What is Article Marketing?

Article marketing is the process of writing articles for
the purpose of including links to your website, and
submitting those articles to the various on-line article
directories. It's a powerful way to promote your website,
increase your traffic, and improve your search engine
listings.

While article marketing is one of the most effective forms
of on-line advertising, it is one such method that is often
overlooked by business owners. The business or web site
owner who does take advantage of article marketing has a
leg up on their competition.

Article marketing has several benefits, including
establishing yourself as an expert, lead generation,
increased site traffic and improved search engine rank. How
does this work? Let's explore each of these benefits.

Establishing Expert Status

To get the most from your article marketing efforts, the
articles you write should pertain to what you do for a
living and what you want to promote. Just like your local
store owner who recommends a particular product or answers
questions about using one, sharing information with readers
sets the impression in their mind that you are experienced
and knowledgeable. They will begin to trust your advice and
look to you for further guidance.

Lead Generation

After reading an informative article, readers often look
for more information. At the end of each article, there is
what's called a "Resource Box" or "Author Bio". This short
bit of text contains information about the author, a link
to their website and a call to action. Since the reader has
already shown an interest in the material in the article,
clicking that link is the natural progression. This link
can be used to drive visitors to a specific product page or
a newsletter sign-up form

Increased Site Traffic

Article marketing is a proven traffic producing strategy.
The more articles you write and publish, the more interest
and attention you gain. When you submit a site to a search
engine or a directory, it takes a while before it gets
listed and the effects start to show in the way of
increased traffic. Writing and submitting articles to
directories which see large amounts of traffic can generate
increased traffic to your web site in a short amount of
time.

Improved Search Engine Rank

Each article you publish with a link to your website is
considered by the search engines to be an incoming link for
your site. The combination of increased traffic and
interest, and a respectable number of incoming links will
produce a higher page rank and better listings in search
engine result pages for a web site.

Successful article marketing requires you to write and
publish consistently but the secret value that article
marketing holds is in the fact that one well-written,
interesting article can generate literally thousands of
visitors and revenue over time. The more quality articles
you write, the more quality, targeted traffic you receive.

With article marketing you can slash your Internet
marketing budget and build valuable incoming links and
credibility for your web site. All of this in turn creates
high page ranks for your website and creates more search
engine traffic for you. Article marketing is and always has
been one of the best methods a business owner could use to
promote their web site.

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Cindy Dykstra is an editor for Article-DirectorySite.com
where you can find articles and RSS feeds on over 350
topics, all free to use on your website, blog, ezine or
newsletter. Visit

http://www.Article-DirectorySite.com now
to submit your article and get high quality content for
free.