I will probably come closer to submitting around 3 articles a day because I will be submitting old blog posts as well as articles that I will purchase from some of the authors I have outsourced work to in the past. The goal of these articles are to boost the search engine rankings for Easy Online Money Making while driving direct traffic to my new mailing list the Fast Cash Blueprint.

I have done a little research on my most recent articles and I have found that I typically make $15 per article that I write in commissions from NeverBlue and ClickBank on average. This means that I will get an extra $15 a day if I continue to write these articles, all of which I will be investing into advertising when I finish working on my marketing book.

I have written a couple of test articles each of which gets a few hundred UV’s a month, and most of this is thanks to Google. I started basing my titles off the most searched terms in Google, for instance if you type in paid surveys it will display paid surveys online, so I will optimize my articles for that specific phrase.

In order to continuously pump out articles you simply need to get into a routine, for me I write my articles just before eating lunch. If you are writing about a subject that you find boring, then write about something that interests you instead. Don’t punish yourself just to make a couple extra dollars, and an interesting article will be better in the long run anyway.

Once you are finished writing your article proof read it twice, then submit it to EzineArticles and use your article submission software of choice to submit to other top directories. Rather than submitting to all the spam directories allow it to spread organically.

There are huge benefits in writing articles, read any marketing forum and you will find example after example of people taking in thousands of dollars in organically driven sales from articles. The traffic generated directly from articles is slightly higher in quality than PPC traffic while at the same time it provides a wealth of high quality links back to your website. Some of my articles have been republished over 2,000 times, this is exposure that would cost a fortune to buy. If you have a mailing list it is amazing for converting visitors as well, 60% of the people that come to my splash pages from articles end up subscribing.

When I have spare time I usually do some or all of the following, mixing them up every 5 minutes or so to keep myself interested.  I love internet marketing, but I don’t always have the attention span to keep churning out the content so it is fun to do moderately effective traffic driving techniques rather than the high power but highly boring techniques such as article creation/submission.

Here’s where my spare time goes:

• Adding followers on Twitter and starting conversations with some of my followers when they have interesting status updates.  My twitter: James Spinosa
• Adding contacts on MyBlogLog and joining communities.
• Adding friends on BlogCatalog and joining groups, discussions, blogs, etc.
• Posting on various forums that allow me to have a blog feed, this is mainly to build up name reputation but it doesn’t hurt to get some traffic.  Don’t just spam them, post useful content.
• Commenting on a bunch of related niche blog posts.
• Tinkering with my advertisements to find better converting programs so I can make some more money.
• Creating link bait lists, such as “Top 100 dofollow blogs” so that I can get some free links from other bloggers.
• Staring at the ClickBank marketplace trying to reverse engineer the success for some of the products that I have no idea why people buy them.

While these may seem like a waste of time I actually enjoy them, and they do yield results.  Most of these are designed to get a one time visitor, but about 10% of people that come to this site sign up to receive my blog posts, yielding long term traffic.

In terms of things like blog commenting and forum posting, this will yield permanent one way dofollow links, which will make me show up for more search results.  The other methods like adding twitter followers, friends, contacts, etc. make it so that I have another set of people that get updates each time I post.

If you have spare time, you might as well use it for something constructive.  There is always some way you can be promoting your blog even if it isn’t through the traditional methods.

So that’s the way most people do it, but what are better ways to create link exchanges?  Well first start off by finding reputable sources in the same niche as you that work as complements rather than competitors.  If you find them by searching for the keyword you are aiming for, then it would be stupid to expect an anchor text that will help you rank for that term.   Do a search of semi-relevant terms, such as when I want links for my “online money making” website, I would look for people in the “paid surveys” niche as the content keywords will match very closely and I get great conversions on my survey products.

One alternative to a direct link exchange is a 3-way link exchange, which are somewhat better received by Google.  These involve you linking to one site, they will link to another site, and that site will link back to you.  For my time, these aren’t worth it simply due to the additional effort in coordinating two other people not to mention finding three websites in the same niche, with similar traffic and backlinks, that will work with you.

Google's headquarters (Wikipedia)

For bloggers, the link exchange world opens up even more.  Links are the currency of the web, and as a result if you find a blog you like, then you can put them on your blogroll then post a few comments on their blog and see if they notice themselves.  This is the informal form of a link exchange, because many times they will give you a link back, as a result you each have sitewide links bouncing between each other as well as related traffic.  While I do occasionally get requests via email for link exchanges, I would prefer these informal gestures, and they are also what I do on my other blogs.  By actually becoming friends with other bloggers in your niche you will find that blogging becomes more enjoyable, and based on game theory it will also be more profitable for each of you to work together.

Moral of the story: play fair with others and it will help your reputation, and if you do nice things online, then people will often be kind in return.

