Archive for article marketing
Outsourcing Article Writing
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been dragging my feet a bit in relation to restarting my internet marketing outsourcing project. Partly because I wasn’t successful last time and partly because I now realise my expectations were way too high.
For example, John Jonas of Replace Myself recommends that you start off by giving your worker just one task to begin with. He describes how he works with content writers by expecting them to write 1 or 2 articles a day and then submit them to article directories.
No wonder my first worker disappeared. I told him I expected him to work up to writing an article in 45 minutes. After 2 days he hadn’t produced anything. I can see that that gap would have seemed enormous to him to be able to close.
Something else John Jonas said that really struck home was “Some people, after listening to my initial presentation, think that hiring someone in the Philippines is a magic bullet for their business. They think this is some magic talent pool of people who are going to fix all their problems.” Although I didn’t think an outsource worker would “fix all my problems”, after listening to John Reese’s presentation back in May, I definitely thought it was going to be a hell of a lot easy than it turned out to be.
John Jonas spends more time emphasising the learning aspect of hiring someone overseas to work with and that it takes time to learn how to manage them and the systems you will be using.
So this time around I will have to be more patient. Last time I was looking for someone who was good at English and had some SEO and WordPress experience. This time I will focus primarily on the English skills since article writing will be the first thing I need to have done.
Currently, it’s relatively easy to get good enough articles written for $5 each so I could be losing money when I start out. If my worker writes 2 articles a day that’s $50 worth a week which works out about $200 worth a month. Chances are I’m not going to find someone with good enough English for that rate so I really need to look at this as a long-term investment.
I won’t know until I try though so I’m off to find 20 potential candidates to email.
Critical Focus Time Backwards
Posted by: | CommentsJust had a 1:1 session with Ed Dale as part of the mentoring program. As far as this site is concerned I was a little concerned since I’ve been pretty much stuck at the bottom of page 1/top of page 2 for my main keywords, since April. However, Ed thinks I’m doing well, since I’m not going to get much traction from the search engines without a lot of time and effort as my main keyword terms are so competitive. So that’s encouraging.
I’m building this site for the long haul so, whilst more traffic and “conversation” would be great, I’m happy to keep at it and tell the tale whilst building the money-making part of the business elsewhere (for the time-being). One of my biggest challenges at the moment is not being able to get all the work done.
I’m much better at following a system and keeping to my CFTs but it’s still not enough to do it all. I’m still in the process of getting my outsourcing project sorted but that is taking longer than I anticipated. If I keep building sites the way I’m doing I’m just going to end up with a bigger log jam. Not to mention the other sites that I already had, before the start of the mentoring, that I’m not working on at all.
Ed was a great help with this by giving me a different way to look at the problem. I’ve always recognised getting a change of prospective to be one of the great benefits of working with a life coach and now I see that internet marketing coaching is no different.
I’ve built 2 sites so far, following the 5 CFT Challenge parameters, and, whilst I built the second one faster than the first, I’m struggling to keep up with the link building stuff necessary to keep them ticking over. The recommendation in the Challenge is to write, spin and syndicate one article a week and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. But I’m pretty much working at full capacity so there’s no room to build more sites and test new markets or to implement other sorts of promotion.
Ed’s suggestion was this. Instead of starting with the method first (in this case article promotion once a week) and trying to make it fit the CFT available, start with the CFT and allocate specific blocks to each of the sites, keeping some clear for new sites or development of old ones. This means that I won’t be able to write, spin and syndicate one article per site per week but I will be able to keep all my sites ticking over. So my next move is a plain sheet of paper, lots of coloured pens and a trip to my favourite cafe to sketch out the new plan.
The 5 CFT Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsLast week Ed Dale challenged his motorees to research, build and initially promote a website, with an eye to selling it 3 to 6 months down the road. No big deal you may be thinking but the twist is that this has to be done within the space of 5 Critical Focus Time sessions.
At first sight this may seem like Ed has joined the “get rick quick/throw it against the wall and see what sticks” brigade but there’s some masterful cunning behind his plan.
Apparently, many of us have been moaning about life in the grind (well, there’s a surprise) so this is one way to add a bit of variety away from our core sites, thus helping us stay motivated.
Secondly, it gives those mentorees who are in full-time jobs, with time for only 1 CFT a day, something to get going quickly on.
