What you need to do is cut through the hype

to find the very best offers to promote.

Doing so will not only put more money in your pocket, it will also lighten your workload and protect your reputation.

Here’s what to look for:

• Good support. Send an email to the affiliate manager (or call them if they have phone support). Is there someone on the other end promptly and courteously answering inquiries? If so, that’s a good sign.

• Proven track record. Spend a few minutes with your friend Google to dig up everything you can on the product and the vendor. You’re looking for someone who has a good history and a solid reputation.

• Training materials. Even if you’re an expert affiliate marketer, take a peek inside the affiliate program area to see if they provide training materials for affiliates. If so, that’s a sign that they care about their affiliates and your success.

• Pre-sell content. Look for affiliate programs that provide emails, solo ads, classified ads, banner ads, articles, reports and other pre-sell content you can use.

• High conversion rate. You can ask the vendor for the conversion rate. But the only way to know for sure is to test it for yourself.

Tip: A PPC campaign is a fast and easy way to test a new product’s conversion rate.

• High commissions. If you’re selling physical products or services, you can’t expect commission rates much over 10% or so. But if you’re selling digital products, then look for commission rates of at least 50%.

• Backend commissions. Some products offer one-time-offers or other upsells. Check to see that you get credit for those, too.

• No sales leaks. Finally, make sure the sales page and the vendor’s sales process doesn’t have any sales leaks. For example, make sure the sales page doesn’t have an alternative payment method (such as phone or through a different payment processor) that would cut out your commission if the customer uses it.

Drop by Google.com and do a little research. Ask around at your favorite forum for recommendations on top affiliate program offers.

Most article marketers create informative yet generic articles, which they use to drive traffic to any number of affiliate links or even their own squeeze page.

But here’s the thing:

Sometimes your prospect needs to be lead by the hand

and shown the exact solution to their problem.

If he spends even five minutes researching, he’ll see an overwhelming number of solutions to his problems.

Sometimes even the same article may recommend multiple solutions. It’s confusing.

That’s where your specific article comes in.

You take the position of a strong leader, take your prospect by the hand,
and confidently lead him to the best solution.

He doesn’t even have to think about it because you’re showing him what product to choose.

That’s one possibility.

Sometimes, however, your prospects are also looking for specific information about specific products. They may be on the verge of making the buying decision, but they need confirmation from someone else.

Your product-specific article can serve as that confirmation… which means you pocket a quick commission!

Tip: There are plenty of places to submit your articles online. One of the best places is EzineArticles.com.

Other directories include IdeaMarketers.com, Buzzle.com, GoArticles.com, and ArticleCity.com.

If you have more than one article, then set up a Squidoo.com lens or a HubPages.com hub.

Let me give you three examples to show you what I mean:

Example #1: You create an article titled “How I Improved My Golf Score In 30 Seconds!” Then the article gives the reader tips and tricks for improving the golfer’s stance and swing. It ends by talking about how the biggest improvements came when you used Brand XYZ golf clubs.

Note: Naturally, DON’T use an example like this if the clubs don’t actually improve your game.

Example #2: You create a “how to” article that gives people the secrets of growing big, tasty tomatoes. The article takes the reader through all the steps of planting, nurturing and harvesting. The money-maker? Your article explicitly recommends the reader buy “Tomato Tree” plants in order to get good results (and you provide your affiliate link, of course).

Example #3: You create an article that provides useful but incomplete information about how to save a faltering marriage, “Seven Ways to Save a Marriage.” The article gives the reader a good starting point, but she’ll need to purchase the “Save a Marriage” book through your affiliate link to get all the information.

You get the idea.

And this can literally work for any market and niche. In other words, it can work for you.

Let me be blunt: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

If you want to make more money, you’re going to have to massage one of the numbers. We’ve talked about a number of tips to increase your numbers, such as by massaging the conversion rate (by building a list and relationships first), and boosting your commission rate.

Now here’s another number that’s easy to manipulate: Namely, by –

Increasing the number of targeted visitors who see your offer.

Makes sense, right?

If you’re making $100 for every 100 visitors, then an easy way to make more money is to get your links in front of more people.

If 500 see your link this month, you make $500. If 5000 see it, you make $5000.

And so on.

There are dozens of ways to drum up more traffic, including (but not limited to):

• Using content marketing such as article marketing, blogging, etc.

• Working with joint venture partners.

• Taking advantage of media marketing, including social networking, social bookmarking, and submitting your content to sites like Squidoo.com and YouTube.com.

• Creating and distributing free reports, free videos and other viral pieces.

• Getting traffic from the PPC search engines as well as the organic search engines.

• Distributing press releases.

• Building your mailing list.

• Blogging.

And so on.

More traffic = more commissions. End of story.

Here’s something else:

It’s easier to sell to a “warm” customer than a cold customer.

