Am I Nuts? Why Don't I Put My Web Site Link Into My 1,000+ Articles?

I received an email from an Ezinearticles reader who raises some very important questions about article marketing as well as my unconventional approach to it.

I thought you might like to "eavesdrop" on our exchange and find it beneficial.

He wrote:

I'm amazed at the number of articles you submit to EzineArticles as well as your consistency.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but approximately how many emails do you receive per day and have you found that listing your email in your bio box rather than your web address is more beneficial to your overall strategy?

Of course, I'd understand if you'd rather keep that number private.

I'm only curious because when I first stumbled across your EA profile and gazed at your numbers, I would have thought you generated a lot of traffic to your website from click throughs and Search Engine rankings.

Thanks,

Hello GC,

I don't mind answering your questions, at all. To quote myself, "Clicks aren't money," at least to me.

Random eyeballs rolling over my web pages won't sell what I sell, which are fairly extensive consulting engagements.

I'm looking to directly interact with readers, as I am right now with you.

"Hey, we need this guy!" is what I'm hoping readers will say. "He knows his stuff," and so forth; these are the reactions I want.

Frankly, I get very few emails, whether you assess the number by day, week, or month. However, when I get them, they are usually of the type I described above, worth my effort to respond to.

Example: Last week I got an email from a guy who is shopping for a training program in one of my areas of expertise. He's LOCAL, within about an hour's drive, his company is the right size, about 900 employees, and he's in senior management. He supplied his phone number in the email, a signal of strong interest.

Anyway, we interacted and I pitched him on a high 5-figure program that could easily get into six figures, if successful.

He is EXACTLY what I'm looking for.

I'd like to get five of these inquiries a week, but I don't.

If they're this solid, I don't have to. It only takes a few handfuls a YEAR, presuming my closing skills are sharp, to do the trick.

By the way, there are a few ways to evaluate the quality of one's response. Yes, you can look at mere numbers, such as the number of readers you'll generate at EA.

Another way is to look at the SALIENCE of your information to these readers, i.e. how important is your stuff to them? And, how important are these specific readers to you?

In other words, are you reaching the BEST POSSIBLE audiences, or is your approach more of a shotgun?

Example: I do a reasonable amount of radio interviews and co-hosting. Do they sell consulting and training business for me? No, not much; just some, and much less than "print" does.

But I enjoy doing them, they look good in my promotional materials, and they help me to stand out from the crowd, to appear credible.

But you shouldn't over-invest in them. Ditto for articles.

One more thing: From my email address interested readers can see what my web site is, and they can type in the www.customersatisfaction.com part, by themselves.

There is some psychological authority that supports the notion that if people have to work a little to get a result, they treat the matter more seriously and get more ego-involved in arriving at a productive result.

So, making them type in the url may actually be a good thing.

Hope this helps, and of course, the content of my response will become yet another article.

Appreciate your email, and good luck to you!

Best,

GARY

Best-selling author of 12 books and more than 1,000 articles, Dr. Gary S. Goodman is considered "The Gold Standard" in negotiation, sales development, customer service, and telephone effectiveness. Top-rated as a speaker, seminar leader, and consultant, his clients extend across the globe and the organizational spectrum, from the Fortune 1000 to small businesses. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com