Article Marketing

Article marketing is the process of writing, or purchasing, articles and submitting to the top article directories. These articles create long-term traffic as your articles will continue to get traffic indefinitely.

Articles do not need to be long, roughly 300-500 words on average. The main goal of the article is to actually convey legitimate, helpful information. Your articles all go through a human approval process when you are a new publisher. Do not let this scare you, just be careful not to write a 500 word sales pitch. The trick is to search out a problem that people interested in that niche face, and then provide a short answer. Do not solve the entire problem that the product you want them to purchase will do, but solve one simple problem and then lead them to your site by linking at the bottom of your article.

Example:

Let's say you are promoting an offer for a automobile loan for those with lower credit scores. This is a large group of people who have a problem, getting a loan for something they need very bad. Of course the big problem is getting the loan, but if you step back and think for a minute, what other problem would that person face when thinking of getting the loan? Simple..."Can I even get a loan in the first place?"!

So, what should your article talk about? How about a title like "Getting a Car Loan with Less than Perfect Credit is Possible". You are solving a basic problem, but you now have their attention and they are very likely to click on your link where you have the offer for a car loan.

This is just one example, but the point is that all you need to do to be successful in article marketing is do a bit of thinking.

Article marketing is an activity I highly recommend. Even submitting one article a day for a period of time can drive a lot of long-term traffic to your website, even if you quit submitting articles completely. You would not really be able to stop the traffic if you wanted to.

Another benefit to submitting articles to directories is they have the chance to be syndicated. Many websites need a lot of fresh content, and they will use your article in their site. The stipulation is that they must keep the whole article in it's entirety, including your bio box. This means you will build more links and traffic into your site if you have quality articles that get reprinted on other sites.

Some Key Points When Writing and Submitting Articles:

Use Keywords - In the title, description and body of your articles use as many keywords as possible without making the article appear ridiculous. By ridiculous I mean repeating keywords just for the sake of it. You have to use it in the context of info, no constant one-liners with keywords. Remember, as much as you want to attract hits to your article, the hit is a real human and you want them to read the article. I have seen "authors" with articles that were ridiculous and it felt like your intelligence was being insulted just by reading it. Spend a little extra time and put something out there that is worthwhile, that is the best recipe for success!
Duplicate Content - You should really try not to submit the same article verbatim to more than one directory. Search engines do not like duplicate content and it may hurt the articles search engine traffic. Obviously you will run out of ideas of what to write about a certain niche at some point, so it makes sense you will want to use what you do write to maximum capacity. To do this, first make sure you keep a copy of everything you write. Once you have an article, you can rearrange some paragraphs, or delete and rewrite certain sections, and you basically have a unique article again. The whole article does not need to be different, but you want a break in the duplication to make it unique.
Bio Box - Each directory gives you a "bio" box at the end of your article, make sure to use this. Each directory is different, some let you create "profiles", others you can just change the box with every new submission. Just make sure, if you are promoting more than one site, that you have the right bio box for that particular article. Say a little about yourself or site and put a link for "more info on..." to your website.

Click here for a link to a list of the top article directories.

You do not need to create accounts with all the directories, I would recommend starting with the top 5. You can submit to all of them if you want, but I feel that spending your time on the top five or so directories yields better results than the bottom ranking directories.

CAUTION: You will most likely come across article submission software and services that claim to automate the process. While this sounds like a very good deal, it's usually not. The good directories do not want people autoposting content, they do not want marketers overloading their site with junk. To combat "bots", they have measures in place. First, they want you to log-in and there is typically some CAPTCHA during the process. From my experience, you will just throw your money away trying this route.

OUTSOURCING

There are plenty of places you can get articles written for cheap. The main problem comes in receiving QUALITY articles, this is largely a hit and miss market. If you go this route and find someone who produces quality articles at a good price, stick with them. The best way to look at this is like an investment. Perhaps the article costs $5 to have written. Now you can write and rewrite that article into 3,4 or 5 articles. Submit to the directories and I guarantee you will recoup many times more than the price of that article. The risk comes mostly in the chance of receiving poor quality articles.

If you decide you want to try buying articles, I would start by going to Google and searching for "article writers" or "ghost writers" or something along those lines. You will get plenty of results. You can also find services like this on Craigslist. My recommendation would be to go in the middle to the upper range of prices. You can get articles for $.99, but they are probably junk. A good article will cost a little more, possibly $5-$7, but it is more likely to be quality content that is written with keywords and search engines in mind.

Here are some links to helpful sites for more advice on article marketing...

http://internetsuccesscoach.com/tutorials/articlemarketing/

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/an-article-marketing-guide/