And one way to warm-up and pre-sell your customers is keeping in frequent contact with them using a newsletter list.

Consider this: Imagine you’re directly promoting your affiliate link. If you’re pulling a 2% conversion rate on a particular product, that means you’re selling 2 products for every 100 targeted visitors.

What a waste!

You have 98 targeted visitors just slipping through your fingers, never to be heard from again.

Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.

So instead of sending your targeted visitors to the merchant’s page,
you instead send all your visitors to your squeeze page.

Instead of making a couple sales here and there, you’re now building a list – and you’re building relationships.

Since people buy from those they know, like and trust, your conversion rates will explode.

Plus now you’re NOT wasting visitors.

If your squeeze page is persuasive enough, your freebie attractive enough and your visitors are highly targeted, you could be getting 25%, 35%, or even more of these visitors onto your mailing list!

Now instead of getting one shot to sell one
product to them, you can promote as many products
(and make as many sales!) as you’d like.

You can do this over and over for as long as your subscribers stay on your list. And you’ll make a lot more money with this list than if you let 98% or 99% of your visitors wander away!

One of the things that I highly recommend you do in order to really get people to join your list is to…

Disclose Highly Desirable “Results”

The idea here is to inform the visitor to your opt-in page that in your special report or mini-course (I.E. Your list offer), you’ll be revealing exactly how you achieved some desirable result – with the implication that they can duplicate your method if not your success.

“Here’s how I did XYZ in XYZ with XYZ“.

One of my favorite examples for this is my friend John Reese. If you visit his AuctionSecrets.com site you’ll notice a list offer midway through his salesletter. Here’s what John says…

——- Begin John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

As you’ve probably already read, I actually made over $38,000 in PROFIT from one single auction on eBay. And I know exactly what you’re thinking!

“He must have sold a car or some kind of real estate…”

If you thought that you’d be wrong!

What’s even more amazing about that one auction is that it was something that I bought for $100. Yep, 100 bucks. Not a bad profit, eh? I think that’s something like over 300,000% return. I’d say that was a “good” investment.

You can learn EXACTLY how I made the $38,450.27 PROFIT in my FREE…

5-Day Email Mini-Course, “The eBay Home Business Explosion!”

——- End John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

Now, I ask you, if you’re even remotely interested in selling on eBay, could you possibly resist joining his list to find out how he did it? Of course not. It’s irresistible. And that’s the point.

You want to inform the visitors to your opt-in page that you’ll be revealing some specific information on tremendous results you’ve achieved. And hint at some “amazing” aspect of your results. Look at John’s copy, not only did he mention that he made $38,450.27 on ONE auction, but he also stated that he did it with something he bought for only $100. Now there is a built-in curiosity factor. Not only do I want to know “how” he did it, but I also want to know “what” he sold to do it!

See how compelling this is?

Disclosure of tremendous results + hint of an amazing aspect = irresistible urge to join your list!

Note: People are inherently lazy and want something for nothing or something very easy. (Listen, I point to myself as well on this – it’s just a fact of life, all things being equal, we’d like things done with as little effort as possible.) If you can point to a shortcut you have figured out, an idea or tool for automating a process, a way to avoid a troublesome mistake or the ability to get someone else to do it for you, you’ll have a very powerful motivating factor for getting people to subscribe to your list.

Now here’s a ridiculously easy way to make those backend sales:

Promote recurring billing products.

Just as the name suggests, recurring billing (also called “continuity”) are those sales that happen automatically. The customer is charged automatically – typically on a weekly or monthly basis – and the product or service is delivered as long as the customer doesn’t cancel.

It’s easy for the merchant, the customer and the affiliate.

SIDEBAR: You probably have several recurring billing contracts lined up both personally and for business. Common examples include your cell phone contract, your web hosing, your monthly payments for an autoresponder, any monthly membership sites that you’ve joined, etc.

Here’s the beauty of recurring billing products:

All you have to do is find and persuade the customer once… yet you get paid month after month for as long as the customer remains a member.

That’s an easy, passive affiliate income for you!

Here are three ways to find these passive-income opportunities:

1. Go to the ClickBank.com marketplace and look for products that have a value higher than $0 in the “future $” category. Those are your recurring billing products.

1. Search in Google for your niche keywords, a search term like “affiliate program” plus other search terms like “recurring billing,” “membership site,” “passive income” or similar.

1. Seek out known recurring billing opportunities in your niche.

Example: If you’re selling products in the Internet marketing field, then you already know that most mailing list managers, PLR sites, web hosts and similar offer recurring billing. So you can go directly to the main product or service providers in your niche to check for an affiliate program with recurring commissions.

Tip: Read the affiliate TOS (terms of service) and affiliate agreements carefully. While some vendors offer recurring billing to the customers, they may only pay the affiliates a one-time flat fee for the referral. You’re looking for programs that pay month after month for as long as the customer remains a customer. 

