1. Justin, could you tell us a little bit about your background (work, studies, etc)?

We’re not your typical Internet Marketers. My business partner (Joe Magnotti) and I, run an outsourcing company from Davao City, Philippines. We ended up losing a fairly major client and were scrambling for a way to keep these well-trained agents on staff and we decided to create some niche websites with AdSense monetization to see if we could simply cover their salaries until we could get them re-hired through another outsourcing contract.

We spent hundreds of hours and made $33.00 our first month, but stuck with it and in less than ten months we were able to bring in over $20,000 in just one month. (December 2010 until September 2011)

2. Can you tell us what AdsenseFlippers.com is all about?

We began documenting our process of creating these niche sites to assist with training and helping new agents as we continued to grow and scale the process. Along the way, we decided to break from our more “traditional” model of keeping everything secret. We decided to put that same information out there for others to learn from and follow and intentionally decided to keep it all free.

Our thought was that making this information free and openly explaining our successes and failures would pay off in the long run by building trust and authority for those looking to purchase our sites and open us up to other opportunities along the way. It’s paid off in spades in that we now have around 15K visitors a month and have been able to build up an email readership of over 2,500 in only 12 months.

3. From what I understand your income is made up from your blog and of course from flipping adsense sites. Can you give us an example of the cash flow that you have been able to generate by flipping sites?

Joe and I had a bit of a disagreement about the direction of the project in March 2011. I thought we had a winner on our hands and wanted to scale the process heavily, even if it meant coming out of pocket as we continued to grow the project beyond its original intention. Joe was less enthusiastic about coming out of pocket and so we decided to see if we’d be able to sell some of our niches site so that we could realize potential earnings NOW and use that surge of income to expand our team. Our first few website sales were through Flippa and we noticed a huge market for our types of sites.

We decided to continue this as we added more people to the process and started to create even more of these niche sites, keeping us profitable each month and giving us the cash flow to continue to expand.

4. Do you specialize in just flipping adsense sites, or have you also flipped other sites? What are the advantages of flipping only adsense sites?

We’ve dabbled with some affiliate monetization via Amazon, Clickbank, etc. but we didn’t find quick success and stuck with AdSense. We’re well aware that AdSense is considered one of the “worst” forms of monetization which, I think, is why so many people like to buy our sites. If they’re more familiar with alternative monetization they can purchase our sites and quickly switch them around and it cuts down on the number of months they have to wait to “break even”.

A real benefit to selling AdSense sites is that it’s so well known and understood. There are so many people out there that have AdSense on their websites that we have a much larger pool of potential buyers than if we were going with some unknown affiliate company.

5. Can you give us an example site that you have flipped and how much you were able to flip it for?

We typically package our websites together in bunches. We’ve found that, for us, a good package of sites is earning $90.00 – $150.00 per month and will usually sell for between $2,000 and $3,500 on Flippa. You can take a look at our previous Flippa auctions here: https://flippa.com/buy/search?q=TryBPO&status=ended

6. How do you select a topic or your keywords for an adsense site?

We have agents that use keyword research tools like LongTailPro. They will enter a “seed keyword” which can literally be just about anything. (We’ve found success by focusing on seed keywords that are related to blue collar products or products targeted to women and generally avoid those that are tech focused as the readers tend to be more ad blind)

We have those agents find exact match domains that are available for keywords that meet specific parameters and have them enter those potential keywords into a spreadsheet. The one thing we haven’t outsourced is checking the first page competition on Google. Joe and I still do this as it’s a subjective process and important enough to not outsource or give to a VA (virtual assistant). We go through all of the potential keywords and sites and rank them from 1-5, 1 being the least likely for us to rank and 5 being the most likely. We then purchase keywords and URL’s that are either 4′s or 5′s based on our criteria.

7. Once you have a topic/keywords, how do you go about building the sites?

We purchase the URL’s and then enter them into our Google Doc spreadsheet and our team goes to work…that’s the extent of our personal involvement. Our team uses WordPress and some particular themes that we use on a regular basis. We include at least 5 pages of content, 1 “primary” or well-written article and 4 “secondary” or cheaper articles. Our primary article is focused on the primary keyword…the one we’ve targeted as an Exact Match Domain and the secondary articles are targeting related keywords or long tail keywords. We then go through a fairly limited linkbuilding process and the site is up and live. It usually takes 2 – 3 months to get the site ranked and earning well.

8. The big question is traffic. How do you go about generating traffic for your website and how much  traffic do you usually require before you generate cash flow from a site?

