You’ve seen this results in a lot of article directories, as well as a lot more junk articles being produced and submitted to these directories, making it more challenging for people to succeed with article marketing.

But does it still work?

The short answer is yes. It may not be as easy as it used to be but it definitely still works.

You can no longer just write a bunch of crap articles, get great rankings and flood your site with traffic that buys.

But you can still use article marketing to generate almost instant traffic, get backlinks, boost your search engine rankings and build your credibility (if you’re trying to become an expert in your niche).

But what about long term?

Can your articles still produce traffic on an ongoing basis or will you only get an initial push from being on the first page of EzineArticles.com when it first goes live?

Great question! So I took a look at an article that I shared results about in a previous post – Does Article Marketing Have Staying Power?

In that article I published the following graphic from my stats in my EzineArticles.com account.

So what about now? With the surge in low quality article marketing, as well as many changes over at EzineArticles.com, is this article still producing views like this?

Here you go. The following was taken on May 12th, 2009.

Not only is it still producing a serious number of views on EA, the numbers have gone up since I last wrote about it. And this article was first published on EA over three years ago.

So if you’ve stayed away from article marketing, you may want to consider giving it a try.

Well, X is back with something new Affiliate Blackbook. It launched over a week ago. I haven’t mentioned it because I wanted to purchase it and then devour it.

Is it any good? Yes and no. The no is, if you’re easily offended or don’t like when people “name names”, this probably isn’t for you.

In fact, go to Affiliate Blackbook and you’ll see two links – one for the pg version of the sales page and one for the x rated version of the sales page.

Seriously – Affiliate Blackbook

If you like the idea of just clicking a button and getting rich, this probably isn’t for you. There’s actual work involved, horror of horrors!

On top of that, some of the stuff is borderline in that it could definitely be abused big time by less than ethical marketers. But used properly, has some very effective marketing tactics that you shouldn’t lose sleep over.

Recently, in the Earn1KaDay forum I wrote a long article about why I liked the fact that Google made people jump through hoops to use Adwords.

By doing so, they’ve created a barrier to entry, eliminating a lot of our competition because people don’t want to work that hard. They want to throw up a direct linking campaign with a gazillion keywords and retire.

The Affiliate Blackbook

A REAL business, not a cash generator that could disappear into the quicksand like so many online businesses.

X focuses a lot on building lists (although in ways a lot of us have never thought of) as opposed to just being a traffic generator and building the merchant's business. Build your own! As many of you know, that's exactly what I "preach" so you can see why I might be into this product.

The ebook is 151 pages and I've already devoured the entire thing, taking notes all the way.

There is also a free membership area that compliments the book and there is one subtle upsell into another membership level at $47 a month. However, it is NOT forced continuity.

It's well done, streamlined and not annoying. Yes, I picked the upgrade.

Affiliate marketing and PPC (which he also talks about a lot and I've already learned some really cool techniques I didn't know anything about) are a big part of my business nowadays.

If you're at all interested in affiliate marketing, do yourself a favor and at least take a look at the sales page. It might be just what you're looking for to boost your business. Check it out ==>> Affiliate Blackbook

But I get asked a lot if it works as a long term traffic strategy.

In other words, does the traffic dry up once you stop submitting new articles to the article directories?

Well, it depends. There are a number of factors involved that help determine how effective your article marketing efforts are over the long haul.

Things like:

• Keyword Selection – selecting the right keywords goes a long way toward determining whether your article will get found by searchers.
• On Page SEO – where you place your keyword phrase in your article, as well as how often it appears, will also affect your possible rankings in the search engines.
• Article Quality – the higher quality the article, the better chance another site will pick it up and use it on their site, or possibly in their newsletter.
• Article Topic – this will also play a huge role in whether other web sites pick up your article. If your article topic is timely or controversial there is a much better chance of it getting passed around the internet
• Links – Things such as the quality and topic of the article will also play into whether or not you get a lot of links from your article.

The more web sites that pick it up, the more links you get, which means a much better chance at receiving long term traffic from your article.

If some real authority sites in your niche pick up one of your articles, your main site could get a serious boost for its search engine rankings.

One article I submitted a while back, continues to get more direct page views on Ezine Articles each month than most of my articles do ever.

Here’s a screen shot of monthly views:

Now, I have plenty of articles that don’t have 3,000 views on Ezine Articles in total, let alone for one month.

And no, I haven’t figured out what sets that article apart from the others.

What I can say is if you do do as many things right as possible with each article, and continue your article marketing efforts, you’ll create articles that have traffic generation staying power, too.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out my previous post ==>> No Way, Not the Death of Article Marketing, Too!

And they all work. And they can all be part of your online income generating techniques.