Again, it’s all about “numbers”.

Which of these is best…

• Promoting Affiliate Offer A which sells for $24.00 and earns you a 50% commission? Or, all things being equal…
  

• Promoting Affiliate Offer B which sells for $24.00 PER MONTH and earns you a 50% commission PER MONTH for as long as the referred customer remains active?

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out “B” stands for “Better”!

THE ULTIMATE MIX: And when you find a “sweet” setup that offers both (A one-time offer that backends a recurring offer), that’s a huge neon sign flashing the message “Promote This One!”

EXAMPLES:

YummyPLR.com – PLR site that offers recipes (40% monthly commission).

ReliableWebs.com – Web hosting with free blog installs (20% monthly commission).

I say “about” because you may find that certain lower-priced products have a higher conversion rate.

Example: Let’s suppose you’ve found various products with 50% commissions. Now consider these figures:

• A $20 product ($10 commission) coverts at 5%. That means that for every 100 people who see the product, five buy… and that puts $50 in your pocket.

• A $100 product ($50 commission) converts at 3%. That means for every 100 targeted visitors who see the product, three buy… and that puts $150 in your pocket.

• A $500 product converts at a scant 1%. For every 100 targeted visitors, one person buys… and you put a fast $250 into your pocket.

See what I mean?

Do you realize the magnitude of this simple change in WHAT you promote?

Example three from above is 500% more profit for you
than example one for the exact same amount of traffic!

That should get you excited!

And it should also get you thinking about WHAT you’re promoting. Is it really your best option?

It may seem exciting to pull in multiple orders per day. But if you look at the “bottom line” figures, you may find that certain products put more money in your pocket with the same number of visitors.

That means you need to look for products with higher commission rates  as well as looking for products with higher ticket prices.

In other words, as a general rule “75% commission” is better than “50% commission” and a product that produces “$250” commission per transaction is better than one that produces “$50” commission per transaction.

And if you can find a high-converting, high-ticket product with a high commission rate, hire an accountant because you’ll soon have more money than you know what to do with! ?

The point is the same: your time investment is constant. The amount of money you make for your effort doesn’t have to be.

Regardless of the sales volume, your activity will remain the same…

• You’ll spend the same amount of time generating traffic.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time building lists.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time creating presell content.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time writing articles, posting blog comments, interacting at forums and all of the “marketing” stuff you do.

You’ll just make more money – on average – promoting affiliate programs that offer higher profit-per-transaction numbers.

There are a few basic business models to choose from. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages. By looking over this list and considering your strengths, you should know where you want to focus your business.

- Author.

When you create your own product, you are in complete control of your stream of income. By writing a product, or hiring a ghostwriter to write one, you can set up a website and sell your product over and over again. You can set up an affiliate program so other people are selling the product for you. The only major downside is that you can spend a lot of time and money working on a niche product that may not pan out.

- Affiliate.

Unlike being a product creator, with affiliate marketing you don’t have to spend time and money creating a product. You just need to be good at promoting the product. You’ll earn commissions for sending buyers to the product creator’s website. With the right promotional techniques, you can establish yourself in the niche and make affiliate commissions from several different programs all at once. On the other hand, you are at the whim of the product creator when you use this business model. You never know when a product creator will stop offering the product.

- Administrator.

Starting your own membership site is another option. With affiliate programs and information products, you’ll earn money from a one time sale. When you own a membership site, you’ll have an ongoing stream of income coming from one website. You can provide monthly reports on a niche topic, host a forum or offer coaching for a flat fee each month. You can even use an affiliate program with your membership site so that other people will send new members your way. The downside is that you need to keep providing fresh content each month to keep your members sticking around.

- Auctioner.

eBay is one of the most frequently visited sites on the entire Internet. When you become an eBay seller, you’ll never have to worry about finding traffic for your offering. You can sell a variety of different things on eBay, including information products. Although there have been some recent changes to the way information products are sold on eBay, the amount of traffic and ease of setting up your offering make eBay a strong business model. The downside is that your business relies on a third party site who’s changing rules may negatively effect your business in the future.

As you can see, there are ups and downs to every business model available online. By looking at your own strengths and what you want to get  out of your business, you should be able to find the right model for you.

Ask your list members

If you’ve built a list from selling your first information product (and you should have!) the keys to creating your next product are just a few e-mails away. Your list can be a goldmine when it comes to product ideas. Create a survey using a free online survey program (like SurveyMonkey.com) and ask your customers what topic they are most interested in learning about next. You can make the questions multiple choice and give them a few different options. Add the link to the survey in your autoresponder program and then gather the results from your previous buyers.

This product idea method works really well because not only have you already established yourself in the niche, but you know that you have ready made buyers if you can create a product your list is looking for. Since surveys are so easy to set up, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be using this for product creation.

Browse through the product affiliate networks.