Also, it gives us more opportunities to fail in the field and make useful mistakes rather than over thinking things.
But, most importantly, it gives us practice and training at taking action, which will ultimately lead to success.
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So, count me in.
I love the idea of making things happen fast. It’s way too easy for me to get hung up on the details and then stall. With this challenge the focus is on the race against the clock rather than on the end result. More of a “can I get it all done in the space of a CFT block?” rather than “can I get it done exactly right?”.
So “how long is a CFT block?”. Well, Ed works in 30 minute blocks – 25 minutes on and 5 off – but I prefer 1 hour blocks with 45 minutes on and 15 off so that’s what I’ll be sticking with.
Here’s how the challenge breaks down:
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CFT 1
1. Pick Market
2. Find a keyword that works
3. Pick some category keywords
4. Register domain name
5. Write classic beginner draft for first blog post
CFT 2
1. Write draft article suitable for spinning for article directories
2. Create blog
3. Add analytics
4. Edit earlier draft post and upload to blog
5. Do basic bookmarking of post for indexing purposes
CFT 3/4
1. Edit article written previously for spinning and add to Article Marketing Automation (AMA)
2. Set up Google Reader to monitor niche
3. Draft an article to spin and submit to AMA next week
CFT 5
1. Do some by hand backlinking from authority blogs, forums and sites
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Therafter, spin and submit one article per theme keyword, per week until you are ready to sell or develop the site.
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So, that’s it.
Sounds fun to me. I’ll write posts about my progress and add the links here for those who want to follow on. And, if anyone wants to give it ago themselves please leave a comment and let us know how it’s going. Or, if you need a bit of help getting started you can ask your questions here too.
Outsourcing Project Setup
Posted by: | Comments
Having made the decision to set up an internet marketing outsourcing project it’s time to plan what steps I need to take in order to make that happen. I’m feeling quite nervous about this as I’ve never taken on a full-time worker before and I have hundreds of questions and concerns going round in my mind. However, applying the dictum of ”Fail in the Field and Not in Your Head” I’m just going to get on with it and take it one step at a time.
1. The first step is to answer the question:
“What work could someone do for me today that would allow me to generate income fastest?”
In my case, the answer is:
- article marketing – consisting of writing, spinning and submitting to article directories
- creating backlinks – by commenting in forums and blogs.
Since my site is new, I am still trying to build up traffic to 100 uniques a day. The above is the web marketing strategy I’m currently using and this is where I’m spending the bulk of my time. They are tasks that are easily outsourced.
Depending where you are in your online business some other answers might be:
- building a website
- creating a product
- video production
- customer service
- accounting etc. etc.
2. Next I need to look at how long it would take them to do those tasks to determine whether or not I have enough work for a full-time worker or whether, perhaps, I could share their time with another internet marketer. If you have an established business you may have more work than can be carried out in a month, in which case you will need to prioritise what will make the most difference to your bottom line, and either get those tasks outsourced first or consider hiring more than one worker.
My task break down looks like this:
| Task | Hrs |
| Write article/edit PLR article | 1 |
| Submit to Ezine Arts | 1/4 |
| Social Bookmark | 1/4 |
| Spin and submit to MAS | 3/4 |
| Spin and submit to AMA | 3/4 |
| Spin and submit to FTS | 3/4 |
| Add to Art Dash and Base | 1/2 |
| Total Time Per Article | 4 1/4 |
| . | . |
| Hand Commenting | 1 |
| Directory Submissions | 1/2 |
| . | . |
The directory submissions are low down on my list of priorities and could be if and when all other tasks are completed. So, as a starting point, if I do one article marketing cycle a week plus hand commenting, I’m going to need a minimum of 7 websites to keep someone busy full-time or 3 to 4 if I do 2 articles per week. I have this, although article marketing wouldn’t necessarily be the best strategy for all of them but at least this gives me a place to start and allows me to get on with the business of finding someone to oursource to and training them to do this first task.
3. I need to decide where I am going to look for a worker.
4. I need to decide what system I will use to manage the work.
5. I need to decide what system I will use to manage communication between myself and a worker.
Since there are a number of possibilities I want to look into, and I’m trying not to go into overwhelm, I’ll cover these points in future posts.
