A lot of Associated Content Producers feel that page view generation is a huge mystery. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you follow a simple series of steps, you can generate tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of page views.
The secret to page views on Associated Content is topic, topic, topic. However, you can’t possibly know which topics generate page views until you have some hard data to work with. Trial and error works to a certain extent. Still, there are better ways to get ideas on how to get page views.
The Call for Content feature isn’t what it used to be, but it can still give you some ideas for how to get page views. Be sure to check it daily for topics to write on, but don’t take it too seriously. Many C4Cs are for performance pay only, and don’t generate many page views.
You can create your own Calls for Content for Associated Content by checking out sites such as the Buzz Log at the Yahoo! Buzz Index or AOL Hot Searches. There are so many topics to choose from, you are sure to find one you will enjoy writing about. However, you have to write fast, and you may have to submit for no up-front pay for certain hot topics. This is especially true for holiday and seasonal articles which tend to generate a lot of page views over a short period. The great thing about holiday and seasonal articles is that they tend to generate the same number of page views year after year.
Once you’ve selected and written about your topic, you must make sure that your article is optimized for keywords. Sites like Textalyser.net and Tagcrowd.com can help you to determine which of your keywords are optimized. However, before you optimize for a specific keyword, make sure that people are searching on that keyword. The best way to do this is to drop by the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Type your desired keywords into the little box, and then type in the Captcha. Google will tell you which keywords were most heavily searched on, provide potential synonyms, and tell you which keywords have the most advertiser competition.
It’s best to optimize your articles for between 2% and 5% of the keywords selected. Most of your page views will come from Google or the Associated Content search engine. So you can economize by optimizing the first hundred words of your article. Try this technique for some articles, while optimizing other articles in their entirety, and see which ones perform best. Don’t forget to optimize your title, as well. For example, “Kids’ Thanksgiving Craft: Cornucopia Project” is better than “A Really Fun Craft Project for Kids: Paper Cornucopias.” This is because search engines index articles with keywords which appear early in the title higher than article with keywords which appear late in the title. Also, when you publish, the first few keywords in your title are worked into the URL. So choose your first three or four title keywords carefully.
You can also get keyword and article topic ideas from other Associated Content Producers. Many people on the forums have stated which of their articles have generated the most page views, and many CPs write about their best successes in their articles. So be on the lookout for article ideas in both places.
Another important thing is to reproduce your own successes. If you see one Associated Content article produce an enormous amount of page views, be sure to write another on the same topic with the same search engine optimization techniques. Again, it’s important to work fast, especially when your topic is short-lived. Be sure to extrapolate on your successes. For example, my first success was a local holiday article. Now, I write a local interest article for just about every major holiday that rolls around.
Don’t overlook potential places for extra keyword optimization. The “Interesting Facts” box is one of the best. Be sure that you use your best keywords in this section. Also, putting in a picture can help to optimize your articles when you put high-traffic keywords in the caption. Also, never neglect to use all five of your tags. Tags should be phrases of at least two, and preferably three or four keywords. Always take your keywords from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Also, be sure to go back and make sure that all of those keywords are in your article.
Always, always link your articles to one another. Don’t worry about putting too many links in your article. After all, the Link-in-ator will pepper your article with poor quality links, and putting in your own high-quality topical links will only help to slow it down. Be sure to link at least several different words together, and make absolutely certain that the article you’re linking to is pertinent to the keywords you’ve selected. Most importantly, link with a phrase which grabs the reader’s attention and gets them interested in the topic. This will help to ensure that your reader will actually click on the links rather than brushing by them.
Promotion is subordinate to all these techniques, and should be used as a last resort only. If your article is well-written for a popular topic and properly optimized, it will promote itself. Then you only have to promote when you have the time and inclination. Promoting your best articles, however, can really give your page views a boost. Attempting to promote a dud article probably will not increase its page views significantly. I blog about my articles, both on Blogger and MySpace. I use RSS feeds, and I promote on Yahoo! Answers. Many moons ago, I did an experiment which showed that promoting on Social Bookmarking sites was probably a waste of time. So I wouldn’t bother with them unless you’ve got a really hot and timely topic to promote.
The only other trick is to keep on writing. Even if you’re just taking shots in the dark, chances are you will hit on something that will bring you a deluge of page views. My husband wrote only on topics which interested him, and had many wild successes. Halloween Haunted Houses in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex: The Best of North Texas so far has 3552 page views. New Hidden Code in Da Vinci’s Last Supper has 3260 page views. King Tut’s Likeness Recreated Using Forensic Science and Egyptian Portraits currently has 3142 page views. Adobe CS3 Installation Failure: The Solution for Error 1714 has 2526 page views. This just goes to show that if you have an interest, a problem or a concern, somebody else probably shares it. And it will generate page views.
Right now I am getting about 500 to 1000 page views per day in an average month. That’s enough to generate a minimum of $20 per month in totally passive income, and on some months I get as much as $135. My best performing articles can be seen in the article How to Make Money by Writing for Associated Content.
You can make money online writing for Associated Content. If you keep at it, you will succeed at generating page views, and that money will increase. If you want to be notified of future tutorials when I write them, please subscribe to my Content Producer Page.
