This method of generating greens does take a little more effort to get going, and a little bit of patience too. But it’s a “long term” strategy that can pay dividends for a long time.

How in the world can you generate greens by writing articles? Keep reading …

Articles as a Promotional Tool

Content is the backbone of the Internet, and comes in various forms including articles, reports, case studies, audio and video, pictures, etc. If someone is interested in a particular topic, they’ll devour any and all content they can find about it.

Do you think there are a few people out there who might be interested in learning how to make some extra money, get a free XBOX 360 or new computer monitor? You bet.

Truth be told, there are millions and millions of them. Looking for great deals, and better yet, finding free stuff is one of the most popular activities online.

You can benefit from this by creating articles people will be interested in reading, which will indirectly promote your IFW referral URLs and generate greens for you!

How Articles Can Generate Greens

Unless you love writing just for the sake of writing, it’s important to get a lot of exposure for your articles. Otherwise what’s the point of doing it, right?

There are several different ways you’ll get exposure for your articles, and it all starts with submitting them to what are known as Article Directories.

Article directories are websites that serve the publishing community - both writers and publishers. They make it easy for writers to get their content distributed, and easy for publishers to find the content that they need.

You see, publishers - mainly website owners and email newsletter publishers in this case - are always looking for fresh content for their websites and newsletters.

… and they often look to article directories for new content.

By submitting your articles to article directories they can easily be found by these very publishers who are hungry for content. It’s a win-win for you and them.

Each time a publisher adds your article to their website or runs it in their email newsletter it will be potentially seen by 1000s and 1000s of readers.

Not only that, but over time the search engines will “index” your articles - which simply means that your articles will appear in the search engines when people search for the topic that your article is about. More free exposure for you. Ka-ching!

How to Write and Format Your Articles

Here are some general tips on writing articles to generate greens. There is no right or wrong answer, but you’d do well to keep the following in mind.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you’re not “selling” anything.

Your best bet is to write your articles in an easy-to-read format with lots of white space, and a “conversational” tone. While you write, pretend you’re talking to your best friend.

There are dozens of different topics you could write about, and literally 100s of different “angles” you could use. Just use your creativity and go with it.

The most important thing to keep in mind is what people might be searching for.

For example, just about anyone who has been online for any length of time has seen one or more of the various advertisements for a free iPod. Many people are curious or skeptical, and so they search the web for more information.

Someone who was just curious might search for “how to get a free xbox 360.” In this case an article about doing just that would be very appealing to them.

Someone who was really skeptical might even search for “free xbox advertising scam” in an attempt to find out if it was for real or not. Your article could address that.

You can do this for any and all free products that are available from IFWs. Even if you stopped right there, that’s at least 100+ article ideas.

Of course, you can also write more general articles too such as “how to get free electronics online”. There are TONS of freebie-related websites and newsletters that would love to publish your article on their site or in their newsletter.

Generally speaking you’ll want to keep your articles pretty short, in the 250 to 500 word range. And of course, be sure to spell-check all your articles.

The Most Important Part Of Any Article

From a marketing standpoint, the most important part of any article is what comes at the very end - the “resource box” or “author’s box”. You’ll see this implemented in some publications and formats simply as the “About The Author” section.

This is where you list your name, a brief 2-3 sentence description of yourself, and most importantly, a link that you want people to click on.

The best advice we can give you on what to include in your “author’s box” is to make it sound like you are just an “average Joe”, as opposed to a professional writer. People will really connect with this, and be more likely to click on your link.

An example of what you could include is something like this:

Nancy Smith is a proud stay-at-home mom living in sunny Los Angeles, CA. When her 3 year-old son gives her a break she enjoys surfing the web looking for free stuff. Last month she learned how to Get a Free XBOX 360 and you can to.

Of course, you’ll want to include one of your various IFW links in your author’s box - and ideally it will relate to the topic of the article like in this example.

If the reader enjoyed your article they will be pretty likely to click that link, and when they do you have a great chance at getting another green. Simple as that!

Profit From This Strategy Without Writing A Word

Don’t worry if you’re not a great writer, because you don’t have to be. The best thing to do is just write your articles as if you were talking to a friend - explaining how you got a free XBOX 360, made some extra money, or whatever you’re writing about.

The funny thing is that this type of “conversational” writing will generate a better response for you than a professionally written article, because it’s “real” and people will really connect with that. So that really works to your advantage anyway.

On the other hand, maybe you absolutely HATE to write. That’s fine too. Even if you don’t, another great strategy is to hire other people to write articles for you.

Believe it or not you can hire “ghostwriters” to write quality articles on your behalf, for as little as $10 or $20 each at most. You get all the “rights” to the articles and will put your name and link at the end just as if you had written it yourself.

It’s easy to hire ghostwriters too, because there are a bunch of websites for just this purpose. A few great ones include Elance and EzineArticles.com.

Generally the way it works is that you post the “job” you need done - which in this case is article writing - and qualified writers will bid on your project.

In your posting just let people know what you want written, the approximate number of words, etc. Basically just cover the guidelines we talked about above.

On the busy sites you’ll normally get a bunch of responses, and writers will let you know how much they charge, tell you a little about themselves, and many will even include samples of their work. Based on this you just pick one for the job.

Once you find a few good writers you can use them to write as many articles as you want.

Re-investing a portion of your profits into this strategy is not a bad idea at all, considering it’s just a small one-time investment and you’ll profit from it for a long time.

Even just a few greens from each article and you’ll make out big!

Things to Know and Helpful Tips for This Method

Articles are a very powerful, long-term method of generating greens for those who make the extra effort to put this strategy into place. This is definitely a method you could really focus on and literally do nothing else once you get it up and running.

If you were to submit one good article per week to the popular article directories that are appropriate for your articles, you’ll be kicking butt before you know it.