Johnson.

I reckon anyone wwho knows how to ake the cynic shell out his hard-earned dollars can market to anyone. Marketing is all about trust. Well, the cynic is one of those guys who doesn’t give out trust like it’s free. You have to earn it. He’ll make you work for it. That’s why when you write copy or whatever, you’ve got to write it for the inner cynic in you. A good way to practise is by reading some cpy yourself and finding where you find yourself being cynical. Here are 7 phrases cynic’s use:

1. “yeah right!” you’ve made a crazy claim that you can’t back up or can’t prove.

2. “you don’t even know who I am!” you try to generalise the reader into a category.

3. “so what?” you’ve said something which you think has sounded impressive but isn’t.

4. “what’s your point?” you’ve said something that seemingly has no purpose.

5. “why should I?” or “what’s in it for me?” you’ve told them to do something, like “click here now!” but they see no reason to.

6. “prove it!” you’ve said something, they’re interested but they want proof.

7. “why should I listen to you?” this one should be first, but it’s the credibility issue. why should they listen to you?

So if you want to write better copy or just market better in general, see if there are any holes by always asking yourself these questions/statements.

It’s about 12:10 a.m. Monday morning over here down under. I finished doing about 6 hours of study today. Exams are coming up this week. God, I can’t wait to finish Physics and Chemistry. It only hit me last night that my Computation exam is next week as well. Scary stuff.

I’m no good with code. I just don’t get the logic behind it. Oh the language I’m learning is C, by the way for those of you who are software engineers/computer scientists.

But speaking of code, I ended up playing with meta tags for the first time ever. I was sort of apprehensive; let me fill you in on my coding experience.

I was first exposed to programming back in Year 9 when I did a subject called Programming & Hardware. I was working in HTML, a relatively simple code used to code the Internet, basically. I sucked at it. I then used Microworlds to design a very simple game. I sucked at that  too. I’m pretty sure I ended up copying my mates in the  test.

Fast forward to now. I’m doing a major in Engineering Systems and struggling with C. So you can understand why I’m so apprehensive with code. I looked it up in Google, “how to change meta tags in wordpress”, or something along those lines.

It actually wasn’t that hard. I changed it for three of the blogs that I’m currently active on at the moment. I’m assuming it wasn’t that hard; I’ve yet to see the results and see whether my meta description comes up nicely on Google or not.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of the main fitness niches I was focusing on which I ran on a WordPress hosted blog, was updated today, just a few hours after I’d added a new post to it. Well, maybe not a few hours, but within 24 hours. I mean, it had shifted down a few spots for the keyword I had it ranking for, but that didn’t bother me.

That could have been due to the fact that I went to Google Webmaster Tools and added the site map, also verifying it today. I installed a WordPress plugin that made a sitemap that was compatible with Google so that was fine, but getting on good terms with Google and having the spiders crawl my blog was the important thing.

I’ll chuck up a post soon on ways you can get your WordPress hosted blog up and getting crawled very quickly. With tools that are freely available to anyone, of course.

Article marketing is a popular way to get visitors to your site for one main reason: it’s easy to do. It’s not hard to sit down and type up a 500 word article.  However, a lot of people exploit this fact and abuse article marketing. They call article marketing a numbers game; there is more focus on quantity vs quantity. Could it be made more effective?

Noob article marketers write a heap of articles to just help them understand the niche better. Value they bring to the table might be little, but it’s helping them improve. I myself have done this on occasion, heck, I still do it. I wish I did it from the very beginning since I started affiliate marketing because then I’d be helping other people understand it along the way.

Ideally, the articles you write (or get written for you) should be so good that you don’t have to rely on people finding them, they should be spread around by people who’s emotional centres you hit. The reason why people see it as a numbers game is because, more often than not, they tend to write “generically”, listing facts, “top 3 reasons” blah blah blah, instead of writing things that people want to know.

That’s the ultimate problem with article marketing. I’d say it’s a safe bet that 99% of the content that people bring to the table is pretty redundant and will disappear not only from the search engines but from people’s minds pretty quickly.

Having said all this, I think the problem is actually the way that article marketing first came about. If everyone could write out an article that would get 100 publishers, then no one would need to outsource article marketing. People only outsource it because it’s boring and they want someone else to do their dirty work. But if they really enjoyed the topic and that was communicated across in the articles they wrote, then their results would be reflected by how viral the actual article is.