For initial traffic to this blog I utilized the sources that internet marketers and bloggers go to in order to get information, forums and marketing networks.  I have x,xxx posts on DigitalPoint and quite a few also on v7n and webmaster talk, all of which are great sources of targeted traffic as long as you use them correctly.  As for social networks, I mostly used MyBlogLog, MySpace, FriendFeed, Twitter, and BlogCatalog to get traffic and RSS subscribers, which has worked out quite well as I have noticed that quite a few of you are also submitting my articles to social bookmarking networks, which I appreciate.

When using these resources, simply realize that if you want to get the maximum use of your time you should research the audience that you wish to develop for your own niche.  In my case, it is quite easy as I am trying to help out all internet marketers and most bloggers would also consider themselves to be marketers to some extent, as everybody would like to make a few bucks off their efforts.  Obviously you won’t know thousands of people online, which is why you should search for people that have similar interests as you in public profiles, etc. and these are the people you should seek various relationships with.  The purpose of these networks in their essence, is to meet people with similar interests and discuss common issues, tap into this and you will have an interested target audience developing.

The key to balancing this relationship of network friend and your personal business interests is quite simple, don’t spam them with overbearing messages, etc. because that will scare people off, and offer good content that people want to read.  If you offer good content your business will expand by itself, it shouldn’t need too much of a push but social networks and social media are great ways to get some eyes on your content so that you can get a few people to stick and then let it spread from there.

Here’s a few of the sites I used:

• http://forums.digitalpoint.com
• http://www.webmaster-talk.com
• http://www.mybloglog.com
• http://www.blogcatalog.com
• http://www.twitter.com
• http://www.friendfeed.com

The other thing to take into consideration with any type of social media/networking/bookmarking traffic is that it won’t be overly profitable.  Don’t expect large traffic numbers to equate to conversions of any sort, as traffic typically won’t click advertisements or buy affiliate products.

One interesting thing I have been watching as a result of this web2.0 traffic is how easily I gain and lose RSS subscribers, on days that I post I average 22 new subscribers, while on days I don’t post I average 17 lost subscribers.  On that note, feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed.

If you plan to simply copy and paste articles from your blog into article directories, I would take into consideration the “duplicate content” filter that Google uses to penalize sites for copying content (supposedly), by making sure that a site:http://www.yourdomain.com actually shows the blog posts before you submit them to major directories, because once they go to something like EzineArticles they will quickly get scooped up by Google’s crawler.  I would also highly suggest that if you write a lot of link bait like I do, that you spend a few minutes dressing it up so that it looks nice in the article.  When I write, I typically write posts such as “23 link building tactics”, which would not look right without the <li> tags.

Why should you integrate article marketing into your overall marketing techniques?

• Highly targeted traffic, equivalent quality to that of a PPC campaign
• Increase name recognition; always a good thing to be recognized as an expert in your field
• Great way to increase the number of incoming links, a properly distributed article should be on 700-800 websites each with a link back to your site.
• It can actually be fun, don’t make it into a chore and it won’t be.  If you don’t enjoy what you are doing now though you are in the wrong business anyway.
• Great source of opt-in subscribers to your mailing list so that you can later monetize that traffic.
• Good way to push affiliate sales if you do it right, since affiliate links are typically not allowed.

So now you want to know how you actually get these waves of traffic, backlinks, fame, and fortune all for free!.  That is understandable, so I will give it to you straight.  I typically follow a multiple step process to get my article to the masses.

Step one should be pretty obvious, pick a topic, research it, and then write the article.

Step two is to submit it to major article directories (EzineArticles, iSnare, GoArticles, Article Dashboard) either manually or with some help from automation.  Typically, I will submit them using a program called Instant Article Submitter to about 70 article directories (although it has a capacity near 600), and then I will use iSnare’s distribution service ($2/article) to get the word out to thousands of webmasters.  Using this method, I typically get around 800 backlinks from a single article.

Step 3 is the most important aspect in my opinion that people often miss.  Obviously the most important part is getting it out to enough directories and writing a high quality article that people want to link to, which is why I didn’t mention that part.  The less obvious par,t is that you should also do a little work to increase the traffic to the various article directories that you submit to.  I will go through and do some social bookmarking on each of the articles for a few of the directories that I submit to, typically I make sure to at least do it for iSnare and EzineArticles as these give me the best quality traffic/opt-ins.

Step 4 is the most fun, do a google search encompassing a unique sentence from your article, such as “and then the 20083 tigers in Alaska went extinct due to hypothermia”, by putting it all in quotes Google will only search for that exact term.  As a result, the number of sites that show as indexed represents the overall reach of your article (in terms of Google anyway).  The more sites indexed, the more backlinks to your website and the better off you are.

And that’s really all there is to know, just make sure that you properly distribute your articles and have an overall marketing strategy before embarking on an article writing binge.  I typically either try aim for RSS subscribers, opt-in subscribers, or affiliate commissions as the traffic coming from articles is typically very high quality.  On that note, feel free to add this blog to your RSS feed

One main point first is that the focus should always be on the content before worrying about how you market it, get links to it, etc.  If your content sucks, nobody will care about what you have to say, what you are promoting, or what you do in the future.  The better your content, the less leg work you have to put in yourself in getting visitors.