A great way to find a surefire product idea is to look at the product affiliate networks, like Clickbank, Ejunkie or Paydotcom. I’m not talking about ripping off ideas. I’m talking about finding existing gaps in the market and filling those needs. For example, if you’re looking through Clickbank and notice a lot of products on growing your own organic garden you know that those sellers are tapping into a profitable market. However, you also notice that not one of these books talks about how to store the abundance from your organic garden. This is an important part of making the most out of your garden. Since so many people are growing organic gardens these days, it’s going to be a profitable niche. On top of that, you can contact one of the people who have a gardening eBook and do a joint venture.

Check out peaking trends.

Tools like Google Trends can help you find out what topics are growing in popularity. By jumping on a rising topic, you can be the first to the market with a topic. Being the first product in a particular niche can secure your dominance in that niche, even after other people jump on the bandwagon. Keep an eye on peaking trends and see how you can create a product to meet the needs of those in on that trend.

Any one of these methods could give you enough topics for your next ten products. Don’t sit on your laurels after you’ve created your first product. Use that momentum to jump on the next product idea and you’ll be able to build a long term infomarketing business.

Learn how to host web sites and HTML and the basic things that come with Internet Marketing. Even if you outsource them, you maybe won’t always have the option to outsource them, so you better know how to do them. The basics are always important. That is why sports preach the basic fundamentals, as being the most important thing. You don’t want to become too dependent on other people and other sites.

I think that it is important to learn a specialized skill like copy writing or for putting up certain types of scripts or for web design etc. You can make a ton of money by just doing freelance work. This gives you something to fall back on. Even if you fail with your other online ventures, you can always come back to that skill or skills.

One of the biggest problems that people have with Internet Marketing is that they get distracted. One of the best ways to avoid this is to develop a routine. Human beings are a creatures of habit. We get used to sleeping at a certain time and eating at a certain time. We can also get into a good working routine that we can follow, over and over again.

Once you find a profitable project, then scale it up as much as you can. What this means is to scale up effort or outsourcing or both. Once you find something profitable, put more time and effort and possibly money, into it. This can be really a key to your online success. Instead of running off to something that you might think is better, key word is might. You go with what works and roll with it and expand your success.

You will learn how to be successful your life.

It is more useful to read this book than to win a lottery. Believe me!

The Millionaire Mindset

Make sure to get put on the do not call list, if possible, that should get rid of most of the telemarketers. When it comes to businesses, try to tell them that you prefer e-mail instead of phone calls, it is much less distracting to get an e-mail, as opposed, to a phone call.

People also spend way too much time reading e-mails and instant messaging. I know people that spend all day with their skype open and that would drive me bonkers. I would have people talking to me constantly, cut back on that stuff and don’t be on too many mailing lists.

The next thing that you should do is organize your bookmarks. Make sure to label your folders, I have like a dozen folders and various amounts of links in each folder. This cuts out the distractions of using search engines. Relying on search engines can be so distracting because you end up clicking on so many other web sites.

This will save you time because you don’t have to manually type in the web sites. Sometimes you want a bookmark to a specific web page on a huge site and that will also save you time.

Fill out a daily planner and prioritize your tasks for the day. This will help you cut out distractions by getting the most important things done first. A person has peak hours of performance. You don’t want to work your peak hours on stuff that isn’t that important or isn’t a priority.

I will always work on the most important things first. I’ve had enough of those nights when it gets to be about ten at night and I still have hours of work to do because I got distracted during the day with tasks that really weren’t that important.

I highly suggest that you write everything down and have a daily planner. It keeps a person on track and helps cut out the distractions. You write it all down the night before and you set it next to you and then you just check each task off when you’re finished with it. It is kind of fun and pretty rewarding.

You can obviously monetize the groups before you sell them, but the big money comes from selling them. If you’re making a good steady income from them and you’re happy with the returns, then keep them, but if you just want to build them and not worry too much about monetizing them and are looking for a big pay-day, down the road, then sell them.

I recently talked to a guy on an Internet Marketing forum that sold a Facebook group that he had created and built and sold it for $10,000. That really blew me away, I hadn’t realized how valuable these things could be.

I had heard of websites selling for all kinds of money, but I never really thought about Facebook groups being sold. But, it is like anything else, if people see a long-term profit out of something and the people have done some work for them, they will invest some big dollars.

The first thing that you should throw out, is that any idea for building a huge Facebook group, shouldn’t be considered. There are some of the stupidest Facebook group ideas that have over a million members.
I would like to punch slow walking people in the head has like over a million members. There are these groups that sound so stupid, but they have so many members. I think that the whole key is to make it sensational and to make it viral.

I currently have about the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends, if I’m not at it, I can be because of the back log of friend requests. The point is this. I can invite all 5,000 friends to a group and get a fraction of that to join the group. The viral effect is what is huge. I talked about that Facebook group earlier, it actually got onto tv, that probably helped.