Now that I think about it, if there weren’t so many crappy articles out there, there probably wouldn’t be so many article directories. Maybe EzineArticles.com wouldn’t even exist (gasp!). Think about it. People submit hundreds of articles to these directories every day. People join Ezinearticles like every minute. Not everyone keeps writing articles. Some people just join up then forget about it. A lot of people write crappy articles and submit them. EzineArticles.com exploits this by putting ads in each article.

I guess one aspect that makes Article Marketing truly a numbers game is the fact that if you write a heap of articles, like over 100, you might be lucky with a few because they’ll end up on the first page of Google and stay there. I’ve got a couple articles like that.

My deal with that however is that it feels hit and miss. Like, you need to spend all that effort writing 100 articles only to have 2 or 3 really good ones. It’s not really marketing at all. It’s luck, grit and patience. You know what I’m saying?

No one’s expecting you to write superb articles each and every single time. That’s crazy. Instead, aim to always hit a certain threshold on the response graph. It will slowly but surely create credibility with your prospects and, at the same time, you’ll naturally get better at writing in general.

As long as you write articles because you are genuinely interested in the topic (or interested in something that relates to it), then that interest will be communicated across to readers. There aren’t enough article writers who write articles that get published like crazy.

In conclusion, I think that Article Marketing, in its current state, is a numbers game, though ideally, it should focus more the quality of the content and try providing excellent value with a marketing focus.

So I get up at 11:30 am this morning. I was playing Badminton last night and was considerably tired since the night, well morning  before, I was chatting with a mate until 6:30 am.

So yeah, I get up and check my emails and one of the lists I’m subscribed to is CopyBlogger. Now, if you’re a blogger who wants to drastically improve pretty much everything, then CopyBlogger is the way to go. I mean, there’s providing value and then there’s PROVIDING VALUE.

You know when sometimes you read an article and you’re like, “ah yeah, that’s interesting…” and then you forget about it right after you “x” out of the tab? Well the information that you’ll find at CopyBlogger is stuff that you’ll remember, simply because stuff they say just makes sense.

I’d like to quote the one and only Einstein:

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

CopyBlogger simply encapsulates this tenet and then some. For a bit of recursiveness, the email that I received today was talking about a guy called Rajesh Setty, a dude who lives in Silicon Valley and is an entrepreneur. I was compelled to write this post because of one particular picture that CopyBlogger used as the basis of today’s email…

"9 Ways People Respond To Your Content Online"

A picture tells a thousand words. Yeah, yeah that’s a saying that everyone knows. It’s often overused but I have no choice but to use it in this sense.

I mean look at it. It’s so simple and compelling at the same time that I just had to take action upon it. I guess  I felt… somewhat inspired? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about article marketing vs video marketing, social bookmarking and just affiliate marketing in general.

This simple diagram is like a grounding; I feel like it keeps me safe by helping me categorise what sort of information I’m putting out there into the World Wide Web and, ultimately, how much value I’m adding to the virtual stratosphere.

I guess I took action because of the emotion of security, just from that little mental dump.

My gut’s been telling me recently that there’s something wrong with article marketing, or to put it more correctly, article marketing is being used in the wrong way. Everyone agrees that article marketing is a numbers game. Even I agree. But if you’re focusing on numbers alone, ie. you’re focusing on quantity and not quality, then you’d probably be scoring a 2-3 on the response scale above? Maybe a 4, max?

This leads me on to think about those who outsource article writing (including me). What difference does it make getting someone to write articles than writing them myself, attitude-wise? I only outsource them in the first place because, simply put, I can’t be bothered writing articles on that topic, BECAUSE it doesn’t interest me.

Paying someone to do it for me, whether I pay them $5 or $20 an article… I mean, they have an added incentive which is payment, but if the topic doesn’t interest them, then how good is the quality of the article going to be?

You know what I’m saying?

It’s called article marketing, but as long as you treat it as a numbers game and try to dredge up visitors, you’re not marketing at all. You’re making statistics.

Phew… think I’m going to make some lunch now.

To me, written content has always been there more for the general value that it brings to the reader, rather than filling it up with keywords so that, fingers crossed, it might just fluke a page 1 ranking in Google.

I’m pretty sure it’s just been of recent, but not EzineArticles doesn’t let you submit an article with a vague title. They want keywords that make the article more search-friendly, at least for the internal search engine within EzineArticles.

