You can approach the process of article marketing from two different angles. You can write articles that interest you or you can write articles for profit.
The two approaches are a metaphor for how people tend to go about creating their own internet marketing businesses. Most people think of ideas for products and then develop them just as article writers tend to think of ideas for articles and then write them.
More commercially oriented people tend to look for markets before embarking on product development. Similarly minded article writers look for valuable topics to write about before putting pen to paper. The real pros prioritise the writing of their articles to focus on those that will generate the most revenue.
So how do articles generate revenue?
As an example, I wrote an article in this blog a few months back about some software that helps you build a list. I wrote it because I strongly suspected that people would be interested in the product and that they would therefore be searching for it online. I included in that article my affiliate link to the product’s sales page.
A couple of days back someone searched for the product, found my blog article, read it and clicked my affiliate link and bought the product. Thank you!
That’s one way you can make money online with articles.
I could have written about something intellectually more intriguing but I knew that the product was interesting, that people would search for info about it and that they would buy it. I also knew that it had an affiliate program.
So I focused that day on writing an article about it.
And the beauty of much of the internet from an article marketing perspective is that once you publish an article like that it just sits there like a spider in a web, waiting for the occasional search that comes its way. And when it does, you can make money from it.
One other thing to think about is what you call your article. For example, if you are intending to write an article to generate affiliate commissions, it can pay to include the word “Review” in your title because people looking to buy a product will often search for reviews before getting our their credit cards.
In some cases you can do even better by using the word “discount” or “buy” in your article’s title because such searches are often done by people who have already made the decision to purchase. The next step they want to take is to pay for it and that is exactly when you want them to read your article and find your affiliate link.