Ways to build links and drive traffic to your blog:

1. Create link bait, people love “Top 10″ lists, quirky fact and cultural phenomenon, breaking industry news, etc.  Good content is also good link bait!
2. Use social media such as Twitter, MyBlogLog, Facebook, etc. to your advantage.  Do not abuse the system, just use it as it is designed while marketing yourself.
3. Relevant link exchanges with sites within your niche, especially blogroll trades for bloggers as it is seen on every page.
4. Comment on DoFollow blogs *cough*  You won’t have to look far!  If you use your imagination, you might find a PR 7 blog that is very lightly moderated fully dofollow and millions of visits a month, I’ll tell you the answer in 43 days.  Type in “dofollow blog search engine” in Google and you will find quite a few nice tools.
5. Submit your blog to blog directories and blog aggregating websites such as Technorati (Remember to favorite this post!)
6. Submit your blog to good old fashion link directories (yes, they do still work for links, and no, they don’t work as well as 5 years ago).
7. Use social bookmarking websites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Sphinn, etc. to bring in big traffic and decent backlinks as many bloggers frequent these sites in search of content to link to.
8. Link to other websites!  You would be surprised how many people check who is linking to them, and might give them a favorable mention later on.  I have found random people linking to me in my Yahoo Site Explorer backlinks before that I have decided to link to for the hell of it.
9. Create articles and submit them to article directories such as Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, iSnare, etc.
10. Yahoo! Answers, this is a great way to get some visitors to your site as long as you don’t overtly spam them, the links are nofollow but a steady traffic flow is good for the health of any site.
11. Start a contest and post it on popular forums and contest websites, this is a great way to get some interested visitors.  Make them work for it a little with comment contests, traffic contests, something creative.
12. Create a WordPress theme and distribute it for free, if this doesn’t work pay somebody else to get a Sponser link stuck in the footer.
13. Create a WordPress plugin that makes life easier for everyone (akismet anyone?).
14. Find “Top Commentator” enabled blogs that will give you sitewide links for quality comments, and decent traffic from my experience.  ShoeMoney has this enabled, but this doesn’t mean you should go spam up his blog.
15. Be a guest blogger on another blog, many people will be willing to allow other authors to share new insights in exchange for a couple links back to your site.
16. Create a press release and distribute it to various PR sites, only do this if you have something that is actually news worthy but if played right it will work great.
17. Keep your blog up to date!  By having an up to date blog it will make people far more likely to link to your site, and Google will love you for it.
18. Create a Squidoo lens to build links and generate traffic (and hopefully earn some cash along the way).
19. Use forums to boost your “expert” status while gaining quite a few backlinks, there are countless dofollow forums out there.
20. Be creative, piss off a major industry expert such as ShoeMoney or John Chow to get them riled up, or sue a major corporation.
21. Get your readers to participate in your site’s expansion, encourage them to use social media and to tell friends and family.  If your content is good enough, this will happen automatically!
22. Create a good freebie such as an ebook to generate traffic, it will bring in people and if you do it right it will make them stick too.
23. Flattery will get you everywhere, if you butter up some webmasters they will give you a link.  It never hurts to try….and no it won’t work with me

And now you are well on your way towards building links and gaining huge traffic for your blog.  Be creative, don’t be annoying and don’t go down to the level of spamming and you will be in a great position.  It is all about building long term visitors, traffic, links, and getting the word out.

The problem behind this theory, is that the real hardcore automated spammers out there will still continue to do so, they are just now hoping either for traffic or to hit a few of the “dofollow” blogs. Think of it this way, if you were to have a comment on every single blog post on the internet, would you really care whether or not the search engines are looking at it? The traffic from this would be absolutely massive and it would have to make others take notice and link to your site anyway. The creator of WordPress himself says that the nofollow tag is not the solution to blog spam as it helped short term but then others continued anyway.

As a link builder, it is essential to seek out dofollow blogs and keep tabs on them so that you can wring out some of those all important do follow links (and blogs are viewed very highly in the eyes of a search engine). This explains the recent popularity of “dofollow blog search engines”

What is the solution? In my opinion a combination of software, social responsibility, and personal responsibility. If you haven’t noticed, this blog is “dofollow”, I have installed the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin which rewards those that continue to come back to my site and post. I feel that the way to reduce the amount of spam you deal with should be handled mostly by society and software that you use to weed through blatant spam attempts. This is done by showing your readers that unless you have reasonable comments, they will be deleted. If people look at the comments and they are all well thought out responses that took a minute or two to write, others will follow suit. As a reward for this, those that return and post several times will see that their links become regular links without the nofollow tag and those that truly take the time to contribute should be added to your blog roll.

In closing, making your blog do follow can be a blessing as it will increase traffic and the comments will pour in and as long as you tightly regulate the comments coming in, it will set the right example for future visitors/commentators. Feel free to comment below, and read my comment policy first