As it usually takes 2-3 months to get the site up, ranked, and earning we have to wait another 2-3 months to sell the site so that we have enough earnings history to prove stability. The traffic will vary wildly, but much of the traffic comes from the primary keyword we targeted with a bit more coming from long tail or image traffic. All of the images we use on the site are targeted and optimized for search traffic as well and we get a surprising amount of traffic from them…definitely worth including on the sites.

9. Do you run any kind of paid advertising to get the sites started or is it all from organic search engine traffic?

All of our traffic is natural/organic. As a general rule, you don’t want to buy AdSense sites that are using any kind of traffic share programs or get most of their traffic from social media. Time and time again we’ve seen that these types of traffic are unsustainable and (quite often) the people sending this traffic, are doing shady things to get it,  that can then put your AdSense account at risk. An exception would be traffic that comes through links from article marketing,  although that’s pretty limited for us.

10. What kind of track record, as far as cash flow, do you like sites to have,  before you list them for sale?

Our “average” site will make around $10 per month. The 80/20 rule definitely applies here as our top 20% of sites are bringing in 80% of the revenue. In general, we like to get 20x (20 times monthly revenue) for a site sale. Our sites typically cost around $50 each to build and will go for $200 on average. We won’t generally sell a site in a package if it’s making less than $5.00 per month as the multiple is too low. We’ll hang onto that site until it earns more.

11. When you build a site how do you decide if you’re  going to keep it all flip it? If you are going to flip it, how do you calculate how much you want for the adsense site?

Almost all of the sites we create will, ultimately, be available for sale. (Some notable exceptions would be those that we have some kind of personal attachment to, those we’re testing alternative monetizations with or expanding to authority sites, etc.) All of our Flippa auctions start at $1.00 with No Reserve, meaning they’ll go for whatever the bidding gets up to. This means that it’s important we get as many eyeballs viewing our listings as possible and so we will email our list, post the auction link on forums we’re active on, etc…all in an effort to get more views and bids.

Unlike our Flippa auctions, we sell sites on our website and do not release all the information associated. (Analytics, niche, AdSense screenshots, etc.) Some of our buyers have requested that we keep this information private and it’s just a different way to approach website sales. Many of our readers initially found us through our Flippa auctions and we now have a large enough readership to where we can sell the sites directly.

All of our sites for sale on AdSenseFlippers.com sell for 20x monthly revenue.

12. If I was to purchase one of your adsense sites, what would be my next steps to increase its cash flow?

If you purchase one of our Flippa auction “packages” of sites we usually include additional content to the sites to get them earning more in the future, depending on various price thresholds. If you purchase from us directly we recommend adding 5-10 pages of content over the next 3 months and slowly continuing to build out links.

All of our buyers get our best tips in an email on how to earn more with the sites and we freely give all of that information away on our blog.

13. Could you give us a quick breakdown on how you get the sites to rank high? Maybe some of your backlinking strategies or the main formula you use to rank high.

Most importantly, we target fairly low-end keywords that we know we can get to rank without too much difficulty. We put in more time on the front-end so that we’re not stuck building a ton of links or waiting a very long time to get the sites to rank. In general, we look for the Top 10 results that don’t have the exact keyword we’re targeting in the title, do not have many root domains on the first page, etc. We make sure that our sites are tightly focused around the primary and secondary keywords so that they have the best chance to rank.

We do a little article marketing, bookmarking, and use BuildMyRank to add a few links, but our best tip would be to carefully choose the keywords you’re going to target so that you’re not stuck spending a ton of time trying to get the sites enough backlinks to rank well.

14. Once a person has created a profitable adsense site where’s the best place to list it?

Without a doubt, Flippa is the best marketplace for websites that are earning as they simply have the most amount of buyers. If you’re selling websites that are earning with AdSense you’ll confidently get 12-15x if you’re a new seller and 15x or more if you’re an established seller. Make sure to build up a strong reputation on Flippa and you’ll continue to pull in more with your auctions.

Definitely start building an email list or reader base so that you can continue to sell to them with or without your Flippa auctions after a few months.

15. What would be the most important thing you could say to a new person getting started?

You’re definitely going to make mistakes in the beginning, but the worst thing you can do is not get started. So many people spend their time reading about how to do things like this and never actually get started building anything. If you do plan to outsource this process, make sure you’ve done it yourself FIRST…it makes training your VA’s infinitely easier as you know some of the pitfalls and challenges you’ll face. Hiring a team of VA’s on oDesk (oursourcing service), and just asking them to build you some sites without understanding the process or giving direction will doom the process to failure.