I’m a firm believer in providing value before going for the peripheral and more often than not, ephemeral page rankings that might come with an article with good keyword density. As far as I’m concerned, keyword density is dead. I mean, even if your keywords were strategically placed so perfectly that they are on the first page for that keyword, the chances that it’ll stay there, due to lack of competition are almost nil, especially if it’s a good keyword.

I’m no where near a professional article writer. I wrote articles and shot them to one of my other blogs but I was playing the numbers game back then. I choose to outsource my article writing.

I’m sort of just going around in circles now (see, told you I wasn’t a good article writer =p) but the point I want to make before I wrap up this post is you should write for people to read first and not search engines to scan. The longer you write, the better you’ll get at it and the more successful your articles will be in the search engines as well as with people.

Yeah, I was  going to write this post yesterday, but I got tired, so I forgot about writing it.

I’ve got a pretty big ego. Hell, my ego requires that I say that just so that it’s satisfied. Checking up the stats for this blog yesterday I think it was. Someone actually looked up my name. Johnson Kee. Now, it could’ve just been me on like a university computer or something… but man. It sent my imagination into overdrive.

I look up my Internet Marketing heroes, you know, Frank Kern, Edmund Loh, Aurelius Tjin and to an extent, Travis Sago. I look at how many hits their names get in Google’s External Keyword Tool. And I sigh. I dream. I wonder. What would it be like having someone you don’t even know look up your name from the side of the world?

Of course, your name has to be looked up for all the right reasons. I’d like to think that I’m at the crest of a new wave of Affiliate Marketers to grace the World Wide Web. One who effortlessly combines social media marketing, Web 2.0 and video marketing. Someone who has the gusto and vibrance to change the world.

Yeah, that’s who I want to be.

This new method of Affiliate Marketing is so new that I haven’t even thought up of a name  for it yet. It’s been done before, so it’s not that new. I’m writing this post after having just written the one on Travis Sago. No prizes for who this idea’s off then. =p

I’m assuming anyone who reads this blog is familiar with Travis Sago and his Bum Marketing Method. What he does is provide some EXCELLENT value by teaching people a free way to make money online. Then, at the end he shows a video that advertises Wealthy Affiliate, at which he can be found and, naturally, since the content he gives is good, more can be expected from Wealthy Affiliate.

It’s crazy… it only occurs to you what he does when you become “one of them”. =p But yeah, ingenious really… I mean, if you go to Google’s External Keyword Tool and look up “Bum Marketing”, there’s like 5400 hits a month! He’s AUTOMATED the affiliate marketing process! And all he’s done is write 3 pages of content (and got it ranked of course) but it’s so useful that it’s gone VIRAL and people know about it.

I’m building up my right own little list of marketing methods, aren’t I? I wonder how many I’m actually going to use… I bet if I actually used these methods and made a video out of them, that’d make my rankings shoot up ey?

Anywho, for now I’m going to call this method, the “Free Taste Method”. As in, a taste of what’s to come. A taste of the real thing.

When I signed up for Wealthy Affiliate ages ago, I didn’t know just who the hell Travis was. All these noobs were extolling the virtues of this so-called “Bum Marketer”. I wonder what this Travis was like…

He’s one of those rare kinds who possessed the grit, determination and natural talent to start off with to be a marketer. You know, someone who is good at connecting with people. I just looked up “Bum Marketing” on Google… like, 5400 hits/month! How’s that for a heap of awesome affiliate sales for Kyle & Carson?

Anywho…

I just got one of his emails. Yeah, I’m subscribed to his list. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the guy’s alright. But I’m sure it’s not just me who gets tired of his constantly happy tone in his emails. I don’t know… how many people actually feel appreciated when he finishes off his emails with, “Hope you know how much you mean to me!”

Yeah, that’s what they teach to you to be a better list marketer, but I’m not biting, you know what I’m sayin’? Sorry, I just watched “Take The Lead” with Antonio Banderas. =p

I’m not a fan of gurus. Not saying that Travis is one but yeah. Anywho, back to the email. How many people just received one called, “YOU may be in VIOLATION…” I’m sure a fair few number of you. He talks about three things in there.

Well let me backtrack a bit first. He says this:

OK, so here’s you. You’re just about finished doing everything you have to do to make sure your campaigns are going well. You’ve got about half an hour left before the time that you wrap up. Is there anything worth doing in 20 minutes to half an hour that would benefit your campaigns?

Here’s a little something you can do to if you’ve got a blog.

1. Go to the Google External Keyword Tool and look up keywords that you feel like writing about. Make sure it’s within the scope of your blog, of course.

2. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and a post you write will snag a page 1 position in Google. Start with a wide range of keywords and as you write your short posts before you go to bed every night, you’ll eventually get a feel for which keywords are each to rank for.

3. Focus on these keywords and make them the keywords that you and your blog will dominate.

4. If you’ve got a bit more time up your sleeve, write an article. This is even more valuable than writing a post, since you’re leaving a backlink on a website that probably has a higher page rank than your site does (if your blog had a higher page rank than say EzineArticles.com, then you probably don’t need to be writing articles and linking towards it anymore!).

5. Don’t aim to fill up your article with keywords. I just resubmitted some of my old articles after changing the Bio Box at the bottom and EzineArticles.com now has this new rule where the keyword density of certain keywords has to be <2%. Seriously, just write and aim to provide good information. Write about whatever you feel like, but make sure of course that it has some relevance to your website that you’re linking to.

Ideally, if you can get both done in half an hour, I can assure that if you do this every night before you go to bed, you’re going to have a very formidable and reliable blog which will have the ability to earn you a lot.

One of the hardest things about Affiliate Marketing or any sort of online or offline marketing for that matter is conducting a relevant campaign. If there’s anything I learnt from the period I was a Wealthy Affiliate member, it’d probably be that a relevant campaign is most important.

As in, it doesn’t matter if you get 1000 unique visitors a day, it’s pointless if you have a website that doesn’t answer their questions. You’d be lucky to get 1 sale. The bounce rate will be high and you’ll be losing money out of your ears. You’d rather 100 visitors a day at a 10% conversion, which is extremely high by the way. But it’s possible, if you focus on excellent, relevant marketing.

Now, in case you don’t know, I am a Science student by profession. Affiliate Marketing is one of my passions and sources of income. I’ve flipped through marketing textbooks and stuff but just like all text books, they’re way too convoluted.

I was just going to have to rely on a holistic and logical understanding of marketing. I mean sure, most of the gurus online had degrees in sales and marekting or management or whatever, commercey type subjects. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t going to fit into this mould and I’m determined to succeed so I’m going to make it work my way.

Having said all that, everything you’re just about to read is going to benefit you most if you’re someone who started from scratch like me, with nothing but desire. Like everything I learnt from Affiliate Marketing, everything I said made sense to me and was purely derived from logic. No confusing statements, just straight-forward, “If A=B, then B=C” type statements.

OK. The first question is “what do they want?” It’s not too hard to remember. You’ve got a product you want to promote, people are looking for a solution. Join the dots. The second question is “WHY do they want it?” This addresses the emotional aspect of purchasing. I heard it first from Ann Sieg, well-known MLM specialist: “people purchase with emotion and justify with logic.” This is the part that takes practice.

I read somewhere that it takes 8 seconds for you to grab people’s attention. I actually had this idea like right now. This is where layout’s important. Your layout has to be CLEAN. It has to instill a sense of security in the person, they don’t want to feel like their online safety could be compromised by being on your site.

But to REALLY catch them in the first 8 seconds, have a killer heading, banner and a big, clear picture that makes them feel something. Don’t jump straight into the hard-selling mode, that’ll lose them. Instead, somehow link the emotion with confidence in your site that the things you promote on it will alleviate the problem.

Number 3 is “WHY haven’t they already been able to get what they want? ie. what’s preventing them from getting it?” This is where you address the problems involved and why current methods aren’t working.

Number 4 is “Is the thing I’m promoting able to take away the impediment that prevents them from getting what they want?”

Number 5 is “How does it take it away?” This is where you delve into it and go into detail. Remember to speak normally, not in a salesy sort of voice. talk to the PERSON as if you’re a mate or family member recommending something.

Number 6 is “Is it the most effective way to remove it? ie. is there any chance that the impediment might come back?” this is a way to further garner trust, to address any “hold on a sec’s” that your “mate/family member” might have had when you were explaining your thing. It shows that you’re listening to them and understand them well enough to preempt any questions they might have?”

Number 7 is more for your own sake. After going through 1-6, you should have a good idea as to the key relevance question: “so, what are we really selling, in this case?” ie, all the questions above should fall into a logical pattern that allows you to ultimately answer this question. It’s hard answering this question immediately and it sounds salesy.

Hope it helps you understand affiliate marketing better! This is really scrappy but I hope to hone this and perfect it and formalise it to make it better for people to understand. I might make it a free e-book or something. Like a “Marketing for dummies” kind of thing. It takes a while to understand, but once you get it, you’re good.