I found out a few days ago that I had made my first affiliate sale  (not including purchases that I had made myself). It puts a new twist on things.

First it validates the concept. You can write an article that leads a reader to eventually click through to your product's sales page and make a purchase. So now it is a matter of doing more of what works, and getting it running at a high enough level to generate a lot more sales.

At the same time, that first sale can demonstrate just how tough it is to make sales with article marketing. As someone who still considers himself a "newbie," I am having problems ranking my articles. They seem to do well when initially posted, but tail off quickly as I imagine they fall off of the "new articles" lists.

None of my articles rank on Google, unless I search in quotes. Could that be a function of a highly competitive product (Magic of Making Up)? I've started doing PPG's DAM way, using the keyword tool as she demonstrates and basing my articles on the highly ranked kw phrases, but still no ranking.

So at the moment, my goal is to sharpen my apparently not so hot SEO skills. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Here is a link to my most recent article (which used the "dam" way. ) The second link is to my most successful article in terms of views and clickthrough. The second article has been viewed more than 10 times any of my other 8 ezine articles.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-it-Possible-to-Get-an-Ex-Back?-Start-With-a-Single-Step&id=4199748

http://ezinearticles.com/?I-Want-to-Mend-a-Broken-Heart-and-Win-Back-My-Ex!&id=4137112