Groups that take advantage of the moment or that cause a stir can get a ton of members. Build a mailing list, put up some CPA offers and see how successful they are. Make sure to encourage participation and to get people to come back, over and over again and to encourage them to invite their friends.

It is a wonderful resource for meeting new people and to network and even work out joint ventures. People are a lot more interactive and accessible than they are with just plain e-mail. You now have a face when you interact.

Web 2.0 also allows a person to get a ton of targeted traffic, lets face it, we all need it. It might be to your blog, web site, sales page or affiliate offer.

It allows you to get help from the search engines and to also get direct traffic. I love getting direct traffic because once you find a way to get it, it is pretty consistent and can be expanded on pretty quickly.

Facebook

There are a ton of different ways to make money with Facebook. It is a great way to network and connect with other marketers.

I’ve met and connected with so many other Internet Marketers on Facebook. If I want to find someone in particular, I just search for them and see if they have a Facebook, the vast majority of marketers do.
One of the great things about Facebook is the groups. You can find marketers on make money online groups. You can also start your own groups in various niches and get traffic from these groups.

Getting Traffic From Facebook

Groups – I start groups and get people to join and get traffic to a squezze page, my own sales pages, CPA offers etc. I also network and joint venture with members.

From The Profile – I get traffic by simply putting up a link on my profile. I have almost 5,000 Facebook friends so I pick up some extra direct traffic from my profile.

Buying Ad Space – You can buy ad space and advertise on Facebook. It isn’t something that I’ve done before, but some people have had good results with it.

Facebook Resources

Facebook Friend Adder:

http://www.livelybrowser.com/screen/FacebookFriendAdder/FacebookFriendAdder.html

100 Tools and Tips:

http://www.insidecrm.com/features/facebook-marketing-toolbox-012308/

Twitter

Twitter is something that I was slow to come around to. I started to use it and have gotten really good results. In the past couple of months, I have gotten over 11,000 targeted followers on my main Twitter account. I have several different Twitter accounts, also.

I’m getting sign-ups to my list every single day from Twitter. It is pretty much all automated. I make a few tweets here and there, but that is it.

If you want to know how powerful Twitter can be, a guy by the name of Perry Belcher just won Frank Kern’s affiliate contest, mainly with Twitter. He has over 100,000 Twitter followers. I should have that many followers on my main account by the end of the year.

Another great thing about Twitter is how easy it is to use. You can have a profile up and running with a custom background and everything in about ten minutes. Once you have that, it is just a matter of getting followers.

Twitter Resources

There are some great resources when it comes to Twitter. I use a ton of them and they make things a whole lot easier for a person.

This will help you get targeted twitter followers by following people who follow people in your niche:

http://wefollow.com/

This allows you to mass unfollow those who don’t follow you back:

http://huitter.com/mutuality/

This allows you to do a ton of different things with your twitter accounts. It allows you to send direct messages when someone follows you, allows you to automatically follow those who follow you and many other things:

http://www.tweetlater.com/

100 Twitter Tips:

http://www.twittinsecrets.com/

This will help you stay organized with Twitter:

http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

Customize your Twitter background:

http://www.twitterbacks.com/

A killer software that allows you to follow targeted people and automates the process. This software is just awesome:

http://www.livelybrowser.com/TwitterFriendAdder.html

Stumble Upon

Stumble upon is a really cool and unique site. It lets users go through and rate different websites, blogs, videos etc. When I discovered stumble upon, it was the first site that I had seen of its kind.
The big thing that you want to do with stumble upon is to focus on great free content. Make sure that you aren’t selling them on something, right away and provide great information.

Stumble upon is a great way to advertise your blogs. You can advertise on there and get a lot of traffic for free, but their paid advertising can be very effective and way better than Adwords, in most cases, in my opinion.

Make sure that the main theme of the blog is explained. Also, always remember that good free content is always king and if you can provide that, you’ll be in good shape.
Stumble Upon Resources

This Wordpress Plugin will encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/what-would-seth-godin-do/

This is a really good Stumble Upon resource, there is some great information about Stumble Upon on there:
http://www.mikebogo.com/ultimate-stumbleupon-resource.php

Exchange stumbles site:

http://www.stumblexchange.com/
Share stumbles with Internet Marketing Forum Members:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
http://www.blackhatworld.com/

You Tube

I’m not going to say much about you tube. We all know about it and just by looking at some of the views that some of these videos are getting, is still just blowing me away. Some of them have millions of views!

You Tube Resources

Here is 30+ resources for you tube, mashable is a wonderful over resource, as well:

http://mashable.com/2007/10/08/youtube-toolbox-resources/

Another you tube resource site:

http://www.youtuberesource.com/

Some people will say the death of this or the death of that. Trust me, Web 2.0 isn’t going anywhere and marketing with Web 2.0 is going to continue to be a wonderful thing, going forward.

