There are lots of good sources that can tell you a great deal about how to establish an affiliate marketing business, but there aren’t many places where you can find someone to do some of the hardest work for you. Well, I haven’t quite solved that problem for you, 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. My online business is made up of a number of traditional sites and blogs. 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 would like to make that process a bit less involved and take the prospects to the vendors a little more efficiently.
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. 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.
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 like a consortium for article marketers and content publishers. (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.
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?
