Well, I’ve been doing a bit more keyword research, and this is proving to be a tricky market, albeit a very rewarding one. Though I haven’t made any sales yet - I still can’t submit articles to EZA, remember? - I’ve found a heck of a lot of keywords and keyphrases to base my future articles on.

In fact, I’m so far looking at a list of 23 keyphrases, and I suspect I can comfortably get onto Page 1 on Google for almost all of them. Better still, all of these keyphrases get approximately 50 searches daily (according to the Freekeywords tool provided by Wordtracker) and can be seamlessly (more or less, anyway) integrated into the heading of the article twice, meaning much higher search engine rankings.

Hmmm, now - with 23 keyphrases, each getting about 50 daily searches, we’re looking at a total search volume of…  1,150! Heck, now that’s a lot - maybe not as massive as some other niches, but still rather promising.

I’m gonna get started writing them tomorrow and in the meantime hope that EZA finally pulls the finger out and gives me that damn Platinum status upgrade so I can start publishing articles every single day.

Really, there’s no worse feeling in the world than putting a lot of time and effort into your article, doing research and optimizing it for the benefit of search engines, only to see those ungrateful readers leave without bothering to click the link to your site in the “About the Author” box.

Well, it doesn’t have to be like that! Infodude posted at WF a great way to “pre-sell” people into visiting your website - simply make it clear from the start that it is only Part I of the article! Obviously, your biography box will then say that the rest of the article can be read at your blog.

Again, all credit goes to Infodude for coming up with this fantastic idea - I will be testing it over the weekend to see if it results in increased conversions (although I have a gut feeling that it will). His original post can be found here.

On a side note, my final article with EZA is still awaiting approval, which is rather frustrating as I cannot submit any more articles until my account is upgraded, and that won’t happen until the final article is approved. Looks like I’ll have to make the best of what GoArticles and ArticleDashboard have to offer…

Well, ok, maybe making a post on WF titled “Writers, You Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Talent” was bound to stir up some controversy…

Anyway, I just wanted to explore how people felt about talent - however you define it - being an integral part of of the package of skills you need to write a good article.

The answer is: very strongly.

Luckily, I had a tinfoil cap that came in handy just for this occasion… Nah, I’m exaggerating, of course, and, by and large, I think we had some terrific and civilized debate on whether having this “talent” thing is important in order to write a good article for profit (thanks, Vince!)

All in all, it would appear that one can’t dismiss talent as completely irrelevant when it comes to writing a great article. With that said, I still believe - and I’ll stand by this belief no matter what until I see some real evidence to the contrary - that you don’t need to be a talented writer to write a good, solid article.

It’s like a geometry class - if you take 20 students who all work equally hard and apply themselves, all 20 of them will get A’s - but 1 or 2 will go on to become the next Pythagoras. Now, to put that into perspective, if you’re studying for your Maths GSCEs/A-Levels, how important is it for you to have Pythagoras as a tutor and would a simple maths professor suffice instead?

The choice is yours.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone on WF for taking the time to contribute to what I think was a very interesting discussion. For those interested to catch up on what went on, you can see the thread for yourself here.

Pardon the multiple exclamation marks, but I just landed my first affiliate sale! Two of them, actually, from promoting Andrew Hansen’s “Golden Article Writing Formula”.

Honestly, $40.70 never looked better!

Ironically, just today I was coming back from university thinking of how my marketing campaign isn’t working. And then bam - I log in to see two sales!

How did I get them? Well, I had the bright idea of redirecting anyone who subscribes to my list directly to Andrew Hansen’s page, since his product is highly relevant to what I’m offering anyway. And heck - it worked!

Sorry for any typos here - in fact, I’m not even going to bother putting this through a spellcheck - but two sales! The first two affiliate sales of my life!

Regards,

George

P.S. If you want to make it more than two sales, why not get your own copy of Andrew Hansen’s e-book and find out how you can write a good article (including research and typing) in just 30 minutes? Get it here!

Yay! My first EZA article to end up on the front page of Google (beyond the fold, though). I’m pretty happy, actually - now here’s hoping I got my keyphrase stats right and traffic will finally start coming in!

Ok, so maybe some of the original articles I submitted in my first bid for complete marketing domination weren’t terribly successful; they still, however, completed one important goal: getting me closer to the 10 article submissions I need to qualify for Platinum status with EZA.

Now, obviously, Platinum doesn’t mean a lot in and of itself. Every man and his dog who bothers submitting enough articles seems to get promoted to Platinum status (though I saw some unlucky sods with 54 live articles and Basic accounts). However, the great thing about Platinum status is that your articles will get approved much quicker (just how much quicker, I have no idea - let me know if you do), which means that you can kickstart your bum marketing efforts a lot faster.

So, I guess the lesson for the day is - start writing and submitting if you haven’t got your Platinum status yet. These articles may not necessarily be relevant to your bum marketing effort per se, but they will pay off in the long run by letting you make money a heck of a lot faster!

Ok, it looks like my residual income effort will have to be postponed by a few days, simply because I need money quite badly in the offline world.

I’ll be working on a WSO set of 7 PLR articles available for distribution exclusively via WF. That should provide me with a quick injection of cash, as well as experience in WSO deals. Oh, and I’ll have to write my first-ever sales letter (oh, dear).

Ok, yes, I know it sucks and yes, I’d much rather be working on getting a residual income stream going - but my credit card company won’t give a damn about it, trust me.

Ouch, now that was a bit of a “aw bugger” situation! I thought I had my bum marketing campaign more or less planned out (and, indeed, accordingly to the plan I spent yesterday writing articles like a monkey that just got a typerwriter for a birthday present).

What I wasn’t counting on is that I can’t submit more than 10 articles without being a Platinum member! And with articles from my other campaign still pending review (which should happen by Friday), I can’t submit anything else until those get approved and I get awarded Platinum member status.

So, unfortunately, it seems that I’m losing a few days due to EZA stupidity! As if setting up residual income streams wasn’t hard enough already!

Ok, small change of plans…

With the limited traffic that I’ve been getting so far and Google pulling dirty tricks on me, I’ve decided that maybe, just maybe, I’ve picked the wrong market.

Seriously, with 12 results a day, it sure is a niche - but it’s not a niche that’ll get me to $500 a month any time soon.

So, having read some of Steve’s posts on WF, I’ve decided to follow the method that he made publicly available - and that’s first picking 5 products, then doing keyword research, writing articles and giving it a week to see if the campaign is working or not.

I’m now armed with 5 names of products that all seem to have very nice sales letters, and I’m running Niche Detector (which, by the way, is the best keyword research tool since sliced bread - at least its free trial) to find me some juicy long-tail keywords (been a while since I saw free KEI results - in fact, probably not since the overhaul of NicheBot Classic). Once I got them long-tails, by their, well, tail, expect me to go on a writing frenzy that would probably make Hemingway shoot himself all over again if he was still alive.

In short - Brace for impact, ladies and gentlemen, ’cause I’m armed with Niche Detector, lists of keywords and, most importantly, determination! Clickbank attack incoming!

Alright, I know that two days isn’t enough time to see any results at all - I did start getting some inbound traffic from my articles, but that’s about it. More ominously, Google seems to have dropped my Blogger niche site from its SERPs for whatever inscrutable reasons - hopefully this is just a temporary fluke.