What is your thinking behind using articles? I understand it's the largest article site of its kind on the web.
Why did you pick that one and how does that transfer into sales for you? Sean: Well, the way that I found that is that I actually submitted initially to about a hundred article directories, and what I did was I tracked the subscribers that were coming to me from each of the article directories.
What I found was that 95% of all my subscribers were coming from the Ezine Articles article directory, and 5% of all my subscribers were coming from the other 99 combined, submitting the same articles to every one.
I'm kind of a realist.
I don't try to change the world around me; I only try to change how I react to it.
Once I realized that I immediately said, the only thing I'm going to use the other directories for is inbound links and occasionally I'll do that.
The last time I did that was 6 months ago.
For direct traffic, for generating traffic, that's why I use Ezine Articles only because my testing revealed that it's number one.
Because my subscriber base continues to grow in a predictable fashion through the work that I do with Ezine Articles, I've continued to assume that they're number one.
Obviously those tests were done about 16 months ago, so there's always the possibility that someone else can get you that much traffic.
If that's the case, I don't know it.
16 months ago when I did my test, Ezine Articles was number one for me.
They continue to be consistent, so I have no reason to believe that I need to make any adjustments.
Help me understand the second question, and I'll answer it for you - maybe rephrase it for me.
You asked me a question about how do articles make me money.
Caller: How do those transfer into sales for you? Sean: Well, remember that the articles are only my traffic.
The articles have really nothing to do with my sales.
All they are is my traffic.
The articles are just the same as if I had AdWords as my traffic source, or if I had press releases, or if I had joint ventures, or if I did affiliate marketing for my traffic.
The articles themselves have nothing to do with my sales process.
Obviously, they have something to do in the fact that if somebody comes to an articles they're going to have a different demographic than a pay-per-click lead or a search engine lead or a joint venture lead.
Other than that the articles don't make the sales happen; the articles are only the traffic.
Just like the idea with the Mercedes Benz, the gasoline doesn't have anything to do with the engine itself but without the gasoline or biodiesel or whatever else you put in there, the vehicle's not going to operate.
Similarly to an engine that's designed to operate on gasoline, biodiesel and E85 that's designed to operate on all three of those fuels, my selling machine will work regardless of whether it's AdWords, or articles, or press releases or joint ventures.
I continue to use article marketing only because I'm good at it and it works and why change a good thing.
If you're already having success driving success with AdWords or affiliate marketing, then I would say, "Hey leave article marketing alone.
" If you're a beginner, then I would say, "Hey, dabble in some article marketing and see how it works for you.
" It obviously works for me.
I've created systems that very specifically, if you write the articles the way that I teach, they drive traffic.
There's no question about that - they drive traffic.