All Entries Tagged With: "freedom"
Celebrating Freedom
As the Fourth of July weekend is wrapping up, I thought it very appropriate to write about the Freedom that article marketing has given to me and my family.
Before I wrote articles for the Internet, I worked in several jobs over the years. Although I had managed some offline credits as a writer, I always considered my writing to be a hobby, in that any job that does not pay you well can only be considered a hobby.
My mom still writes for offline publications, but after spending 30, 40, sometimes even 50 hours developing an article, she still gets paid about $225 for her troubles. I consider her writing to be a hobby too.
Sure, she gets paid and she gets to see her name in print in a magazine, but she can’t earn a living writing for a monthly magazine that prints her “history stories” twice a year. Even my uncle has made it into the pages of several military magazines, with his historical pieces from WWII. And like my mother, his writing can be considered nothing more than a hobby.
I started writing for the Internet audience in 1999, when I was 33 years old. In 2005, I was earning enough from my writing, that I was able to leave my last job in March of that year.
Until 2005, I had to work every Fourth of July. My wife had to take the kids to the Fireworks show, and I would show up late every year, and struggle to find my family in the crowds of people at the fireworks show.
But, starting in the Summer of 2005, continuing through this past weekend, I have had the Freedom to make a day of festivities on the Fourth of July. I have had that kind of freedom, because of my writing, which has given me the income level that is high enough that I don’t have to let someone else write my paycheck nor tell me how I will spend the day on the Fourth of July.
As the Fourth of July weekend approached, one of my articles on article marketing was featured on the front page of SiteProNews.com for the entire holiday weekend. Here is where it will be in the archives later. At the same time, I had an article ride through the weekend on the front page of SEO-News.com, located in the archives here. Two weeks before the holiday weekend, an article I had written made the SiteProNews newsletter, reaching half a million readers in a single day.
Some people argue that the whole point of article marketing is to get your article published on websites, for that link popularity juice. I consider that a nice plus, but for me, the whole point of article marketing is to get your article into the various newsletters available online. Especially those newsletters that can reach half a million readers in a day.
I don’t get to spend my Fourth of July weekends with my kids, because some website picked up and published my articles. Nope. I get to spend the Freedom holiday with my kids, because I get published in the newsletters that can deliver a lot of targeted traffic to my website in just a few days.
Getting published in newsletters that matter is the reason I get to spend holidays with my family. Link popularity from article marketing is a nice plus, but if I relied solely on link popularity to make money online, I could be waiting forever.
Those Internet Marketing Guru’s, who tell you that Link Pop is the only reason to create reprint articles, are selling you short. If you have been wondering why your article marketing does not work the way my article marketing works, it could be because you are mistakenly focusing on link pop instead of attracting hoards of readers to your website.
If some guru told you that you just need to write enough to get your link on a webiste, with your article, then I am willing to suggest that you are listening to the wrong gurus.
If you recall, in a previous paragraph, I suggested that Link Pop is a nice bonus. I meant it. It is a nice bonus, because it should not be your only goal. If you are solely focused on Link Popularity, then you will never see the true potential of article marketing.
Those gurus who preach the link pop equation, without regard for the human reader, are leading you astray. After all, when was the last time Google purchased your products or services. Let me guess, “Never.” Your articles’ readers are the people who are going to buy your products and services. But, if you are only writing to please the search engines, with little to no regard for the human reader, then you will not see wide publication, and you definitely will not see huge traffic and lots of happy buyers from your article marketing endeavors.
So, while you continue to follow the advice of all of the wrong gurus, I declared freedom from my job in March of 2005, and I have the freedom to keep spending my Fourth of July weekends with my children, despite what anyone else might think I should be doing with my holidays.
Bill Platt – owner of The Phantom Writers Article Marketing Services
