GLP #1 – How to Outsource Ezine Article Creation

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On Tuesday I wrote an article that introduced my “Go Large Project” (GLP). This is a case study where I take a successful affiliate promotion and maximize the results.  Today, I’d like to give a quick update on this project and talk about the right way to outsource ezine articles.

The success of the GLP is built on content creation.  My plan is to blanket an entire niche with a massive amount of information that all points back to my affiliate marketing site.  This content will cast a wide net and naturally attract my core audience.

To maximize this strategy, I’ve decided to remove myself from the process.  Instead of writing these articles, I’m going to manage the process and build a team of people who will create my content.

Here’s how it works:

Create an Article Marketing Blueprint

Article Marketing BlueprintBack in December I wrote an in-depth post about how to increase your success with article marketing.  The main point was you get the best results by writing short articles (less than 400 words) with only a few paragraphs.

What I didn’t discuss is that every niche has a limited number of talking points.  You can literally break down every topic into a set quantity of information.  There’s no need to reinvent the wheel with every article.  All you do is take a keyword phrase, write three blocks of text and add an intro/author bio.

As an example, I’ve boiled down my niche topic into 26 distinct bits of information.  Each is around 100 words.  Then I compiled a massive list of 10,000 keywords relating to my niche.  Over 90% of these keywords can be answered with the concepts that I cover in these blocks of text.

Bottom line is I now have an article marketing blueprint that can be followed by any writer.  I don’t have to worry about finding someone with a PhD in English.  All I really need is someone who has enough skill to take a keyword, use these 3 of the 26 points, and blend this content with my author bio. That’s it!

If you’re a little confused on how this would look, then take a look at this article sample.

In my humble opinion, I’ve created a simple system that can easily be taught to anyone.  The best part is I don’t have to do anything.   All I’m responsible for is managing the process.

Human Split-Testing … On Steroids!

Way back in May I described my concept of human split testing.  The idea here is you create an outsourcing project and award it to multiple service providers.  Then you sit back and see how they handle the task.  When everything is completed, you hire the best service provider based on the results they produced. Ie: Time, quality, and communication.

What I’ve done with the GLP is create a project that describes the above process with a request for 10 articles.

To be honest, I definitely underestimated the supply of writers.  Some of them are willing to work for $5 per article.  I picked the top five and gave each of them a unique set of ten keywords.

Now it’s Thunderdome time!

I’ve created a competition where the content creators are auditioning for a permanent assignment to write my content.   I’m going to pick 2 out of the 5.  But maybe more if I get back really good content from the others.

What’s Next with GLP???

The “Human Split-Test” is going on as you read this article.  So far, I’m impressed with ALL five content creators. They’ve all been extremely professional with their correspondence about the project.  So it’s going to be hard to make my selection.

My plan is to find the best providers and have them automatically post content to my article marketing account.

Next, I’m going to use Fiverr.com to find a voice talent.  My plan is to find someone who is willing to read each article and create an audio file.  This audio will be turned into content that attracts people from different media sites like the iTunes library and YouTube.

Finally, I’m rethinking my lead magnet.  Right now, my opt-in rate is a lowly 30%.  I want to create another freebie that dramatically increases this response rate.

Anyway, there is a lot going on behind the scenes of the Go Large Project.  This is a main focus in the next few months.  So stay tuned for more on this topic.

Take Action. Get Results.



29 thoughts on “GLP #1 – How to Outsource Ezine Article Creation”

  1. Hi Steve,

    Super create insight here, as always. Breaking down your articles into blocks and hiring others to do the heavy lifting seems to be the way to go. We don’t have time to get bogged down and if you can pay somebody else to do it, why not? Creating a blue print is smart work.

    I agree about the talking points. Focus in on the key points and expound from there, working in your keyword phrases. Some people look at the number of articles we publish and think “how could I ever do that?” First off, you don’t need to do it all. Second, it’s really not too difficult once you get a simple system in place, like yours. 3 blocks and on the next one is pretty much how I do it too. No sense cluttering your mind up too much as that just leads to more confusion. Short and punchy.

    I was thinking the same thing about my lead magnet a minute before reading this post, funny how that works. Mine is a little lowlier 😉 Anyway I think that’s a different signal from the universe that I need to get cracking on it right away.

    Thanks for sharing your take Steve. Have a prospering day 🙂

    RB

    • Thanks Ryan,

      You you are dead right! short and punchy is definitely the way to go. Not only is it quicker and more to the point but conversion on 350 word articles in article marketing is significantly higher than 450 words articles. Sometimes it kind of upsets me but regardless is a fact that shorter is definitely better, at least conversion wise, when it comes to article marketing.

      I certainly hope these articles drive sales the last hope there will, if not, worst-case scenarios amount a few hundred bucks. But with a decent converting landing page and the products convert easily this should work out pretty well.

