Creating free reports to promote affiliate products and services is a common practice. The trick is to come up with a free report that people want to read; and that you can easily distribute to large groups of people.

 

Here are some tips to help you write a free report that will capture the attention of people searching the Internet.  I will also give you some ideas on how to entice readers to click on links within the body of your free report as well as ads that reside on the pages of the free report.

 

One of the first things you need to do is determine the content of your free report. This should be determined by the affiliate products you want to promote either within the text of the report or in the ads that accompany the report. At the same time, you want the subject matter to be focused enough that an informative article can result, without being too vague.

 

As an example, instead of writing a general report about office management, you may want to go with a narrower topic, such as "Seven Effective Ways to Deal with Habitually Late Employees." In focusing on one aspect of office management, you help yourself in two ways.

 

First, you have created a topic that will easily find its way into search engines. Second, you have laid a foundation for a whole series of free reports that can focus on other aspects of effective office management.

 

One thing to keep in mind with your content is that people love to read stories. That does not mean you have to provide a full-blown story with each point you make. Just keep in mind that quick illustrations can make your points and still play like the recitation of a story in the eyes of the reader. This will motivate your reader to keep going, so he or she can see what mini-story you will present with the next point.

 

The focused topic also will provide you with the ability to include links and ads that will be relevant to anyone that is interested in helping an office run smoothly. Placing the links so they make sense in the course of the text is very important.

 

Failing to do so will simply derail the train of thought and possibly lead to the reader switching off before giving the links and ads any consideration.  If the link is positioned properly within the text, it will seem almost natural to click on the link and investigate what is on the other side.

 

Circulating your free report can be as easy as offering the report on classified ad sites that allow you to post for free; or as easy as putting a link to it in your signature and posting on forums.

 

By making sure that you use the classified ads sites that actually generate a lot of traffic; you can easily set up a process for people to either click over to your free report on a web page or receive the free report by email.

 

Placing your free report online, advertising it at online classified web sites, promoting it on forums and ensuring it places well in search engines will make all the difference in the world in how much success you will have with the free report method.

 

In regards to the links in your free report, one of the first things you need to do is make sure the positioning of the links within the text makes sense. The idea is to have the reader discover your link while reading through the body of the report.

 

The presence of the link will be obvious, as it will normally appear as a blue font that is underlined. What you want to happen is that the reader comes across the link, sees it is relevant to what he or she is reading and decides to click on the link before continuing.

 

This is not something that is as likely to happen if your links are not named in such a way as to hold the attention of the reader. Using link names that jars the reader away from the content with no apparent purpose will probably mean that not only will he or she click on the link; the reader may also stop reading altogether.

 

When it comes to the sheer mechanics of inserting a link into your report, here are the basics:

 

First, you will want to make a source document with your links already set up. To accomplish this, open a blank document in your word processing program. Also locate the site you wish to have the link take the reader to and have that up in an open browser.

 

Highlight the URL you want to create as a link, then right click on the mouse or use the "Control" and "C" keys on your keyboard to pick up the URL for copying. Switching over to your blank word processing document, paste the link onto the page. Continue this process by cutting and pasting over all the links that you want to use for your free report.

 

In effect, you are creating a source page that you will be able to use in the next phase, which will involve inserting the links into the text of your free report.

 

For the second stage of your task, write your report. Include the keywords that you plan to use as the names for the links in your text. This will provide you with the easiest manner to work with the insertion of the links, as you will have the places marked out in advance.

 

Keep in mind that you want the text to flow naturally, and hold the attention of the reader. The links should come along as an obvious part of the report, not as something that seems to have been stuck into the body for no apparent reason.

 

Pay close attention to the way you construct the report and you should be able to include quite a few links, as well as important keywords that will help your free report to show up in searches.

 

Next, begin the insertion of your links. You can accomplish this by reading through your finished report. As you come to a place that is ideal for the insertion of one of the links, toggle over to your saved source document, and locate the link that you want to insert.

 

Highlight the link and use the same procedures to copy and paste as you did when creating the resource page. The link will appear in the body of your text, either in blue font, or underlined, depending on which criteria you have selected.

 

Note that if you are using a Microsoft Word document to create your free report, that you can simply highlight the text in your free report that you want to use to lead to the link and then click on the "Insert Hyperlink" tab on the toolbar.

 

From there, you will have a screen appear that allows you to paste in or type the URL you wish to associate with the word or phrase you selected. This will automatically create the link in your document for you and provides you with the option of using any key word or key phrase to lead out to an affiliate ad or site.

 

Make sure you save your document once the links are inserted. From this juncture, it is just a matter of converting the document to PDF format. You can do this using Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Professional (expensive); you can use the free office suite, Open Office, which can be downloaded from http://www.openoffice.org (free and time consuming to learn); or you can use a simple program like eWriter Pro, which you can purchase for only $7 from http://www.resellersoasis.com/oldgold/ewriterpro/ (cheap, fast, and easy).

 

Once you have the download mechanism in place for your free report, you can begin the process of promoting it. One of the best places to begin is on web sites that allow classified ads.

 

Write a short blurb, no more than a paragraph that will let the reader know what your free report is about. Include something that will serve as a teaser, catching the interest of the reader. Include the link over to your free report. Try to use classified ad web sites that rate high with the search engines. This should produce some traffic to your free report in just a few days.

 

Another alternative is to get your free report listed in listings of E-book directories. Look for directories that focus in some manner on topics that are related to the subject matter of your free report. This will make it easier for people to come across the link to your free report while looking for information online. This approach is a little less direct than the classified ads, but can still lead to some excellent traffic for your free report.

 

Another avenue of promoting your free report is to target web sites that invite authors to write articles on a variety of subjects.

 

Write a two hundred to five hundred word article about a topic that involves some aspect of the information found in your free report. Include a link to the free report either in the body of the article, or in the author resource box. Make it a point to go with one of the article sites that tends to rate high with the search engines, and you may find some great traffic coming to you from that angle.

 

Making sales with your free report involves three basic elements. First, you must have a free report that is entertaining and informative. If the report does not hold the attention of the reader, then chances are he or she will never even notice the links. Hold their attention long enough and well enough to entice them to give the links a try.

 

Second, make the information relevant to the links. No one wants to link from a free report on raising funds with a canned food drive to a site selling makeup. The leap must make sense.

 

Last, make sure you include as many links as possible without littering the report too heavily. The more links included, the better your chances of a reader clicking through, seeing something he or she likes, and deciding to buy a product or products. Keep these thoughts in mind, and you will find that producing free reports is well worth your time.