——————

Thanks Justin, for taking the time to answer our questions on how to flip AdSense sites.

For more details and techniques on flipping adsense sites check out Justin’s blog at AdsenseFlippers.com
You can also view his adsense sites for sale by going to: http://adsenseflippers.com/buy-our-sites

Soon we’ll be flying south for 2 weeks of holidays with more family and friends.

Normally when I travel, I take my notebook computer. But, I’m a minimalist (especially when travelling), and even a notebook seems too bulky for me. Unfortunately mobile devices aren’t the fastest to type on, so I reluctantly resort to taking my notebook when I travel. However, I’ve decided to try something new this holiday season.

Mobile Pro Blogging

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I’m all about being mobile. I like the feeling of freedom. After all, pro blogging and running an online business is all about the lifestyle.

Knowing my quest for being mobile and a minimalist, my wife purchased a new Android phone for me, as a Christmas gift (I usually use Apple devices). The phone came with a built in “voice to text” app, so I decided to give it a shot.

I was impressed!

So impressed actually, that I decided to dictate this entire blog post (well, 96% of it).

In fact, I’ve started doing all of my emails and text messaging by voice.

I’ve also added a new voice to text app to my phone, that’s even more accurate and over time learns my speech patterns for better performance.

This got me thinking. Technology is moving at such a fast pace that it really gives us small business owners a big advantage. For example, if you publish membership sites or any online content (and all of us should be producing online content), then anything that speeds up the product creation process is invaluable. Not only will it give us more time, (and we all know that time is our most valuable asset), but it can also speed up our cash flow.

Voice to text apps speed up typing by at least 5 times. This means you can create books, articles, blog posts a lot faster. Faster production times means faster to launch, more content and more virtual real estate.

So for this trip all I’m taking is my Android phone to run my business and do some mobile blogging.

It’s all about work flow and systems

I’m a big fan of setting up correct work flows and systems to run your business.

It allows you to make your business scaleable and outsourceable.

Voice to text is now becoming a part of my work flow. Not only that, but studies have found that you think better and clearer when moving around. A lot more of my posts will be done while walking around, away from my computer (it’s good exercise too… .

My voice to text work flow

So here’s my process.

1. Short bursts of information: Instead of trying to do long sections at a time I use short paragraphs and sentiences at a time. This allows me to think, because speaking is faster than typing – and I need time to gather my thoughts in-between.

2. I don’t worry about mistakes: My goal is to get the information downing quickly. I don’t want to break the creation process. I don’t worry about correcting mistakes, I just keep going. Tweaking and correcting is left for the next step. Research has shown that when you get content down quickly the creation process is even more effective. Even if you start off saying just about anything. It’s like warming up the engines and it gets the creative juices flowing.

3. Clean it up: Once I’ve dictated all of my ideas I then go back and tweak all of the content on the keyboard. I’ll restructure a few things, add formatting and correct any punctuation.

That’s it in a nutshell.

I remember years ago when I wrote one of my books and I used a similar method. I recorded my voice and interviews and then had an outsourcer transcribe it for me. The results were outstanding. The entire book was written within 2 weeks and became a top seller.

Tools

The app I use is called: FlexT9

It’s from the same developers who created the desktop dictation software called “Dragon Naturally Speaking.”

I dictated part of this post directly into WordPress and the rest of it was done into an email and then pasted here.

My next post will be on the road as I travel around. It will be another voice dictated blog post

All I can say is this sure beats typing.

I’d like to wish all of you a happy and exciting new year!

I’ve generated income from…

• adsense sites
• affiliate sites
• membership sites
• mini membership sites
• ebooks
• software

What do you think is the easiest way to monetize a website? Leave your answers in the comments below…

Last month we ran a poll – where we let you decide which digital asset we should create and document.

The goal: To show you how we go about creating successful digital assets.

iPhone apps and mini membership sites were neck & neck, but the mini membership site asset emerged as the clear winner.

We now move to the next stage – coming up with the membership site idea.

Post your comments below for ideas on the membership topic or market we should focus on…

Naturally we like to teach by example (including successes and failures). In this 5 part series we’re going to create a digital asset and launch it to a selected market and document the entire process (a condensed version).

This series will only be available on this blog. It will include videos and articles (there will also be some extra behind the scenes content for our VIP members).

