Online Profits Digest

There has been much discussion on may forums about the effectiveness of article marketing - whether it is profitable or not.  I would have to say that it depends on a number of factors.

First, if you suck at writing, then no amount of submitting articles to directories will be helpful for your business.  By all means, hire someone to write your articles if you cannot accomplish the task yourself.  There is a great service at InfoatDemand.com that will provide you with high quality articles.  However, if you are a decent writer, writing more will only improve your skills and you should see a corresponding improvement in your online profits.

Writing and submitting articles is a great way to get traffic and backlinks to your website.  You must remember to maintain that healthy balance, though.  You do not want to give away ALL the details in your articles, because then your potential customers have no reason to visit your site - you hae answered all their questions.  Give the main idea, but leave some things unanswered.

Another thing that many article marketers do not pay enough attention to is their resource box.  Make it enticing and use an appropriate landing page.  There are differing opinions on this, but I would say that even if you are marketing affiliate products, build a list.

You can accomplish this by giving away a free report or autoresponder course and requiring your prospects to subscribe when they reach your landing, or ’squeeze’ page.  This way, you can follow up with your prospects later.  For example, someone who is interested in a natural cure for toenail fungus is likely interested in natural cures for other ailments as well.  Health and exercise are HUGE niches that always seem to have a hungry audience.

And next, when you are finally making some money from article marketing, REINVEST it in your business so that it grows.  We will talk a bit more about this in the next post.