Hey Jon

My feeling is that "article marketing" doesn't do a whole lot for expert perception. If you want to be an expert then writing a real book or speaking would be a much better way to go.

Even a blog (with the right marketing) would be better than the typical article marketing most people do.

I see article marketing more as a traffic generation strategy. If I see a person on ezinearticles with a few hundred articles all I can think is either they don't know any better marketing strategies or they simply don't have anything better to do.

Yes I had already been writing copy for my own business/affiliate products before I took my first client, so did have some proof that I knew what I was doing.

But here's the thing: I didn't have any testimonials and the client never even asked to see a sample. I ran my adwords ad and got a bunch of leads, did some research on the people that contacted me (I think there were 3 or 4), and spent some time writing a detailed critique/proposal for the 1 I thought was the best prospect. He hired me on the spot.

Article marketing, blogging, and other "soft sell" approaches are fine as part of a long term strategy. But I believe a lot of people are spending too much time on them simply because they're afraid to put themselves out there and sell themselves.

Article marketing is only good to drive traffic if you do it correctly, otherwise its just an incoming link for google. Find specific titles that dont have much competition. Its easier than it sounds.

Adwords is by far the fastest way to drive traffic.

Forum signatures in the right forums can bring in good traffic and comments on blogs...Not spam, actually good comments on blogs are always good sources for traffic.

Basically anywhere you can shove a link is a good place to get traffic....Ebay, craigslist...The thousands of free ad sites out there. Myspace, facebook and bebo are still ok.
All the usual stuff like submitting to directories still works wonders if you do your research..

Theres literally thousands of places you can get traffic from, its hard work! Anywhere you can put a link is a potential traffic source, use your imagination.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your site, it more depends on what type of product or service you are promoting and how deep your pockets are as to which ways are best for you.
You can use pay-per-click if you have plenty of money to spend and you can flat buy advertising on google and other place if your pockets are good and deep, or you can go the many free ways to drive traffic to your website.
you can do article marketing, you can set-up your own blog for free and use it to drive traffic, you can use the social sites like Squidoo and HubPage , build free pages to drive free traffic, you can use Youtube and sites like MySpace to drive free traffic to your website. There are many ways.

I always start with Adwords. You can start immediately and it helps you quickly identify your important keywords (which you can then spend time on optmizing for SEO if you want).

The great thing about Adwords is that if you can make it profitable (which often takes me 1 - 3 months of playing with ad and landing page copy, etc), you can continue to do it day in day out. With SEO I've had pages listed #1 in Google (for a number of years) that all of the sudden dropped (with a significant decrease in traffic). For this reason, you need to have an Adwords presence just to ensure a reliable source of traffic you have some control over.

David

How do you get a $1000 job when you are just starting out? In fact how do you <u>ever</u> get one? I keep reading about copywriters making big money. My hunch is their statements of income are just like their copy -- full , of hype.

Can someone explain to me what kind of copywriting job pays $1000? Who is the customer? I cannot imagine, so offer some proof. I am not just asking Kyle here, but anyone who has done this.

Only direct response copywriters need reply. Agency, money-making how to (or similar over-hyped products/services), or brand builder copywriters need not reply.

LOL... you're new, aren't you? Yeah, the big shots make 30K, 50K... 80K for a sales letter. Many of us make 5 figures for a job.
Um... what kind of copywriting job pays $1,000? The kind many of us would turn down. Who is the customer? Someone looking to get copywriting very cheap. Dude... 1000 is nothing when you get good and get going. My first... very FIRST copywriting job paid me $1,600. One of the young copywriters I coach started his copy career with a $3,500 sales letter.

Um... most agency guys make dirt compared to a good freelance DR copywriter.


I don't mean to make fun of you. I get that you're very new to this... but dude... you've got all your thinking upside down.

Oh and for the record, it's not hype if you can prove it. What you call hype may just be big promises. But I bet you never looked for the proof to see if it was real before disregarding it.

Here are some links from our very own copywritersboard job section

Two cheap jobs from a notoriously cheap job board @ $750 - $1500: http://www.copywritersboard.com/copy...html#post70302
http://www.copywritersboard.com/copy...html#post69628

A a decent one @ $5000-$8000: http://www.copywritersboard.com/copy...html#post69574

Ain't no traffic like some Adwords traffic.

Sadly, (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it)
most people can't convert their offers worth a crap to get
a decent ROI.

However, where the hell can you get a better message to
market match then bidding on the EXACT keyword someone
is typing into a search engine?

I'll tell you... NO WHERE!

Adwords RULES!

The only thing better would be ranking in the top 5 organically,
or great joint venture traffic.

Or, if the "Traffic Fairy" dumped a million visitors on your site,
that would be pretty cool.

How can I get in touch with this "Traffic Fairy"?

Yeah, MNC, $1000 isn't much for writing a sales letter. In fact, it isn't enough to live on if you're doing it right (unless you're really, really fast).

Some here say you can start out charging that much, but I don't agree. If I were the client, I wouldn't spend $1000 on someone who has never done any copywriting. So start getting experience (even if it's for yourself) and work your way up.

Jason Leister has a nice ebook on making six figures as copywriter. Go to Business of Copy and check it out.

Janet