We’re going to cover 3 main sections:

1. Product idea generation

2. Product development

3. Launch and marketing of finished product

Why are we doing this?

Because we want to show you how it’s done in the real world – without hype, without trying to sell you something. Just a real-world “almost live”, community style case study. We want to keep it real.

You can be a fly on our office wall as we go through the process. You might even get to join in on one of our boardroom meetings with my personal team, via webinar to help make product and marketing decisions. Even if you just listen in, you’ll get to see first hand how we operate. I’ve been doing this full-time for over 9 years and we’ve got our systems down.

In fact, you can make your first executive decision right now!

Vote on which digital asset we should create and document.

Take a backstage tour of our soon to be released powerhouse plugin for WordPress. It’s called – IMPRESSION.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions asking what this software system is all about. Here’s our answer!

IMPRESSION is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to build, track and manage high converting landing pages – WITHOUT the need for coding or using an expensive designer! In fact anyone can now build a high converting landing page.

In this latest video I take you to our head office (which is really just a second home set up as our headquarters), and explain how this new WordPress plugin can build your list!

You’ll get to see one of our programmers working on it while I walk you through some of the exciting list building features. The programmer was building one of the pro templates that comes with IMPRESSION, while I was talking.

The 6 minute landing page challenge

I get to test drive the first copy of IMPRESSION. Watch as I build a professional landing page from scratch in about 6 minutes (I did cheat a bit, but I explain why on the video).

In the coming days we’ll be looking for beta testers to help us improve this WordPress landing page plugin. Join the list by clicking the link below (watch the video first

> Join IMPRESSION Beta List

If there’s one main thing that slows me down when it comes to building my list, it’s creating, modifying and tracking landing pages (including WordPress landing pages). And I don’t like to be slowed down, so I have the perfect solution…

Landing pages are a big part of list building. Getting it right can mean the difference between a very profitable campaign and an expensive campaign. Testing and tweaking is usually a requirement. Google slaps also don’t help.

If you’re like me, the testing can be fun. It’s the tech stuff and tracking that’s frustrating.

I mainly use HTML landing pages, which means I have to open up my HTML editor, find the landing page file, mess with code and then login to my hosting cpanel (or FTP account) and upload the new files. Time consuming and tiring. In a minute I’m going to tell you about a new and quick solution to this problem, but first let’s check out what I use landing pages for and some of the key elements I test, for high conversions.

How I Use Landing Pages

My landing pages (including WordPress pages) usually only have two specific reasons:

1. Provide some content and then ask for an opt-in (like in the example to the right).

2. Provide content and ask for a direct sale (I use this method for lower end products or for higher end products where the customer is looking for an immediate solution).

Really, there’s no other action I want.

I avoid creating landing pages that ask people to opt-in without first getting to know me or the product. I’ll always provide some content. I let my real content do my selling, and I don’t use hype.

There’s one exception: If it’s people who already know me and just want to get on an announcement list (for example, enrolling in a webinar or new software release), then I will exclude content on the page and go straight for the opt-in.

Key Elements I Like To Test On A Landing Page

When testing and tweaking my landing pages I focus on these main points:

• Headline
• The offer (the offer will vary depending on if it’s a request for a sale or simply to invite visitors to opt-in). The offer is usually for more content. If you want high conversions, your offer should have elements of curiosity and a promise of high quality content to come, after a visitor signs up.
• The design of the landing page (the template itself).

I usually don’t mess with the video or main content on the page.

The only time I change these elements is if the landing page isn’t converting very well, or conversions have slowed down.

Each component is tested separately. The best combination then becomes the “control” landing page. Best combination = highest percentage of conversions.

How I Used To Create My Landing Pages

As I mentioned above, my current landing pages are usually static HTML templates or PHP. Either way I have to mess with code. And when it comes to code, I have no idea what I’m doing. But I get by, by forcing things around with my HTML editor. Why do I use HTML? For flexibility.

The other problem is the menu. To satisfy Google and other Pay-Per-Click companies you need to have terms, privacy and maybe a few other pages. Gone are the days of one page landing pages. It needs to feel more like a full website. Managing menus when it’s a static HTML page means you have to update the menu on each page you create (unless you have some other code managing them).

Testing the different elements list above one by one can also present a huge problem. It can be hard to track the small changes and split test different landing pages. But not any more…

The Easiest Way I Now Use To Create, Track & Modify WordPress Landing Pages

For the past 6 months we’ve been developing and creating a new WordPress plugin that allows you to create, track and test your landing pages. All from within WordPress.

