to send them to your own squeeze page, or a site that "squeezes" the visitor towards opting in to your mailing list. That way you have captured their email and you can follow up to continue to send them valuable information and lead them to buying your recommended affiliate product and additional back-end products.

Or Maybe you just want to drive traffic to your site so you can increase your stats and sell more ad space. If you have a blog, for example, your goal might be to get them to subscribe to your RSS feed. Whatever the case, give them an incentive to perform the action that you are trying to get them to achieve. Give them a free report for signing up for your newsletter or feed, for example.

Just be sure to have a clear plan, and match a high quality affiliate product with a great sales copy that converts to your keyword rich internet marketing article.

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The other day I mentioned why writing an affiliate marketing article is one of the best internet marketing strategies (see Boost Traffic and Sales with an Affiliate Marketing Article). Not only is it a tried and true method, but it will always be an effective method. The internet will always need fresh new content.

But I also mentioned most people don't embrace article marketing like they should, which is great for me because there's that much less competition. One of those reasons was that there is very little immediate gratification. So, you might be wondering, "how quickly can I expect to make money after I submit an article?" Let me try to answer that . . .

The short answer is that my expectations is that my efforts won't have any payoff for 30 days. However, that said, I always earn money before then. For example, last week I submitted an article to EzineArticles.com for a completely new niche I am testing. Two days later I already had a sale and was earning a commission off that one article. Note that it generally takes 48 hours for EzineArticles.com to approve and publish articles publicly, so those were pretty good results.

So it is possible to get some fairly immediate results, but that is not always the case. There are times I will submit 2 articles a day for a week straight and never see a commission. I may decide at that point that the niche is not working out for me, and then 6 months later I get a flood of sales because someone with a large audience picked up my article and published it on their site or newsletter.

Your results will vary depending on a number of things, such as:

1. quality of article
2. how enticing your bio-box is
3. your keyword effectiveness
4. the affiliate product's sales page and the product itself
   
5. where your link is taking them and the follow up strategy
6. sheer luck

Personally I have found that niches I am more familiar with perform better for me, and that's because my articles are more valuable and better written. So if you are looking for a quick turnaround, success starts with the quality of the article. But don't underestimate the long-term effectiveness of an affiliate marketing article. Read my post on How to write a Kick Ass Affiliate Marketing Article to learn how to create valuable information that sells.

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A well written affiliate marketing article can bring in sales commissions over and over again. It's the ultimate "only do the work once" technique that keeps on giving. I, however, have written hundreds of article and only a handful of those bring in the majority of traffic. Apparently the old 80/20 rule applies to article marketing as well, in that 80% of my traffic and sales will come from 20% of my articles.

So How do Write a Kick Ass Affiliate Marketing Article?

There are certain rules and tricks to follow to get your articles in front of more readers, and to get them to click that link in your resource box.

1. Length: This is a highly debatable topic. Some say long copy sells because there is the perception that what you write is authoritative. Others say short copy is much better. I think somewhere in between – around 400-500 words is ideal. This gives you enough to introduce the topic and hit some major points but . . .
2. Leave the Reader Hanging: Make your article informative, but don't spill all the beans. Give them a reason to need to find more information and click your link to find more.
3. Get the Facts Right: Believe it or not, most people who come across your article on EzineArticles.com believe you are an expert publisher. That's why article marketing does an excellent job of developing a reputation, but if you publish inaccurate information it can also hurt you.
4. Don't Link Out: Obviously you can't put any affiliate links in your articles, but I don't understand why people put other links in their articles. Sure it might help the reader, but it gives them a way to go somewhere else other than your website. Make the links in your author box the only one for them to click.

I'm sure there are more "must do" tips when writing an affiliate marketing article, but that's all I can come up with for now. What tips do you have?

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One powerful affiliate marketing article can drive thousands of visitors to your site over and over again, and may be one of the best internet marketing strategies out there.

Here's why an affiliate marketing article can be so powerful:

1. Free high PR backlinks to your site gives you backlink juice.
2. Good keyword placement and anchor text in you bio-box can help you boost your search engine placement.
3. You only have to write the article once, and a couple years from now it can be published on hundreds of high traffic websites, bringing you traffic for years to come.

If writing an affiliate marketing article is such a great strategy, then why don't more people do it?

I believe there are a few reasons why people don't embrace article marketing. For one, there is very little instant gratification, as it can take some time to see the results. Secondly, it takes some work and most affiliate marketers are look for the quickest way to drive traffic. Lastly, depending on your niche, article marketing requires consistent effort, and submitting to directories can get old pretty quick.

There's any easy solution, though, that will elliminate any of the pain involved with article marketing. You can write a few high quality articles that convert well, and the spin them into new articles, change the title, and submit as a fresh new article. That way you don't actually have to write hundreds of unique articles.

Article Content Spinner can help you with this. This program will quickly turn your content into brand new articles that will not be penalized for duplicate content. You simply launch the software program, add your article, and click the rewrite button to output 100 fresh articles.

In most cases, posting 2 articles a day is necessary to achieve your goals. And once you achieve your search engine placement goals, you have to continue to pump new articles out in order to maintain that position.

Next to paying AdWords, writing an affiliate marketing article has been the most effective internet marketing strategy for me. If you don't have the budget for AdWords, but have the dedication to write a couple solid articles a day, there is no doubt you can earn more commissions.

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