3 Steps To Make Affiliate Marketing With Articles Easy

Let’s face it, affiliate marketing with articles isn’t what it used to be before the dreaded Google Panda update. Many article directories like Squidoo, E-zine Articles and Hub Pages came down hard on affiliate links within articles and resource boxes leading to affiliate sites, and in many cases affiliates have found their businesses and income wiped out overnight. If you’re struggling to find your way in affiliate marketing with articles post Google Panda update, then here are some 3 easy steps that you can apply to re-establish your online business and income.

Steps To Make Affiliate Marketing With Articles Easy #1: Understand The Purpose Of Articles

If you understand the purpose of an article, then affiliate marketing with articles will be a whole lot easier. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t write an article for the purpose of selling a product or promoting a service. If your article is overly salesy, then people are going to click the “close” button faster than you can say “wait, are you sure you want to leave this page?” People search because they want information first and foremost, and behind every keyword there’s a question or an underlying need. The purpose of the article is to give them the answer to the question they have, and then lead them to find out more at your site. Articles also serve to establish you as an authority and a trusted source, which will go a long way towards establishing trust in your opinion from your readers.

Steps To Make Affiliate Marketing With Articles Easy #2: Using Your Resource Box Effectively

Most people waste all their time and hard work with articles by writing a lousy resource box. If you’re serious about affiliate marketing with articles, your resource box is extremely vital. In fact, it’s the lynchpin of your efforts! Your resource box is typically the only place you can place links within the body of your article, and so this is the place where you will want to make your calls to action or create curiosity within your reader. All this leads to one important action – getting the click! So, this is where you’ll want to focus the majority of your creative energy and powers of persuasion, because if they don’t click through to your site after reading your article, then you’ve wasted your time.

Steps To Make Affiliate Marketing With Articles Easy #3: Lead Them To A Landing Page

To get the biggest bang for your buck when you’re doing affiliate marketing with articles, I strongly recommend that your links should lead your visitors to a landing page designed to get them to opt in to your email autoresponder list. Many people will link directly to a review or testimonial page to get the affiliate link clickthrough, but that seriously shortchanges you in so many ways. Firstly, it’s unlikely that the visitor will buy right after the first clickthrough. Secondly, you’re building your vendors’ lists and not your own. Finally, you’re pre-selling your visitors for someone else to swoop in and potentially take your commissions.

Don’t be the loser in the whole equation! Affiliate marketing with articles is the first step, but to build a long term successful business you must marry your article marketing efforts with email marketing as well.