It’s called IMPRESSION.

This new landing page system for WordPress isn’t quite ready for release yet, but I’ll give you a quick run down on its features and why I’m excited about using it on all of my sites.

Key Features

IMPRESSION allows you to create WordPress landing pages that convert. Here’s why…

1. You can create unlimited WordPress landing pages. Including different designs, templates and themes.

2. IMPRESSION won’t affect your current WordPress template. It runs on its own template system, giving you full flexibility.

3. You can create clones of your current WordPress landing pages. Why would you want to clone a landing page? So you can change one element (like a headline) and keep all of the other elements and pages in place, without copying each page – then test it against the current landing page to see which one converts the best.

4. Full stat tracking. You don’t have to add any code to your landing pages. The plugin automatically tracks the landing pages for you. Here’s an example…

5. Add menus and unlimited pages, that won’t affect your current WordPress site. In other words it has its own menu, giving you full control over your landing page. It’s almost like a “mini-me” WordPress inside of WordPress.

6. This is one of my favorites - you can use it for launches! The plugin allows you to protect other content pages on your WordPress site ( it will protect any page or post), using your chosen landing page. For example, you can send out a video on your blog to launch a new product. When visitors go to the page, they will see the landing page asking them to enter their details. Once they enter their details it will unlock the page. If they then refer a friend to the page, the friend will also have to opt-in to view the content. Perfect for launches or premium content!

7. Templates! We all like professional templates. IMPRESSION will come with its own set of pro-landing page templates. But you’ll still have control on the layout and look.

8. SEO Optimized: IMPRESSION allows you to optimize each landing page based on your main keywords. You can enter your description and other tags directly into the dedicated SEO boxes.

Will you be a beta tester for the new IMPRESSION software?

If you’d like to become a beta tester and receive notice when IMPRESSION is released, just click the link below:

> Click here to become an IMPRESSION beta tester

IMPRESSION is a new and powerful WordPress Landing Page Plugin

I’ve been building membership sites and coaching clients on building membership sites for years now and there’s always one huge sticking point people run into. In the past I’ve also gotten stuck on it. What is it? It’s building the actual site! If you don’t have a site, then you can’t sell anything. Nothing else matters.

There are actually 3 key sticking points people run into. You’ve probably run into them yourself.

1. Selecting a topic
2. Building the membership site
3. Getting traffic to your site

But for now let’s focus on building your membership site. I’ll focus on the others in an upcoming WordPress post.

So here’s my solution: If building a site is one of the key problems. Don’t do it. Don’t build one. Instead just activate one! How do you activate one? The best solution is to simply activate WordPress and then select a theme for it (or have one designed) and install a plugin, a WordPress Membership Site Plugin.

Problem solved!

Instead of spending weeks agonizing over building a site, in about 30 seconds you can activate WordPress on your hosting account. You can then install the right membership site plugin and you’re site is ready to go.

The video above will show you some of our clients’ WordPress membership sites. Rather than a tech video it’s more like a case study (it also includes a little bit of self promotion on our updated WordPress plugin for membership sites

One of the sites shown on the video is my brother’s site. It generated 5 figure sales the day it opened up. The entire members area was set up within a few minutes. The great thing about it is that there are countless free plugins. For example, he wanted to have a community so we simply installed a “Questions & Answers Forum” plugin directly into WordPress. Everything is then perfectly integrated.

The video will also show you how to get a FREE copy of our custom built WordPress Membership Site Plugin.

Here’s what’s been great about my backlinking:

1. I receive direct traffic from other sites linking to my sites

2. The sites linking to my site or particular blog post push it higher in the search engines and Google.

3. The process is straight forward and can be systemized, outsourced and then rolled out large scale. It’s like firing up the jets on traffic generation.

One thing that I’ve been focusing on lately with my blog and membership sites is to build business systems and strategies that can grow my business even if I’m not there. The business gets bigger, despite me. I want to build an engine that anyone can run. That’s a powerful concept. It’s how you build a true passive income business.

My strategies have 2 strict criterias: It must be able to be systemized. It must be outsourceable.

This is the ONLY way my online businesses can grow, even if I’m not there.

And this brings me to my first step…

Backlinking Strategies or Linking Strategies

For years a number of my sites rank high on Google and even #1. They still do today. But I haven’t focused too much on backlinking strategies, I would just submit an article to article sites here and there. This kind of strategy won’t grow your business, when you want to go on vacation.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of setting up some Google adwords, writing a few blog posts and leaving it there and then wondering why your traffic is staying the same. I’ve decided I’m going to change all that by putting systems in place. Systems that run without me.