Yes, some aspects of it will change and you’ll have to adapt and make some changes here and there, but that is what Internet Marketing is all about. Experiment, make changes and adapt.

I highly suggest that you go out and take advantage of this wonderful resource called Web 2.0. Not only to use it to get targeted traffic, but also to network and joint venture.

You can ask for an upfront payment and they will pay you a certain amount of money, if they like your article.  How much do they pay?  Well, that depends on the article.  There is another way that you can make money with associated content.

This isn’t an upfront payment, you get paid for performance.  They pay you based on how many visits that your article gets.  You can try this if you think that your article is going to get a ton views, but I wouldn’t advise that.

I believe in using associated content, not to make me rich, but to use it to get some investment money.  You can then take that money and invest it in other areas of your online business.  It is a quick cash cow.

You can write the articles yourself and raise upfront money that way or you use other strategies.  One thing that you can do is to outsource the article writing. 

Now, a lot of people only make $3 to $5 per article with associated content.  Some articles can be worth a lot more, but lets look at outsourcing these articles.

There are some article writers that I’ve found that only charge $1.50 an article.  Why would their rate be so low?  They are from a foreign country that is very poor.

Then, the next question is, how about the quality?  I’ve seen some of these articles and they’re very good and I would pass them off.  Yet, some of them need some work and that is where a person steps in and makes some corrections.

A person can also hire someone to rewrite PLR content or do it themselves.  There are a lot of different things that you can do.  You just want to make sure that the content passes copyscape and is good content.  You want to provide them with great content that they can benefit from.  Good content is king in the online world.

You have to either give them keywords to target or have them do the research for you.  It seems so obvious, but I see people doing this all of the time.  Even if you’re just going to turn around and sell them for a higher price.  You’ll more than likely get way more for them if you have already done this.

Now, with that said sometimes people just want the content read naturally and they don’t want to be too pushy with keyword phrases.  That is fine also, but that should be specified.  It is writing more for readers and less for the search engines.

If you are going to be outsourcing article writing for the long-term, it is best to work with a team of writers or someone that you’re comfortable with.  It is just like anything else, once you build up a relationship with someone, things seem to work out better.

What I mean by that is you get familiar with what to expect from them.  You get use to their writing style and their turnaround time etc.  You know that you can count on them to deliver.

If you’re really looking to scale up your operations and you need a lot of bulk work, you’re going to want to look for someone that has a talented team of writers.  You don’t want to put too much of a work load on one person, that one person is probably taking on other writing jobs, as well, so the turnaround time could get too long. 

One more tip that I will give you is that I don’t post offers on freelance worker sites.  I talk directly to writers by sending them e-mails or direct messages.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like posting a job and letting it sit there for seven days or whatever and then not know for sure if anyone will even take it or if they do, I have to wait so long for the article or articles.  It also allows you to build a relationship with them, like I talked about earlier.

Good quality articles have been in demand online ever since I can remember and will continue to be in demand, in the future. Instead of creating these articles and charging for them, there are plenty of other ways to start making quick money off of this process.

I contacted one of the best if not the best freelance writers on one of the freelance worker sites. She takes in six-figures a year, just from one freelance site. I don’t know if she is involved in other sites or projects, but she really rakes in the cash. I know that because it lists how much she has been making on that one site.

I asked her some questions and she was nice enough to answer them for me. I want to keep her anonymity because I don’t want a ton of people bothering her and sending her e-mails, I’ll explain the strategy and how I’ve expanded on it.

I observed not only how much money she was making, but how many writing projects that she was taking on. I’m a writer, currently working on two novels and I’ve written hundreds of articles and dozens of reports and e-books in the past couple of years and I wouldn’t come close to being able to write as fast as it seemed that she was.

The answer was that she wasn’t doing all of the writing, she was probably doing just some of the writing. She had a team of writers in place that she would let do the majority of the writing. She would pay them a portion and keep the rest.

Basically free money. Once she had a dependable team of writers in place, all she had to do is bid and win writing projects and assign them to her team of writers.

How is this possible?

Having an understanding of supply and demand and simply taking advantage of that and being the middleman or controller. Tons of people seek good article writers and are willing to pay handsomely for them. A controller finds these people for them and appeases the demand (buyer). The controller appeases the supply (freelance writer) by giving them consistent work, allowing them to make a living.

The controller builds up a good reputation. Reputation is so vitally important for freelance work. It makes all the difference when getting work. People won’t hire people that don’t have good reputations. The good reputation also allows you to charge higher rates.

The controller has a huge advantage in the amount of work that they can take on. The shortcomings of many freelance writers is that they can only take on so much work because they are one person. With a team of writers the controller has a huge advantage.

Where do I find the demand?

At the sites that I listed earlier. The freelance worker sites and the Internet Marketing forums.

Where do I find the supply?

