There are plenty of places where we can read about 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 know that I have unearthed what is probably nearly as good.
I do affiliate marketing, although I also sell my own information products and physical products. I use websites and blogs for all of my online business activities. I am a firm supporter–make that “enthusiast”–of SEO for traffic generation, but that is a long term process; good search results take time to build. 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 send my traffic to the vendor’s site?
I use the same, standard approach that most of you reading this use; 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. There are two major problems with the traditional approach to article marketing, especially for the affiliate marketer. First, the major article directories don’t allow contextual links within the body of the articles. Typically, the links are isolated below the article itself in a sort of no man’s land called the author’s box or the resource box. The second big problem, maybe the biggest of all, is that the top ranking article directories all refuse to permit affiliate links even in those little boxes.
Finally, there is an article distribution service that solves those two problems and allows direct linking using our affiliate links which can be placed contextually within the article. Yes, you will be able to join the affiliate program of the amazing My Article Network once you become a member of the service.
My Article Network is something of a cooperative that brings site owners (publishers) together with article marketers. (The link goes to some specific information about My Article Network 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.
It would be wise for me to let the sales page of My Article Network speak for itself. I have been a member of the system for less than seven weeks, and I am definitely ready to proselytize! 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?}