Fortunately, as mentioned above,  backlinking strategies can be easily systemized and outsouced, once you understand the linking strategies.

There’s one person that’s really simplified the backlinking process for me. His name is Duncan Carver.

Duncan is the author of ULTIMATE LINK BUILDING DOSSIER – And as he’s the expert in the field of SEO, ranking high in Google and backlinking strategies.  I’ll let him walk you through some points we will be using so you can also plug into your site to increase its traffic and increase your Google rankings.

Enter Duncan Carver…

If you want high organic search engine rankings, you need incoming links. It really is as simple as that.

You can have the crappiest website in the world and still achieve high search engine rankings with enough (and the right type of) incoming links. Honestly, that’s how important they are.

I always say that 95% of the key to winning the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) game relates to link building and your backlinking strategy because…

· The more links you obtain…
· The better the quality of those links…
· The better structured those links are…
· The more diverse those links are (coming from multiple sources)…
· The longer those links are in place (the more they mature)…
…the faster your search engine rankings will improve.

More importantly, the more stable they will become. It’s not much fun to see your website in the top 10 results for a specific keyword term only to see it gone tomorrow. Long term stable “free traffic” from the organic search engines comes from a well structured and executed link building campaign.

To understand why let’s take a very brief tour of the history of search engine optimization. Specifically we’ll look at the way in which search engines, Google in particular, have ranked websites in various ways over the years.

I also want to start here because this little story should help to highlight the fact that Google is really just a big dumb ass computer algorithm. It is not some mythical beast that can’t be tamed.

The truth is that there are probably around 200 individual factors that determine where a website ranks in Google. However, I would say around 95% of that relates to your incoming links. 4% of that relates to having good quality unique content on your well structured website. The other 1% makes up the rest of the equation (things like having “Heading” tags for titles in content, “Meta Tags”, etc).

What that means is that if you master that 95% factor – you don’t need to worry too much about the other 5% of the equation.

Seriously.

Although it certainly can’t hurt to have the correct “Heading” tags in your content, and good “Meta Tags”, and keyword rich “image descriptions” etc. in your websites pages (it’s just good SEO practice) – it’s actually not “essential” to your backlinking strategy.

You can sit there tweaking all those little things until the cows come home, but that’s not what’s going to drive your search engine rankings higher.

Not every incoming link, even with targeted anchor text, holds the same search engine optimization value. Certain links will have a greater positive impact on increased search engine rankings.

So, although the rest of section might be a bit “theoretical”,  you really do need to understand the varying degrees of value that different incoming links can have.

It will help you to prioritize your focus and understand how much time, effort & possibly money you should put into specific link
building techniques to ensure you’re getting a decent ROI.

Now having said that – in my opinion – a link is a link.

Why is a link a link?

Any link is better than no link and every link is going to have some impact on your search engine rankings. That impact will vary from little to none whatsoever in the case of really poor quality links. Right up to the biggest impact possible for the best quality links. And of course there are varying degrees of positive impact in between those two extremes.

Link Diversity – Is Key to Your Link building Strategy

In this section I want to talk about the importance of “link diversity”.

When I talk about “link diversity” I’m referring to generating incoming links from as many different and totally unique websites AND sources as possible.

That means if you’re going to use article marketing as a link building technique (and you should), then you shouldn’t just submit your articles to EzineArticles.com (a popular article directory).

You should also syndicate your articles out to the hundreds of other “less popular” articles directories. The reasoning here is pretty straight forward.

If all you do is submit your articles to ezinearticles.com then you’re only ever going to get “implied votes” in the form of incoming links from that one source.

Think of that as one website’s opinion of yours.

You can submit 100 articles to that directory which will increase that website’s opinion of yours,  however it’s still just one opinion in the eyes of Google. Granted it might hold more weight than only having one or two references on that website, but at the end of the day it’s the same opinion.

It’s going to have less positive impact than if there were “more opinions” involved.

If you go ahead and submit articles to 500 other article directories, then you’re getting 500+ “implied votes” (or many positive opinions) for your website from many different totally unique sources.

That is going to have a much bigger impact on positive improvements in search engine rankings.

The same thing applies to website directory submissions. Getting listed in one website directory is good. Getting listed in 1,000 directories is better.