I also find the demand at these sites that I listed earlier. The freelance worker sites and Internet Marketing forums.

Why would they allow a middleman?

The main reason is that both parties are satisfied. The customer gets their order delivered on time and is of good quality. That is the main two things that they are looking for. The freelance writer gets work and gets paid and that is what they want. Steady work is very important to a freelance writer.

All a buyer cares about is that a project gets done when they want it done and it is what they’re asking for. If you deliver that, you’re gold and there is a possibility of a lot of return business.

Reputation is key. It is everything to a freelance writer. Without a good reputation, you either don’t get work, don’t get steady work or have to work for dirt cheap. When freelance writers start out, they have no reputation. They either never get jobs and give up or they get dirt cheap jobs and work their way up or give up.

You provide this reputation. You allow other people to do the manual labor and you just submit the work as is or make some changes and turn it over to client. That reputation continues to grow and grow and the rest is history.

The buyers are always there and they are always craving more work in various niches. You can develop a relationship with them and get that all important repeat business. It boils down to several joint ventures, forming a very prosperous online business.

What I Look For in Article Writers

The price is the first thing that I look at. If they don’t say what they charge per article, I ask them. Don’t be afraid to get into detail and negotiate with them. You always want to do the numbers, obviously.

Writing talent is obviously important. I want their work to be great, so that the client is very happy. I also don’t want to have to hire someone to make corrections to their articles or have to make the corrections, my self, but sometimes, that is necessary.

The turnaround time. You obviously want article writers that have quick turnaround times. That is for many reasons. You want them to get their work done on time, but also in time for a correction, if need be.

The ease of working with them. I don’t want to work with joint venture partners that are always in a bad mood and taking it out on me. I won’t put up with that, I want to have a positive relationship with them.
How much work they can take on. If you have a lot of work, it obviously helps if you can find people that will take on a lot of work. I’ll get into this more later, in my scalability section.

Mastering Joint Ventures

Mastering joint ventures is all about research, being proactive and courteous. Those are the three keys to mastering joint ventures.

Study how people like to be contacted. That is the best way to contact people. Some people never read their private messages or they have an assistant check their e-mail for them. You want to speak directly to them.

Be courteous. That is a big thing. Be respectful and complimentary and don’t be too pushy. You don’t want to sound desperate. You want to seem committed, but not desperate.

Introduce their benefits early. People want to know what is in it for them. You don’t have talk business immediately. You can compliment them first, but introduce how you can benefit each other.

Use social proof to show success. People are skeptical, especially when it comes to people that they don’t know. Once you have some success with joint ventures, you can show them that social proof through testimonials and earnings.

Scalability and Article Arbitrage Conclusion

When I talk about scalability, I’m talking about scaling up the profits and your operations. When you generate more revenue, you can in turn, invest that in your business.

This strategy that I just covered can be applied to any number of other outsourcing activities. Copy writing, web site development, working with scripts etc. There are reasons why I like the article arbitrage strategy better than using it on other outsourcing techniques.

The first is that you can get started with minimal investments. You can start out small and only do a few articles a day and keep reinvesting and scaling up activities. It isn’t that expensive to outsource a few articles a day, when you first start out.

The second is that it is pretty easy to cover the people that you use to outsource. What I mean by that is if they don’t get the job done or you need to make some changes to the articles, it isn’t that difficult.
The third is that the demand is so great. There are so many people that want articles, in so many different niche markets.

The fourth is that there are plenty of article writers, to recruit. Sure, article writing takes some skill, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or have this rare skill, to do it.

Scaling Up

There are a few different strategies for doing this. I’ll run through them and you can see what works best for you when you start to have some success and make money and scale up operations, at your own pace.

Getting creative through Internet Forums. One thing that you can do is sell packages of unique articles and give buyers private label rights to the articles. Limit how many you sell, but it can be quite lucrative.

Hiring more article writers. You either do like I said with The Internet Forums or you take on more work. You can take on more writing assignments and hire more writers to write them.

Taking on writing jobs yourself. If you want to take on some writing jobs to give yourself some more investment money, go for it.

The last tip that I’ll give you when it comes to scaling up is to be organized. Keep track of what it going out and what is coming in. That is very key to your success.

If you can’t make important decisions and don’t want to take on this risk, then you might not be cut out for this.  Not a terrible thing, it just certainly isn’t for everyone, some people just need to have a normal job.  As for people like me, I wouldn’t dream of going back to a normal job.

You also have to realize that all of these decisions that you’re making, they aren’t all going to work out and some of them will be bad decisions.  That’s going to happen, there are too many decisions to be made, some of them will go bad. 

No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.  The important thing is that you make decisions and you take action and you’re not too hesitant.  The people that never make decisions or are too hesitant to take action are usually the people that never become successful online.  Sure, you want to do research, but you still have to make the hard decisions.