But if you want to really boost your income and create a long lasting online business you need to eventually create your own information products.

Or, at the very least, outsource the work and have the information product created for you.

The idea of creating information products stops a lot of people dead in their tracks.

But it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming, teeth pulling, needle injecting, fingers on a chalkboard, dreaded process.

You can quickly and easily create information products to sell on the internet without all that mental anguish people like to heap on top of themselves.

Information Publishing is the Perfect Business

Like many of you, I’ve researched and looked into all kinds of business opportunities that can be run, or at least started, out of the home.

And I can’t think of a better business than creating and selling information products, whether it be special reports, books, audiotapes, dvd’s, cd’s, newsletters, seminars, home study courses or boot camps.

With an information publishing business you have control over your own products and what you do with them.

The profit margins are outstanding, where you want to charge a minimum of 10 times what it costs to produce the product.

And in the case of digital products like ebooks the profit margin will be even higher since you don’t have a cost to produce each copy.

Most people dismiss information publishing immediately because they think they can’t write.

First, we’re not talking Shakespeare and we’re not talking about writing great literature.

But I’m not going to go into a whole bunch of writing tips for you. I’ll make it even easier.

The absolute quickest and easiest way to get your first information product completed and out to market is to do it interview style.

Either have someone else interview you, or you find an expert (or two, or three or four) that you interview.

Record the interview, get it transcribed and bam! you have your first information product ready to go.

As you know, I am in the fitness field. Go check out ChestTrainingTactics.com It’s an audio product where Jeff Anderson interviewed six experts about chest training.

Scroll down and check out Expert #2. That’s me! This was a very simple way for Jeff to create another product.

Doing this product on his own as an ebook would’ve taken a lot more time and effort on Jeff’s part.

Another example is InternetProfitMethod.com .

That’s a product of mine where somebody else interviewed me for just over an hour.

I have to admit, if I had taken that same information and decided to do it in ebook form, it would probably still be just an idea and not a finished product that is making me money.

It took me a long time to get my first ebook created. ChestTrainingTactics.com took a little over an hour of my time.

So did InternetProfitMethod.com

In order to tape record the interviews I purchased a copy of Sony’s Sound Forge Audio Studio and a contraption called QuickTap.

This simply allows you to plugs your telephone receiver into your computer so you can record from the phone to your computer using the Sound Forge software.

Later, you can then edit your audio and create your information product.

For a reasonable fee you can then have a transcription service transcribe your audio for you and you can then sell the audio and a PDF transcription together as your product.

Now if you want you can also apply this method to simply recording yourself talking about areas of interest in your niche.

Suppose you have lots of thoughts and ideas to convey but don’t feel comfortable typing away.

Record your self (after you have organized your thoughts properly of course) as though you are speaking to your visitors of your site.

How would you carry on an informed yet casual conversation with someone who just walked into your site and wanted to know more about your niche?

Tell them out loud, get it on tape, and then have it transcribed. Voila! You have content for your site.

You can also do the same to create your product.

Instead of using an interview format you can write yourself an outline or guide and then record yourself talking about the subject. Instant product.

Don’t stop yourself before you start by thinking that creating your own product is going to be too difficult. It’s not. You just have to get started.

No, they aren’t better.

No, they don’t have better opportunities (most millionaires in the US today are first generation self-made millionaires – no silver spoons).

You see:

• The rich think long term, set goals and put together a plan of action.

• The wannabe’s think instant gratification.

• The rich work for profits.

• The wannabe’s work for wages and a “raise” each year.

• The rich take calculated risks.

• The wannabe’s take the biggest risk there is – they never take any risks at all.

• The rich concentrate on increasing their net worth.

• The wannabe’s focus on increasing their paycheck (a little raise at a time).

• The rich are ALWAYS learning.

• The wannabe’s stopped learning when school ended.

• The rich think in terms of ideas.

• The wannabe’s think in terms of gossip about things and other people.

• The rich embrace change, adapt to it, and use it to their advantage.

• The wannabe’s hate change, resist it, wither and die.

• The rich develop multiple sources of income.

• The wannabe’s have one or two.

To me, becoming rich is sort of like how so many people “want” to be a writer, like a Stephen King.

At least, until any of them actually sit down to write. Then we find out they don’t REALLY want to be a writer.

What they love is the IDEA of being a writer. They love the freedom, the lifestyle and the money.

Turns out they just don’t want to do the actual work that gets those things.

Most people love the IDEA of being rich. They just don’t want to do what it takes.

They’d rather complain, be jealous and envious, and hope someone makes some law that forces the hard working successful person to just give them stuff.

So ask yourself, where do you REALLY fall?

Do you WANT to be rich? Or do you just wannabe rich?