Article Marketing as a Backlinking Strategy

Using Article Marketing as a method to promote your website and build your online presence has always been one of the most effective online marketing techniques available to us. Although the internet is already a primary “entertainment” source in its own right,  its initial “public” purpose was and always will be about finding and sharing useful information quickly and easily.

That means we need content to “get ourselves found” and the more content we have out there, on our own website and on others, the bigger the chances become that we are actually found by people interested in what we’re offering. And perhaps the greatest and most exciting thing about article marketing is that it’s one of those techniques available to all marketers, of all experience levels, even those of us that might have very
limited “advertising” budgets.

Most people can write basic articles and for those who feel they can’t or simply don’t want to spend the time,  we can always outsource the writing component.

Purely from a link building aspect – article marketing can prove to be extremely effective in building many incoming links to our website to help strengthen our SEO and improve our rankings. We can very easily work the “quality of” or/and “quantity of” distribution angle for maximum impact.

All we really need is the content to distribute and a means of distributing it. In addition to that,  it can prove to be a tremendous source of targeted low cost traffic in its own right.

Traffic that is not only steady but can prove to be ever increasing,  as your content becomes syndicated further around the internet. In fact, short of a continuous paid advertising campaign using Pay-Per-Click Advertising or Media Buys, article marketing would have to be right up there in terms of being one of the most reliable sources of traffic generation we can explore.

And sure, whilst one time joint ventures and email advertising can be excellent, they simply don’t have the “lifetime” staying power of any articles that you might have out there, published on hundreds of different websites, working to pull in targeted traffic 24/7 for the lifetime of those articles.

Article Marketing itself is certainly more than just a means of generating incoming links to our website. For example over the years…

• I’ve been offered speaking positions at conferences.
• I’ve been asked on many occasions to become a featured guest writer in related offline
  magazines and publications.
• I’ve been approached by venture capitalists.
  I’ve been asked to conduct interviews for radio shows.
• I’ve been approached for consultation work.
• I’ve been asked to co-author books.

The list goes on. Getting your name out there via article marketing can open up so many possibilities. In fact, if you take a look at the top 3 expert authors on EzineArticles.com (what many consider to be the most important “article directory” online from an SEO perspective),  you can see just how effective article marketing can be in terms of traffic generation alone. We’re talking millions of article views for each one.

Wherever possible you want to use keyword rich anchor text in your resource box and if you can include two links like this (using two different keyword terms),  it’s certainly better than one. If you can include two links, then you should also consider deep linking to the most appropriate place within your website in addition to your home page.

Those links should also match the keyword term your articles primary topic is centered around. Obviously here, we’re linking back to our website multiple times, and we’re using our strategic keyword terms as anchor text, at least once, to help develop better theme relevancy for our website.

Where To Distribute Your Articles
There are several leading article directories that you want to distribute your articles to. These are used by other webmasters and ezine publishers to find content for their websites and email newsletters. Here are what I would consider to be the top 5 leading article directories.
I’ve listed them in order of the average number of unique visitors each website receives, per month, from most to least popular (according to compete.com)…

· http://www.Ezinearticles.com – 12,756,939 monthly unique visitors.
· http://www.Buzzle.com – 6,698,877 monthly unique visitors (requires unique content).
· http://www.Articlesbase.com – 3,832,251 monthly unique visitors (requires unique content).
· http://www.Articlealley.com – 487,292 monthly unique visitors.
· http://www.Goarticles.com – 300,681 monthly unique visitors.
· http://www.Ideamarketers.com – 192,534 monthly unique visitors.
· http://www.Articledashboard.com – 150,138 monthly unique visitors.

…as you can see EzineArticles.com leads the pack with almost twice the average number of monthly visitors than the next most popular Buzzle.com (although this gets more popular by the month and in fact has doubled its popularity to this level in 2010 alone, not to mention what will happen in 2011).

I would suggest that you put the majority focus on where the visitors are. That means focusing primarily on submitting the majority of your articles to EzineArticles.com You might also like to consider Buzzle.com and /or Articlesbase.com as alternatives for your primary focus
(my second pick would be Buzzle.com) – however they do require unique articles to be submitted. That means you’re unable to submit an article that you’ve already published on another article directory.

So you’ll want to pick one of these top 3 directories and really focus on becoming established within it as an expert author on your given subject material. You need to set yourself a serious goal to determine how many articles you are going to have written and implement a plan to reach that goal.