A mistake is not always a long-term problem.  Notice long-term problem, you can do two positive things with poor decisions or mistakes.  One is that you can make positive changes to it and make it a positive.  The second is that you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake, twice.  

If you want to be a successful Internet Marketer, you can’t be afraid of making mistakes.  I’ve probably made way more mistakes, when running my online business than good decisions. 

Now, that sounds terrible and might not give you much confidence, but I’ve learned so much from those mistakes and have made so many of those mistakes into positives, over the years, that it has been well worth the risk.  A person is going to probably fall on their face a couple of times when you run an online business, the successful people get up and back on their feet.

There are no limits to your success when it comes to running an online business.  The freedom can be unbelievable, but you have to be willing to take some chances and take on some risk.  We are constantly living under risk.  Anyone can be here one minute and gone the next.  My advice is to take some chances, you don’t ever want to look back and say, what could have been?

Now, that is basically if you’re looking at a guide and basically typing it up and we know that won’t quite be the case.  You’ll at least have to put the content into your own words, but the typing part shouldn’t be a problem. 

If you have poor typing skills, get some programs and upgrade your typing skills.  You would be blown away by how much you have to type each day.  Some successful Internet Marketers write articles, reports, e-books, forum posts, e-mails, private messages etc.  It is amazing how much we read and write in a day.

What focusing on three to five keys points does is it eliminates a lot of the thought process that you have to have when you’re writing the article.  When you get into the actually article writing process, you want to be a machine.

What I mean by that is that you want all of your goals defined, you want your objectives to be clear.  You don’t want to be thinking about writing topics, you want to just write.  You want a clear mind and to just write.

In all of my experiences with writing, it is best to write with a free and clear mind.  Don’t think, just write.  If you can let your typing skills do the work and not the constant thinking skills, do the work, the work gets a lot easier.

When you have three to five key points in place, before you start writing the article, you have plenty of ammunition for writing and finishing the article in style.  Think of it like reporting on the news.

People who report on the news, obviously have to have some news to report on.  When you have your three to five key points to cover in your article, you have news to report on.  You can cover those key points and elaborate on them.

You can maybe focus on one topic and write your article about that one topic, but I’m more of a fan of breaking that one topic into three to five smaller topics.  It gives your article more clarity and definition and gives you a more direct focus.

One of the problems that people have when they write articles is that they have trouble getting people to read them.  If you’re in very competitive niche markets, it is going to be tough to target certain keywords and get your article on the front page of search engines.

I’ll have to admit that I hate SEO.  It is so damn time consuming and takes a bunch of research and then there is the trial-and-error part of it and you still might not see any results.  If you aren’t going to rely on the search engines, then you need to rely on another way to get your articles read.

One of the ways to do this is to get a targeted group of Twitter followers and tweet about all of the new articles that  you submit.  The first thing that you want to do is find people who are interested in your niche. 

There are sites like www.twollo.com where you can target certain words that people are tweeting about.  Another simple way is to simply follow the followers of gurus or authority figures in you niche market.

The second thing you want to do is build a relationship with your followers.  You don’t want to be selling to them right away.  People want to follow real people and not bots or people that just self promote.  Sure, you can tweet plenty about the niche, but also tweet about your life.

The third thing that you want to do is continue to build relationships with your following.  Continue to grow your following by adding more targeted followers.  Continue to meet new people and network and work out some joint venture projects.

Whenever you have a new article out, Twitter about it.  If you have built up a targeted following and have built some relationships, people will check out your article and maybe even re-tweet about it.  Go out and Twitter!

This is what I call the mini-guerrilla marketing campaign.  What I mean by guerrilla marketing is that you simply go a little crazy and get the link to your article in as many places as possible.  Get that link in front of every targeted eyeball that you can.

I call it mini because you’re only doing this for one article and maybe only for an hour.  Think of it as a power hour where your hair is on fire and you need to submit the link to your article to as many places as possible.

If you have a mailing list, mail them.  If you have a blog, post about it on there.  If you have a Twitter following, tweet about there.  If you have Myspace or Facebook friends, post about it on there.  That is the importance of building up your assets.

You can post about it in any number of different social networking or social bookmarking sites.  You can put a link to it in your signature line and post in various forums.  You can submit it various article directories, of course.

If you are going to put in the work of writing the article, you should go that extra last step and promote your article.  Relying solely on SEO can be the downfall of many article writers.

They don’t get anywhere near the first page of the search engines because they either didn’t take the time to do keyword research, they don’t take the time to use Web 2.0 or they are targeting keywords with too much competition.  With all of this time that some people put into SEO research, they could of written their article and started to promote it already, especially in the really competitive niches. 

There are all kinds of places that you can get traffic from, I’ve listed quite a few in this article, but there are plenty more out there.  When it boils down to it, a lot of times what separates someone who is successful online from someone who isn’t, is it comes down to focused hard work and acting on good information.