Is your affiliate income matching your goals, or do you wish there was an easy way to generate more sales? We're going to talk about a way to do just that, without costing you a cent.

I'm talking about writing articles related to affiliate products, and submitting them to free article directories. These directories offer those free articles for use by ezine and newsletter publishers.

When you write quality articles with content that's useful to their readers, those publishers may include them in an ezine that could be distributed to thousands of people. By properly using your affiliate links in those articles, you can actually increase traffic to your affiliate products.

Where Do I Submit Articles?

If you're not familiar with article directories, go to a search engine like Google or Yahoo and search for "article directories" or "submit articles". You'll find dozens of article directory sites looking for free content to offer ezine publishers. EzineArticles.com is one of the largest and most widely used, but there are plenty of others to investigate. Here's an important tip: each site has its own article submission guidelines. Take time to read them before you start writing. You'll save yourself a migraine and increase your chances of being published.

Creating Quality Content

To use articles successfully to increase your affiliate sales, there are several guidelines to remember. To help you, I've broken those guidelines down into the acronym, "R-E-A-L".

Here's how to write articles that will actually help build your affiliate business:

• Relevant Content: Write relevant, helpful articles on a topic related to your affiliate product. What you can't do is write a sales letter for it! Remember, article directories supply content for ezine publishers to use. If you write an article promoting a product, they'll simply reject it. What you are allowed to do is write an article and include your website's URLs in the author bio section. For example, if you're an affiliate for my Private Lending Home Study Systems, you could write an article about the effect the credit crunch is having on property investment. In the Linking Correctly section below, I've described how then to include links that will help your affiliate sales while meeting article directory guidelines.

• Expert Advice: As you become known in the article directories as someone whose content can be trusted, you'll be building a reputation as an expert. Know your subject matter and avoid writing self-promoting articles. That's the quickest way to turn "expert advice" into more affiliate sales.

• Article Guidelines: I can't say this enough -- if you want to build your affiliate sales with articles, you need to know and follow the guidelines for each article directory. Articles that don't follow the rules get rejected, and authors who continually submit them get banned from article submission sites!

• Link Correctly: Most article submission sites do not allow direct affiliate links in the body of the article, or in the author bio section. There are two ways you can follow the rules and still direct readers to your affiliate product. 1) You can set up a domain that redirects to your affiliate link, and include that new link in your bio section (this is considered "legal" by most directories), or 2) You can include the URL for your niche website for the affiliate product.

Need an example? Suppose you write the article I described above about the credit crunch. Your author resource box might then read as follows: "Joe Author writes about quality information products for property investors. Click here for more information about products he recommends: (this is where you'd use either the URL you own that redirects to your affiliate link, or use the link to that product's niche website.)

There are several different methods of redirecting a URL to your affiliate link. If you aren't able to write the HTML code necessary, I recommend having your webmaster do it for you. Once the redirect page is created, he can show you how to use it again and again in places where those lengthy affiliate links aren't practical.

Once you start writing and submitting articles related to your affiliate products, you may even find you enjoy it. It's a simple, no-cost way to beef up your affiliate sales, so I hope to see your name in print soon!

E. Alan Cowgill