      Thanks for comments and well wishes and you also have a mighty prosperous day!

  2. Steve,
    This is what I like about your site. I get a look at how you operate.

    Your new Million Dollar idea grabs what you have learned and garnered from the past and builds upon that. Smart.

    • Thanks Sheila,

      Glad you liked the,”look behind the curtain” on the site. Rush a few more it is coming up shortly as things progress. Hopefully some good ideas that you all can use for your own million dollar ideas also.

  3. Steve, this is great! Repurposing, outsourcing, and leveraging everything to the hilt. Very good stuff.

    I plan to ramp up some of my article marketing efforts soon, and the article blueprint you offer here is a great outline.

    Good luck the the GLP!

    – Devin

    • Devin,

      Article Marketing doesn’t “kill” like it did just a couple years ago, but they can still a very viable way to get a lot of direct traffic and of course nice back links using an outsourced to gain a few of those articles surely is a fairly inexpensive way to save yourself a lot of time and effort and get enough links done to make it worth the effort.

      Good luck with your fourth coming article marketing “ramp up” to0. 🙂

    • Robert,

      Damn glad you like the Badassery. 😉 .

      Actually my voice talent is for YouTube mainly. I didn’t describe that very well. I may end up mixing it up, but generally do my YouTube videos as either a walk-through with the voice commentary behind it or a series of screenshots not unlike a PowerPoint presentation. Other far deeper into that in a future article were start breaking down what’s been done for the video marketing part of the GLP

  5. Sweet! I like your posts on article marketing, Steve. It’s something I have little experience with, so they’re pretty helpful.

    Also, since all of this GLP stuff is based around one product that you’re an affiliate for, I’d be interested in hearing how you found that particular product. Was it just trial and error of various products in your niche until you found one that converted better than the rest?

    Or here’s another angle on it: Now that you’ve found this golden product, have you learned anything that will help you be able to pick golden products with greater accuracy in the future?

    • Tristan,

      Basically this one was kind of the “luck” product. it was the product that I had that I receive the incredibly high returns for few days and my e-mail marketing campaign in my other niche.

      Some of the conversion may have been based on the fact that I haven’t sent my list a really, “new offer” in a while. But I was also very impressed with the conversion ratio on the page itself. This really maybe believe it is a good chance that it is worth the time and effort (and money) two really invest in it and “go large”

      I wish I could say with certainty that I have found a method of picking out, “golden products” but I can’t say that I have. I feel fairly certain I can easily pick out, “bad” products and once it simply won’t convert by simply looking at the pages, but not quite sure if that translates far enough to make real expert decisions either.

      Maybe as a measure and diagnosis more come out with some more of a, “formula’. Right now it usually just comes down to knowing what a, “good” or “converting” landing page looks like as opposed to one that is far less likely to convert.

  6. Steve; Great system here – outsourcing massive amount of contents all pointing to the successful affiliate marketing site seems like the most effective plan.

    Took a look at your sample articles and I have to say what a neat way of creating contents – short but very effective; something I have to keep in mind.

    Thanks Steve. There is always something new I learn every time I read your posts.

    • Adam,

      Short and to the point is deathly powerful in article marketing. I’m all for providing a ton of content blogging, but somehow the best converting article marketing are things tell you something but don’t nearly touching the whole topic.

      I guess it makes sense you tell someone something enough to think you’re an authority and give them a link where they think the answer might be. And if your product is good enough it is where the answer will be.

  7. The common problem with novice bloggers, like me, is running out of ideas. The common mistake is that whenever they, ok – we, have an idea to write about, we tend to expound on that idea in that one post. It is “easy” to run out of ideas with this style.

    Now comes your “Talking points”.

    I admit that this is not the first time I heard about this method. But what is new to me is actually putting this method into a System!

    Although this system seems to be not so complicated at all, I’d love to see a step-by-step method of how you broke down the niche into thousands of keywords and put them together back into their respective “talking points”.

    I am keeping an “idea book” as you suggested in one of your articles about blogging but sometimes it’s even difficult to come up with one. Now if I can only break down one idea into thousands of keywords and put them together into talking points, I’d see how I wouldn’t run out of topics to write about.

    • Finding the keywords is it really as hard as you might think. One way is obviously sit and brainstorm, and that is a pretty necessary first step. But there are also a lot of tools out there that will help you generate keyword ideas.

