Updated Article Site and Op...

The effort continues. I'll tell you though, I was getting used to the $3 days around Christmas. It shouldn't surpise anyone that traffic has dropped off since xmas. My best site (traffic wise) was by far the Christmas Site



Of course, the reason for that is simple. It's the site I spent the most time on, both content and promotion wise. I added the Christmas site to a couple of top site directories and they pushed quite a bit of traffic to me (quite a bit is relative to other sources...I know there are bigger better things to come).



My next challenge for the Christmas site is how to promote it now that the Christmas season is past us. I'm not going to think about that too much for now.



I just wrote my first article promoting this site. I've written between 10 and 20 articles so far and am quite happy with the results so far. I no longer have illusions that this will be a short term project. I'm now looking at making money over the course of years instead of months. I do however still believe that there is money to be made out there.



Anyway, about the article. I've read so many who claim you can make big money, only to turn around and try to sell you something. Don't get me wrong, the right tool for the right job...but most of the tools are rediculous wastes of money. Here's a recap of what I've "bought" so far for article submission and their results.



Article Post Robot

This is an piece of software for $139, it is designed to post to numerous article sites either automatically or manually. This software has a number of great features, but is also missing some very key features that I've found in other submission services. At this point, this one falls under "waste of money". If they ever fix their logging to be more accurate, include both html/non-html versions of the articles and author resource box and automatic account creation at article sites, then I may look at it again.



Article Marketer

I use Article Marketer from two standpoints. The first is as an article directory. My article directory Article Chimp gets most of it's articles via their service. I can't complain about this as they've sent me over 30,000 articles so far.



I also use Article Marketer to submit my articles (after having tried both manual submission and Article Post Robot in the past). I must say that the service is a great idea and parts of it are very well executed. However, their customer service is painfully lacking. Here's what I've been through. Step by Step.



1) I sign up

2) I never got a confirmation e-mail to activate my account

3) A week of account changes/back and forth and my forth e-mail provider, I finally get the confirmation message

4) The tech who changed my e-mail address the last time had a space on the end...this caused their own software to fail when I tried to submit a new artile

5) Got that figured out, now the service is working fine.



6) Recommend the service to my sister (who runs a Travel Site )

7) She signs up for a deal listed on their site (3 months for $74.99 with 3 months free). When we get to pay pal it asks for $79 (mistake #1), there is no mention of the other 3 months free (mistake#2). Ok, it's an extra $5...big deal, so we figure we'll sort out the rest later...not

When my sister goes to submit an article the site shows her as "Not Subscribed". With a link that she can pay $79 to subscribe. We double check that paypal has gone through and send them a message via their contact us link...

9) 5 e-mails later, they have still not responded to my sister, she now has to resort to reversing the transaction and lodging a formal complain with paypal. If anyone from Aritcle Marketer is listening SMARTEN UP!...you have a money making machine there, all you need to do is check your f-in e-mail once in a while and respond to your customers.

10) I noticed that my articles are showing up on other article directories (including mine) without an author name...I sent AM an e-mail...you guessed it, no response.



ARTICLE MARKETER, GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BUTTS



With all that said, AM is still the best way I've found to get articles as an article directory and the best to submit them as an author...once you get past the intial set up bull.



I've also bought another product Article Content Rewriter. They promised a rewrite in 14 seconds, took almost an hour on my machine. One hour for the software to do some simple submissions and about 5 hours putting in alternate phrases...the tripe that came out the other end did not make it worthwhile. I can see where this program could be useful to some, not to me.