Article Marketing Works - Breakdown of My Early Results

Hi Warriors,

Before I go more into this post let me just say that I am not the foremost authority on article writing/marketing. Still, I have had some success with it lately and so I have created this post to break down a few points which I think has contributed to my success. I must also add that it's not 'bank-busting' success but I believe the points can help anyone who isn't having any success and it may also help people looking to scale things.

Here's the article (with my notes underneath):

Article:

1 80 Leveling Guide - The Things You Need For Super Fast Leveling

If you are struggling with your WoW leveling then take heart. You are not alone. There are thousands of people who are in your position. The difference is after reading this article; you won't be one of them. I'll show you why a Warcraft levelling guide is critical to your success and what to look for in choosing one. Your chances of levelling to 80 are significantly improved so let me get into it...
Ok, so we know that without a WoW leveling add-on, you are toast, but what are the best features of good guide? The first thing is that the guide needs to be legal. It has to comply with Blizzards terms of service; otherwise you'll get an account ban.
The second and perhaps most important for you is that the guide must be in-game. Without an in-game guide your leveling speed will slow dramatically. 1 80 leveling guides that are in-game and come with guide arrows are your best option. Now I know that you may be tempted to go for a free guide, but that will be a mistake. Why? Well, I chose a free guide before I wised up and it took me months to level my character.
A really good levelling guide will also make the best of a super quick questing path. Most people don't know this but one of the quickest ways to level in Warcraft is through precise questing paths.
Good premium guide add-ons have efficient questing paths built in. What's more, these paths have been travelled by the best in Warcraft gaming. So when you play with a premium guide, you are almost guaranteed to succeed. Now that's what I think a premium add-on should bring to any Warcraft gamers' life.

Notes:

The above article is the reason I have started using articles to promote my offers. I have Casey Gentles (fellow Jamaican) to thank for the inspiration.

So far I've had 100 views to the article and 16 URL clicks. This translates to a 16% CTR which I am told isn't too bad. Of the 16 people that have landed on my presell landing page, 3 have gone on to buy, so to date I have made $81 from the article. Now I know that $81 isn't a whole lot but the article took me less than 15 minutes to write and didn't cost me anything except 15 minutes of my time.

Tone of the article

I try to keep the tone of my articles 'conversational'. I think it helps to relax the reader and builds more trust as they move closer and closer to the resource box. This may or may not be the best approach but it seems to work for me.

Keyword choice

I have learnt the keyword focus is very important and your article topic should match as close as possible the landing page content.

To illustrate the point; I've written articles on Warrior Leveling, Priest Leveling, Mage Leveling and although I have good CTRs to my landing page, none of these readers have go on to make a purchase. And that's despite the fact that Zygor Guides (the product I am promoting) teaches you how to level all three things mentioned above.

I made a sale recently from another article and true to form, it was from a keyword centred around 'leveling fast'. Of course I could send 'keyword' specific readers to a specific landing page, but I hope you see the crux of what I am trying to illustrate.

SEO

In terms of writing the article with SEO intent, my best results have come with putting the keyword in the title and mentioning it once or twice in the body of the article. I have managed to get the article on the front page of Google but no matter how many back-links I throw at it, the best Google will give me it seems is position 9.

Landing Page

My landing page is a simple review of the popular leveling guide from Zygor but I have bolstered it with a few bonuses. I have overtly encouraged the visitor to buy through my link in order to get the bonus. This incentive I believe contributes to the high conversions once they go over to the vendor's page.

My review sits as a sticky post on a self-hosted Wordpress auto-blog. Buyers on average spend around 10 minutes looking through the site and then going over to the vendor's page. I think having lots of content on the site puts the visitor's mind at ease and adds credibility to the review.

Early Lessons and Strategy Moving Forward

I have not been actively writing articles for long but I have concluded that there are two ways to go about article marketing. You can either go the 'volume approach' or the 'ranking approach'. The volume approach is hard work and will be hit and miss. There are articles that have got views and click throughs but no sales. When this happens it's easy to give up, and if you are impatient like me, may even think it's a waste of time. But out of the blue a sale will crop up from an article you wrote 2 weeks ago. Such is the idiosyncrasy of going the volume approach, but it works. You will make sales.

The SEO approach is the 'smart way' to go about article marketing in my opinion but unfortunately I am not a SEO expert and can't give much direction. Nonetheless if it can be cracked, I can see how one article can make you $1000 a month depending on your niche.

That's it! I know it's a long post but if you found any helpful tip in it then my purpose has been served.

Thanks for reading,

Hav