      Not make this a huge market samurai sales, reply (no affiliate link…lol) you can input some brainstormed ideas into market samurai and get a list of up to 800 keywords that will print right out. Do this for couple major keyword you can figure out the a few thousand in a few minutes. And that of course is even with taking time to knock off a few that are really not very big converters.

      now with bloggingIt is also find a hit on a big part of the topic and then come back and pick apart little pieces of it. I have quite a few articles where I, “sort of” talk about an aspect a larger scale and then come back and really get down to the fine detail at a later date. In fact even reading peoples comments can tell you that there’s a topic you might want to delve into further at a later date (like maybe how to find those keywords) 😉

      As a for instance, down the road in a month or so you could highlight each of the three blackberry applications in its own article targeting keywords like, “how to use XXX” “best blackberry file manager” etc etc. then rather than talking about a couple of interesting applications you go deep into specifics on how to use it, more reasons why to use it, screenshots, and maybe any tips and tricks you use from using these that might not be apparent to a person who’s never used it before. In such a situation you got 4 articles out of what it previously been one. and they all should be different enough that you are never repeating yourself. Just and an idea…

  8. Hi Steve

    You never cease to amaze me with all your innovative ideas to monetise. But then, you have the experience and the success to back up your methods 🙂

    I am just beginning writing articles to submit to directories so this is VERY on topic for me. Was very excited as I read through the post. Some excellent advice for me to take hold of. Will be going to check the example and taking notes on that one 🙂

    I had thought the article had to be between 400-500 words so you saying to write shorter ones is great news 🙂 Means I can write more articles which should mean more exposure for my blog and affiliate products.

    So new to all this and feel I have struck a gold mine with yourself, Alex, Rick all providing top class articles for me to read, absorb and then apply.

    Thankyou so much Steve for all the time and effort you take in your busy day to share your information. Much appreciated.

    Patricia Perth Australia

    • Just read the article and bookmarked it so thanks Steve for that example. Your writing it top class so I’m sure your outsourcers will have high standards too.

      Off to write some articles that I have to submit by Monday!

      Patricia Perth Australia

      • Patricia,

        Thanks for the comment and the kind words. I like Alex and Ricks writing a lot so it is nice to be lumped in with them! 🙂

        Yes, for article marketing, definitely somewhere around 330-400 words does the best for CTR. Any more than that it decreases click thru. Also remember to not “completely” answer the question and leave last bit showing that the link will have the answer (hopefully) that they are looking for.

        • Thanks Steve I have been asked to write for a couple of my friends who do heaps of techie things for me, so will stick to 330-400 words. And the not “completely” answering the questionbut showing the link where they will find the answer is great advice to.

          Patricia Perth Australia

  9. Hey Steve,

    Great system you setup, I too agree that first you have to test the quality of the outsources before jumping in and ordering thousands of articles.

    Also, creating thounds of keywords from the same niche for the articles, that it’s just awesome, having articles that cover all the areas of your niche will certainly help you dominate the market and get people from almost all related searches.

    Oh, and doing podcasts and other media promotion it’s just great, I don’t think there will be someone you will miss. I wonder which method will bring the bulk of leads.
    From the looks of it I would go with the articles but you never know, one viral video and it could surpass all.

    • I am actually wondering at what the lead breakdown will be, myslef. I “feel” video may be quite powerful simply because it is relatively under-utilized (compared to the sheer amount of bloggers) but once I finish up this test I should have some hard data

  10. Jeez Steve, you always come up with the most inventive ways of growing your online business and you’re willing to share it with us which is so grea!

    I’ve just started writing articles for marketing my blog and I’ve seen some links come in from other sources using my articles which was a nice surprise!

    Still a lot of work to do luckily following your blog is inspirational and keeps me off my butt and on my toes finding ways to create streams of income.

    You rock Steve, loads of good karmic vibes for you!

    • Those random links from unexpected sources are awesome. they are part of the reason why a blog tends to do a lot better over time (as you build more and more of those random links)

      Keep at it and you will keep growing! 🙂

    • Theresa,

      I do have in mind to eventually start putting out some of the better (and longer) stuff on Nook and Kindle as eBooks for the minimum nominal fee. It is one of those things that is “on the list” but keeps getting jumped. It might be one of those things I outsource someday though

  12. Steve, Really interesting post to kick off GLP. How do you source your article writers? oDesk, Elance, CraigsList, BestJobs.ph? Are you only doing your article marketing on Ezine? Or are you using any other articles sites, GoArticles, ArticleDashboard, etc? Also, another question, doesn’t Ezine have a 500 word lower limit?

    Sorry for all the questions.

    • Actually I went through a bit of a change in my strategy after I wrote article 1, since “Google Panda” happened in between the two. I decided to run the posts through an old blog and try to rank for tight keywords rather than use ezine for more than the occasional backlink. It is explained more in depth in GLP #2.

      But I personally use ELance and do nice multi party split tests. I am likely going to be hiring a new writer doing this soon. I had about 30 or so articles done in the first batch. (some went to ezine, some went to the glp blog I started and talk about int GLP #2.

      As for ezine, they went the other way. They USED to have a 250 word minimum (like 10k max…but no one gets there) post-panda they upped it to 400 word minimum

  13. where do you get your writers from?
    Odesk? Elance? WF?

    Talk to me man. I need to find me some writers! LOL
    If I write one more article… about anything!?!!, I swear….

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