Right now, thousands of people from around the world, from professional
authors to my sister-in-law, are using small, simple articles to make money
on the Internet.
How much money can you make writing articles?
Well, that is going to vary from person to person, and a lot of other
factors are involved as well. It's not simply how good a writer you are,
but the subjects you choose to write about, how you address the subject,
where you place your articles, how many sites you get your articles on, how
valuable the information is, and the site(s) you link to with your articles.
A few small, 600 to 1000 words, articles properly placed can create regular
customers and sales while enhancing an internet business website ranking
within the search engines...which also increases traffic to the website.
Increased traffic can translate to increased customers, therefore more
sales, and, in some cases, repeat sales, which translates to residual
(passive)
Some people make thousands of dollars while others just make a few bucks.
However, the technique is simple and it's a game that almost anyone can
play. Even my sister-in-law figured out that if she simply wrote about some
of the problems she encountered growing up, there would be places where her
articles could be published, people who would read those articles, and a
means of linking from those articles to a site she and her husband have on
the internet.
So, what IS the technique for making money with small articles?
In most cases, the first step is to decide on what the general subject is
you wish to write about. In this case, I have chosen to write about
writing. The general subject is then narrowed down to a niche. Again, in
this case, I have chosen to write about how to write small articles for
profit. Someone interested in bicycling may write about racing, or even
narrow the niche to a specific sort of bike racing or type of racing bike.
The niche should be related to the product. The product may be a physical
product, a service, or information. Some people will have a product
already. Our bicycle enthusiast above may own a bicycle store or sell
bicycle parts and accessories over the internet. I offer various services
and information related to writing and publishing articles, so I have chosen
to write an article on writing articles...for profit!!
It is important in most cases that you choose a product or service that you
enjoy talking or writing about. If you pick a product JUST to make money,
but don't really care about the area of interest, you will lose your
motivation during periods when income is small or slow. It is a reality, by
the way, that the first few days, weeks, or even months may be periods where
you will make little or no money. An interest in your topic will help keep
you coming back to "open your store".
What if you don't already have a product?
There are many sites on the internet where you can find people or companies
which will be happy to pay you a commission for bringing them buying
customers. Most of these "affiliate programs" will only pay if the customer
you send to them actually buys something. Years ago, you could find
programs which would pay an affiliate for a click-thru, but, of course, many
people would just sit and click on the link or have friends click on the
link in order to generate income, so that went away.
Some places where you can find products with affiliate programs are
ClickBank.com, commission Junction (cj.com), and Link Share (linkshare.com).
If you cannot find a product or company that meets your interests, just do a
search on related topics and request "affiliate program"
with the search. You may have to kiss a few frogs, but there are good
affiliate programs in just about every field.
What do you do with your articles?
Make your own website:
Obviously, if you have several articles on a subject, you can always create
your own website. A benefit of having your own website is that you control
the set-up of your articles and you have complete editorial control of both
the articles themselves and the website. You can add, subtract, and edit as
you wish, and you can create any potentially profitable links as you desire.
The drawbacks are that your website, and article, exposure will be only as
good as your search engine optimization efforts will make it and that your
articles will be confined to one spot on the web. You will also have to
learn something about website design, buy hosting, register domain names,
and provide periodic maintenance, just to name a few responsibilities. If
you want to try this route, you might want to cut your teeth with free
hosting and, once you have gained competence and confidence, register a
domain and host your own site yourself.
Create a blog:
There are a myriad of places to create blogs on the internet, and most of
them are free. If you are a prolific writer, a blog may be perfect as you
can regularly update your blog with new material. Even if you don't turn
out articles regularly, you can fill in with material from the article
directories, which we will talk about in a moment.
Again, you will have control over most of the linking, but free services are
sometimes limited in what they will allow you to do. For one example, I
once tried to place a banner for an affiliate program on one of my blogs and
it threw the positioning of everything out of whack. However, if you can
offer interesting and relevant information on your topic and update it
regularly, you can create a good amount of traffic to your business or
affiliate program.
Post your articles on forums:
There are a kazillion (my spell checker hates that
non-word) forums on the Internet, and you can find at least one for almost
any topic or subject area. Many will allow you to create a signature which
can include a link to your internet business website. Regularly posting
relevant and interesting articles on these sites can create a lot of
traffic, and sometimes contribute to enhancing your ranking and placement on
various search engines.
Post your articles on article directories:
This is my absolute most favorite type, kind, and sort of method. Once you
have written an article, you can go to any one of several good article
directories and post your article. Article sites will allow you to include
a link to your site. Be aware, however, that many sites will not allow
linking directly to an affiliate link provided by the company you are
affiliated with, so you may wind up having to create an intermediate
information site or portal anyway.
Since this article may appear on several different article directories, I
won't mention any specific article directories here, but, if you are seeing
this article on an article directory, I possibly posted it there...which
brings me to a benefit of posting your article on article directories.
Obviously, the more exposure you get for your article the better...in most
cases at least. However, it can be a real pain to go from one article
directory to another, cutting and pasting and dealing with the rules or
restrictions particular to each site. Since many sites allow for your
article, with your byline or links attached, to be copied by others, your
article may be copied and placed on other sites or used in ezines. Those
placed on other websites create new links back to your site, enhancing the
value of your site in the eyes of the search engine spiders, and possibly
bringing in new customers.
Still, you are faced with the bother of manually placing each new article on
several different sites with different requirements. One way around this is
to purchase the services of an article submission service. For a fee, these
companies will, once you have posted an article on their site, submit it to
several different article directories and forums. This can increase your
exposure exponentially.
As with many things, there are few overnight successes. If you are able and
willing to write at least a few articles and find places to post, them,
however, you will be able to create the start of an Internet success story.
The key is not to give up just because nothing happens right away.
This is why you choose an area which pleases and interests you. If you are
working in such an area, you will find it much easier to continue creating
articles even if you are not immediately experiencing fantastic results.
----------------------------------------------------
Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. He is a University of West Florida
alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired from the U. S. Army. He posts
many of his articles on his poetry and writing blog at
http://ravensong-poetry.blogspot.com/ .