Outsourcing Article Creation
If you start to get really serious about article marketing, and if you put some serious effort into it and see the inevitable results, there’s a point in time when you’re going to realize that outsourcing just makes sense.

There is only so much time in the day that any of us can spend cranking out articles without other aspects of our business becoming neglected or simply suffering from writers burn out. And if you want to scale up the article marketing component of your overall link building plan,  then it really is a necessity.

It took me a long time to realize this but once I began outsourcing content creation,  it freed up a huge chunk of my time and I was able to focus on other more productive things. So when you’re able to,  I would strongly suggest you consider exploring the outsourcing option.

How to Get Higher Quality Articles & Content

If you’re looking for higher quality content,  my recommendation would be to check out the freelance marketplace websites. These tend to have the biggest group of more professional & experienced technical writers. Such sites include…
· http://www.guru.com
· http://www.ifreelance.com/
· http://www.freelancer.com/

…look around in the content writing categories to get a feel for the projects other people are posting. Post a detailed description of your own project and be sure to check out the feedback given by others who have employed any writers that express interest.

My comments

Article marketing is just one method (highly effective method) for backlinking, but there are many other strategies that are also free and effective.

The question to ask yourself is – how many articles did you submit last week and the week before? If you answered zero, it’s time to get some links coming into your site!

For more advanced backlinking strategies you can visit Duncan’s site by clicking here (affiliate link)

Whether it’s a membership site, software or video course I’m creating there’s a simple rule I always follow, before I even start the creation process.

It’s called MPI – “Market Place Innovator”. This one rule is usually the difference between a product’s success or failure. In a minute I’ll give you the 3 questions I always ask myself to lock me into this rule of thinking.

Last week I was watching the news. The news story was covering a huge mobile computing and technology expo with people attending from around the world. The main focus was of course smart phones, tablets, etc. All of the big brands were there, Microsoft, LG, Sony, Samsung, Nokia, etc. – except for one, Apple.

The news reporter went on to say that Apple didn’t bother to come because their market share for iPads was so dominant. He declared, “They are the computer tablet innovators.”

Now I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that they decided not to attend, but Steve Jobs sure knows how to create and launch mega successful products and they have the market share when it comes to iPad type products.

Because I’m in the digital product development business, people frequently show me their new websites and products. Many are really good, but the biggest problem I see is that people are just repackaging similar or the same old content. There’s nothing exciting about it. To be honest sometimes it’s even kinda boring. After all, anyone can create or outsource a product, right? But there’s more to it than just getting a product developed and launched.

What makes a product exciting? What makes consumers want it at first glance?

One answer… product innovation! They want something new. It doesn’t have to be entirely new, but it has to shake things up a bit within the niche. If not, it’s just like old news. Ask any publisher – old news doesn’t sell.

Once you do shake things up a bit, you can ride that for a long time, years even.

Which are one are you – Product Developer or Product Innovator?

When you apply the MPI rule, there’s a mental shift. You are now a product innovator and not just a product developer! Small shift, huge difference.

How do I keep myself on track and follow this rule?

The MPI formula:

As soon as I come up with a product idea I ask myself these 3 questions before I begin the creation process. It forms the basis for all of my mind maps, brainstorming sessions, etc.

This is my thought process. This is how I think.

1. What concept is new or innovative about my product?

2. How will my product improve the market place?

3. In what way will it serve my clients better than other products in the market place?

As you focus on the answers to these questions you can’t help but to develop new and innovative ideas to better service your clients. Personally, I spend a lot of time thinking, before I actually create the product.

Does this mean your product will always be better?

Not at all. But that’s ok. I’m not always the most innovative, I don’t think that’s possible. You can’t be. But if your product still has a degree of innovation about it, it can still sell well.

Good news: You don’t have to be a genius!

Fortunately for people like me, you don’t have to be a genius to be a product innovator. Even small changes can make you innovative within your market. Below are some of the basic things I look for with my products….

1. Add additional features that other products don’t have

2. Repackage a product by adding another valuable product to it

3. Add some kind of twist to the product. For example: A new way of doing something.

Apply MPI rule to older products or products you’ve recently created.

This rule just doesn’t apply to seed product ideas, it can also be applied to existing products. You can go back to products you’re already selling and see how you can add a twist or change them to become more innovative.

I’ve done this many times, with great success. In fact, authors do it all the time when they release an “updated and revised” version of their book. These updated versions can match or even outsell the former book.

Try focusing on these questions for your next product (or revamp existing products) and become a product innovator instead of just a product developer.