Article Marketing Success!

I liked it so much, I bought the company!

Seriously though, this is what I’ve learned from almost two years of writing for internet marketers (as well as some article marketing of my own).

I’m letting it go for six bucks because I need the money–got to pay rent in two places this month (the new place needs first and last month rent–so it’s more like 3 months at once!).

Plus I’ve got a little one on the way…I need about 100 more affiliate marketing sites up right now.

Until then, everybody is getting this report for a song.

Write great articles.

Check it out!

About a week ago, I had to write some content about the two most (then-) recent bank failures in the U.S.  (this search was in early June and uncovered events from late May; at least one other bank has been shut down since that time).  The first Google SERP showed multiple pages on different sites, all with the same story.

I’m not just talking about the same story, rewritten.  Fully four of the results carried the exact same text.  Five of the rest had a rewritten version of the same story; most of them took huge chunks from the four dupe results just mentioned.

I went over to MSN’s search engine and got more varied results.  About three of them had more substantial content than most of what I’d found with Google (the really good result on G was from Bloomberg.com, a standard in the banking industry).

One week later, the 1st page results in Google look a little better.  But they still aren’t as varied and useful as what I found when I used MSN’s search engine.  (I haven’t played much with Bing yet, but you can bet I’m going to.)

So yes, you can get away with duplicate content, but not always for very long.  Then again, some key phrases seem to consistently show a lot of duplicate content results.

Also keep in mind that if you’re a writer, it really pays to use other search engines on a regular basis.  Some of you already know this; it took me about a  year to figure it out!

Keeping a regular schedule has a productivity-increasing side effect: it sets your brain in a pattern.  Your brain will start to focus better just based on it being…well, being whatever time you start work.  Which in my case, was often not early enough.

I’ve been at this a year and am still working on it.  It’s gotten better–and so has my writing.

2. The work day goes better when you work first.  It’s so tempting to do everythign else first, when you work for yourself.  After all, I quit my J.O.B. so I could do things like sit around in my underwear and read 100 pages of fiction every day.

Two things are wrong with this.  One: some days I didn’t get as much done as I meant to.  Two: I always felt like I was putting work off.  Which I was.

Treat your freelance online job much like an offline job in at least this way: start it early in your day!  Then you’ll get done all you need done, AND you’ll enjoy the other things you want to do a whole lot more.

3. Don’t waste time with Associated Content.  Or for that matter, any other mostly-automated site.  Why?  The pay is crap.

I messed around with AC for a while.  In fact, I quit my job delivering pizzas largely because I thought I could make the good bulk of my income from that site.  But it just ain’t so.

Yes, sometimes those actual human clients can be a pain in the ass.  There’s really no other way to say it.  But overall, you’re so much better working for real people than for Associated Content and other sites, that you might as well not even waste your time.

(I’ve heart slightly different things about Textbroker.com.  I’m told the pay is a little more livable.  But none of my friends who’ve worked for that site have stayed around there very long.)

4.  Outline.  I doubled my writing speed when I started outlining my articles.  ‘Nuff said!

5.  Get some sun.  Seriously, you need to come out of the house every once in a while.  Sunlight has vitamin E and the radiation won’t turn you into the incredible hulk or any such thing.

6.  Don’t forget to sleep.  Seriously, sleep is important.  

Actually, that’s what I wish I would tell myself right now…

You just have to understand the interaction between the parts your client wants you to write about. Get that down and you’re fine.

It’s still a bitch.