From where I am sitting real article marketing success comes from research and hard work or deep pockets.

I’ve never been much of a writer and find it hard to express myself, even when I know my stuff. So for me article marketing is hard work but so worth my time.

In the years I have been article marketing I have learned there are things to do and things not to do. Today I would like to save you some time and show you the things I do that work.

The Short Article Marketing Success Plan

Publish Quality Articles Often But Never Twice

Content is king or has the opportunity to be king if you take the time to research your topics but they don’t do any good sitting on your computer. You have to get them done and published on a regular basis.

Personally I like to have an article published to my site at least every two days if not every single day.

Publish Quality Articles Linked Back To Your Site

I publish articles on my sites every day or two but I also publish articles that are relevant to other articles on my sites and publish them elsewhere pointing back to my internal pages.

So I Publish Daily But I Don’t Write Daily

As a rule I work my sites 5 days a week most of the time, during the winter. Fishing season here is only open 6 months of the year so I get out when I can but I don’t let my work from home article marketing slip.

When I am home I write content for my sites as well as articles to publish on the top article directories and networks. To make article marketing more efficient, as there is only one of me, I use an article spinner called The Best Spinner.

Here is my article marketing plan.

1. I have done my niche and keyword research.

   This way I know the money making keywords I need to write articles about. This step is so vital to article marketing success today.
   

2. I write two keyworded articles.
   
   I put my keyword list in order and then starting with the first keyword phrase. I write two articles that are no less than 400 words long. One article is to be published on my site that other is to be spun into many articles, without destroying my keyword focus.
   
3. I include a second keyword phrase.
   
   The first keyword is a phrase I can make money with today while the second keywords is one that has a lot more competition but will rank eventually.

   This way I make money with articles in the short term but I also have a start at building some ranking for keywords with far more competition.
   

4. I include two links in each article.

   The links in the article that is meant for my site will usually point to an internal page as well as to an affiliate page where I can make money.

   For the spun articles I publish to article directories will include spun link text so that the hyperlinks in the article are varied for the search engines and ranking.
   

5. Article Marketing Using Unique Content

   I can’t stress enough just how important unique content is today. A few years ago it was acceptable to use duplicate content but today you will get far better results, because of search engines, if you keep your content unique and keyworded.

In closing I would like to point out that in 2007 I started a web site where I used my article marketing plan for the first time. I wrote articles using keywords I could rank quickly for and still make a little money.

I also included a top keyword phrase as secondary keyword focus, in each article I published.

Over time I started getting target traffic for top phrases and my life changed. I went for getting a couple of hundred visitors a month, then per day and then all of a sudden my traffic was over a 1000 unique visitors every single day, clicking my links and helping me earn money.

But that’s not all.

Now I get marketers and business owners contacting me daily offering me money to put a link to their site on my blog. I won’t tell you what I earn but I will tell you that it’s over $100 per year. The price goes up for new advertisers each time my page rank increases as well.

Something else that has been so cool is how marketers are falling over themselves to write keyworded and unique content for that blog. This gives me lots of content and the time to write for my other sites.

Why is link building so essential? Well for starters your backlinks can send you loads of free traffic directly from the major search engines to your web pages.

Also, using blog commenting you can get a load of traffic as well, from both blog owners and their readers. Again this is a free method for drawing target traffic to your sites.

One-Way-Linking Vs Reciprocal Linking

Today it’s all about getting one way links to your pages as search engines have caught on to reciprocal linking as a ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your’s‘ method of linking and really holds no value today.

When you are getting listing in search engines it’s good to know that most people using search engines don’t search much past the first page of search results, so it’s important to get listed on that first page and that’s where one way links can come in very handy.

Personally I have gotten into link wheels since the fall of reciprocal linking and that’s working wonders for my ranking. I have also seen it work for sites that use very poor quality articles written by non-english people, yet it still works to increase their page rank and to move them up in the SERPs.

Spending Money To Get One Way Links, Yes or No?

I don’t spend money on back linking as it’s pretty easy to get started with one way linking. I have paid for courses that taught me how to generate link wheels that boost my site’s in the search engines and make me more money.

I also use guest blogging to get one way links from sites with page rank, without paying for them. It takes a bit of searching but is part of my normal business day.

I even use software that helps me create link wheels that increase my bottom line.

Three Way Linking Can Work Too

I do a lot of one way linking but I also get a lot of requests for swapping links. I always reply that I don’t do reciprocal linking any more but I offer them three way linking if they have more than one related site.

That works great and every body’s happy.

Back links are classifed based on where the come from. A high PR site is always better, even if it’s not relevant to your site. Although relevancy is always better in the long run.

Buying Backlinks

Lots of people resort to purchasing high pagerank links but really, unless you can’t find links elsewhere, it’s not necessary at all.

Web 2.0 Site Backlinking

Instead of buying links invest in software that will help you create link wheels including Web 2.0 properties. This is one of the methods I use to get backlinks and increase the ranking of my important pages.

A few of the tools I use to help me gain the backlinks and ranking I need to make my money online are:

Backlink Build creates happy backlink clients so check them out for your backlinking needs.

RankBuilder a link wheel and rank building tool I purchased and use daily to shoot my money pages to the top of Google.

Article marketing is just another way of saying content creation and distribution. It’s a great way to make money while you work from the comfort of your own home.

I am sure you’ve heard content is king and it’s true if you have done a couple of things.

First you should have already done your keyword research to know your best keywords. Secondly, you need to write helpful or informative content your readers will want to read. Finally you need something to point your readers to. An affiliate link or a landing page you can presell your readers on before they move on to your affiliate page.

Staying focused on your niche as well as the topic at hand so you don’t lose your reader.

Note: Having your own website is an option and one I use but it’s not actually a requirement for financial success. You just need to have something to sell and a place to point your readers, called an affiliate site, using an affiliate link.

Publish To Article Directories

Having your own website is NOT a requirement for successful article marketing. There are plenty of article directories available to publish your articles to.

The key to success with article marketing using article directories is to find directories that accept articles with affiliate links in them. All you need is one affiliate link per article but some directories won’t accept affiliate links in the articles you publish.

Write Guest Blog Posts

Using your favourite search engine look for blogs that accept guest posting. Of course you want to find the bloggers in your niche as you don’t want to try publishing a non relevant article. That would just lead to your article not being published or accepted.

The Free Traffic System

Personally I have a number of websites but I like to write articles using The Best Spinner to create spin code and then publish the articles, code and all, to The Free Traffic System.

Your article will be presented to about 30 bloggers based on the categories you select while publishing and the affiliate link you leave behind points people to an affiliate page where you have the opportunity to make money.

Get Your Own Guest Bloggers

If you choose to have your own blog you can get others to publish their articles on your blog. This is one of the methods I use to get more unique content, that’s niche related of course, for my websites.

It works great because the authors get a one way link back to the webpage of their choosing for their work and that leads to more visitors and possibly increased page ranks for their webpages.

A few other article networks you can write for are:

Article Marketing Automation – My Article Network – SEO Link Vine