A Unique Visitor Source for Affiliate Marketers
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 a long hidden source of free labor, but I have discovered what I think is the next best thing.
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 rely quite heavily on search engine optimization (SEO) to secure traffic, but that is a long term strategy. For some of my affiliate marketing, I have tried PPC, but rarely have I had success over the long haul.
So, for me, as for all Internet marketers, traffic is a very challenging part of my business. It is particularly difficult for those times when I discover a new affiliate product but for which none of my sites are well optimized. 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. Then I just hope that I have been sufficiently convincing to get them to click the link that directs them to the vendor’s site so that I have some small chance of earning my commission. 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. 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. 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! In fact, I even set up four new niche blogs to make use of the free content that my colleagues provide. {(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?}