JL Forums

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a post/article explaining how you could use Internet Marketing Tools and Techniques to setup and begin marketing yourself… a.k.a. “Brand You.”  That post was called “Case Study Success Story #1: Keep Your Day Job…”

Without completely rewriting the post here (you can find it if you scroll down the list of posts), let me summarize it below:

1. The first step is to use 3 free tools to begin to DEVELOP YOUR CAREER.
2. The 3 Free Tools you must setup in this order:
- A free LinkedIn Profile (linkedin.com) which will be your "home page,"
- A free WordPress Blog (wordpress.com) which will be embedded into your LinkedIn Profile,
- A free EzineArticles (ezinearticles.com) account which you will use to begin to build your credibility on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a free Business to Business (B2B) Networking Site that allows its users to setup a unique profile (aka History of Accomplishment) which can be published to the web.  For example  (linkedin.com/in/rfrederick) is my UNIQUE homepage.  It costs me NOTHING to support, no hosting fees, no domain name registration, etc...  I set it up one time and leave it alone.

Once you setup your linkedin profile, LinkedIn provides you with a URL like the one above which you can publish ANYWHERE on the internet and when someone clicks on it, they are brought to your LinkedIn home page. (I will explain why this is important in a moment.)

Wordpress is a Blog which allows you to STORE and ORGANIZE CONTENT.  Even though most people use a blog for SHORT SHELF LIFE information, you can ALSO use it for LONG SHELF LIFE information, such as a GLOSSARY of terms. (Again, I will explain this in a moment.)

EzineArticles is an RSS Server that PROPOGATES (spreads) information through the web to publishers who SUBSCRIBE to articles.  On EzineArticles, you will ESTABLISH yourself as a subject matter EXPERT about your job, and use your LinkedIn profile to CONFIRM your expertise. 

The plan is to setup a Profile on LinkedIn and use Wordpress to store a Glossary of terms about YOUR job, then Publish Articles about those terms on EzineArticles with one Link Back to your LinkedIn Profile (which VALIDATES your expertise) and another link to ANY PRODUCT or SERVICE you RECOMMEND (a.k.a. Article Marketing & Career Development)

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ARTICLE MARKETING & CAREER DEVELOPMENT
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Article Marketing & Career Development is the process of WRITING ARTICLES to develop personal and professional credibility (a.k.a. career development) and generate revenue by referring internet traffic to affiliate landing pages.

Article Marketing & Career Development is the SIMPLEST/LEAST EXPENSIVE/LOW RISK way to get started in Internet Marketing.

The basic THEORY goes like this:

You simply write a series of articles and embed a hyperlink through the “author box” to the AFFILIATE SALES LANDING PAGE for which you have already “registered” with. When a visitor to your site clicks on the link, lands on the sales landing page, and then makes a purchase, you get “SUPER RICH,” :-).

In REALITY, anyone who has attempted it will tell you that it is more complex than it sounds, and that very few people appear to make any money.

Here’s the problem.

There a number of reasons why article marketing is harder than it seems:

-   It takes a lot of work to identify the “right” keywords. Keywords which are “in-demand” may have too many competitors.
-   From posts in this conference, it appears to require a lot of articles (a.k.a. work) to generate traffic.
-   The products being sold from affiliate programs do not offer ENOUGH COMMISSION to justify the effort.

For example:

Everyone does Projects, so “Project Management” is a popular keyword.

To capitalize on that, I originally setup a glossary of 3000 project management terms to sell books from Amazon with affiliate links from the most heavily trafficked glossary terms. The books from Amazon were setup as “ads” on the glossary term pages. I got some revenue, but not enough to justify the effort. If the average sale from Amazon is, say $25, and I get a 10% commission, then I have to sell a LOT of books to make decent money.

So I decided to try to accelerate the process through Article Marketing.  I researched the top 100 article marketing directory sites, and setup accounts with 50 of them.  I then created and modified an article using the Best Spinner and put it out on each of the 50 sites manually (another enormous time consuming project).  What I found was that 80% of my traffic came from one site… Ezine Articles.

But I still had the same problem:

TOO MUCH WORK for TOO LITTLE RETURN. Amazingly, I discovered that I could sell products over the internet… i.e. that INTERNET MARKETING DOES WORK. But it just did not pay very well.

I needed to find PRODUCTS where the COMMISSION justified the EFFORT. So, I researched the online affiliate sites (like PAYDOTCOM), but nothing really stood out.  I mean, Jon uses PayDotCom for his products (which are excellent), but I was looking to sell something more expensive. Unfortunately, nothing out there really existed.

So I created my own products (I sell coaching and training). However, I am not going to promote my products here.  If you are interested, you can check them out on my website or send me an email.

Anyway, I am an Executive Coach who provides Career Development thru Management Training to Technical Professionals. Over the last 7 years, I have trained over 2000 professionals like you and it occurred to me that my students (or basically, anyone) could use Internet Marketing tools and techniques to promote the most valuable product they have… themselves.

Here’s how:

First, you setup the LinkedIn profile; second, you embed the WordPress blog into your profile; third, you setup an Ezine Articles account.

(From Above… “The plan is to setup a Profile on LinkedIn and use Wordpress to store a Glossary of terms about YOUR job, then Publish Articles about those terms on EzineArticles with one Link Back to your LinkedIn Profile (which VALIDATES your expertise) and another link to ANY PRODUCT or SERVICE you RECOMMEND”)

But then, Jon poured gasoline on the fire and introduced the updated Instant Article Wizard and I was blown away.

Let me explain:

EVERY JOB TITLE has associated with it a glossary of technical terms called a TAXONOMY.  If you drive a bulldozer, then there are “technical terms” associated with the bulldozer that are specific to that job.

Every one of those terms can be used as a “MARKETABLE KEYWORD” to drive traffic to your WORDPRESS BLOG and to your LinkedIn Profile.

Not only can you use Instant Article Wizard to RESEARCH and WRITE your glossary of terms for the blog, but you can also use it to help you WRITE ARTICLES to publish on EzineArticles which can be used to refer traffic to your affiliate landing page.

TESTIMONIAL: Instant Article Wizard is an AMAZING PRODUCT.

So, instead of marketing someone else’s product, you are going to market your most valuable product… “BRAND YOU.” This is also known as CAREER DEVELOPMENT.

What I have discovered is that the act of ARTICLE MARKETING & CAREER DEVELOPMENT for yourself can be used to generate AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS.

This is known as “having your cake and eating it too.”

NEXT STEPS:

Once you have setup your LinkedIn profile, your embedded Wordpress Blog, and your EzineArticles account, send me an email (to my Hotmail account listed below) entitled “Career Development Coaching” and I will take you to the next level of Career Development.