Part of My Major Affiliate Marketing Problem Is Fixed
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010There are many of good sources that can tell you a great deal about how to establish an affiliate marketing business. Unfortunately, it is much harder to find someone to do the actual difficult work for you. Well, I may not have found that elusive source of free labor, but I have discovered what I think is the next best thing.
I sell my own digital and physical products, but a sizeable chunk of my income still comes from affiliate marketing, where I began. I use websites and blogs for all of my online business activities. I rely quite heavily on search engine optimization (SEO) to secure traffic, but that is a long term strategy. In some cases, I have used PPC for affiliate products with success, but more often I am lucky to break even.
Consequently, like many in affiliate marketing, increasing traffic at a reasonable cost is one of my most vexing challenges. Especially difficult are those times when I have to pass on a new affiliate opportunity because none of my websites are optimized to bring in targeted traffic for the product, so I face the age old question: How do I get the visitors to the vendor’s site with my embedded affiliate link?
My approach to directing traffic to the vendor’s site is just like many other affiliate marketers, I take them first to my own site, where I ply my skills of subtle persuasion. I hope they’ll click the link that will take them to the spot where they might actually buy the product that will earn me my pittance. I have always wished that I could cut out part of the middle of that process.
I use content syndication for all of my sites. I employ that strategy primarily for its SEO value but also for the direct visitors that are sent my way. However, especially for an affiliate marketer, there are two major problems with traditional article marketing. The first of those problems is that the top tier directories that publish and distribute articles do not allow links within the body of the article, contextual linking. Instead the links stand alone in a section that they call the author’s resource box, but which screams, “Commercial!” to our readers. Second, the major article directories do not allow affiliate links or even links to redirected pages or domains.
At last there is a content syndication service thall allows both contextual linking and inclusion of direct affiliate links. It’s called My Article Network–and, yes, once you are a member, you can join its affiliate program.
My Article Network is something of a cooperative that brings site owners (publishers) together with article marketers. (That link will let you know what I have to say about it on one of my sites.) It’s another of those Callen projects that most of us who hang around online business for any period of time have come to know so well.
Since I am writing to and for the benefit of affiliate marketers, I’ll cut short the presell message and let sales page of My Article Network speak for itself. I’ve been using it for less than two months, and I am a complete convert to the system. I joined it for the article distribution, but I became so enthused that I set up four new blogs to take advantage of the free content in some of my niches. {(Go ahead. Click the link, you know you want to.)(Do it! You know you want to click the link. Come on…don’t you think I deserve it?}
