Every webmaster knows that to gain ranking positions in search engines you need to build links. This usually means hours at a computer submitting your site to directories and emailing other webmasters requesting reciprocal links. There is another way of getting links which often overlooked and complements your current link building strategy, writing articles.

Regular new content is important for any website. By writing and distributing articles you can provide site owners with new content and at the same time get a back link or two for your site. In this article I’ll attempt to answer some of the most common questions asked by people considering article marketing as a way to promote their sites.

What should I write about?

Write about what you know and make it relevant to the content of your website this will ensure that the links back to your site are also relevant and enhance the links value in the search engines.

How do webmasters find my articles?

Once you have written your article you submit it to Article Listing websites. These website provide a categorized list of articles that are free to use on websites as long as certain conditions are adhered to. One of these conditions is that all links must be live. When you submit your article you add a short biography and a link to your site in the resource box.

Don’t Webmasters just remove the links?

This does happen occasionally but it is still quite rare. when you write your articles add a unique phrase to the article. You can then search Google to find your articles and make sure your links are intact. If you find that a webmaster has removed your links then just send him an email and ask him to remove the article or make the link live.

How many words should my articles contain?

There is not set length of article but anywhere from 200 words to a maximum of 3500 words is normal. Personally I usually aim for 350 -500 words as this usually sits nicely on a page

What is the ideal number of submissions?

That is a matter of personal choice some people believe that you should submit them to as many as possible, personally I only submit to 2 or 3 sites with a Google PR of 3 and above. My personal belief is that this keeps the articles unique enough to benefit any webmasters who use the articles.

How many articles should I be writing?

Write as many as you can. Some people find they can only write 1 or 2 a day while others like my wife can churn our 25-30 in a day. Set yourself a target of writing 1 before breakfast everyday to start with and then take it from there

Article Marketing is a great tool to use when it comes to adding traffic to your site. If you are not familiar with what it is, Article Marketing is simply writing articles and submitting them to article reprint directories on the web.

As you’re likely aware, fresh new content on your website or blog is very helpful with getting higher search engine rankings. Many webmasters and bloggers who are looking for new content to add to their sites visit article directories to find it.

By submitting your article to these directories, you’re giving permission for other website owners to use it on their website, on the condition that include a resource box that you supply along with the article.

This section lets you include more information about your website, as well as links back to it where people can get more information.

When the website owner or blogger puts your article up on the web, all of their readers will see your biography information and the links to your website. Your article could end up on hundreds or thousands of websites, and quite possibly, millions of people could end up reading it! Who knows how many people could click on your link?

It is very easy to find these reprint directories on the web. Just do a Google search on ‘free reprint article directories’ and many listings will pop up. Some are highly targeted and feature only articles health articles; or only articles about food; and other directories are more general. You can submit your article to more than one directory, and there are even some software packages that will submit the articles for you.

The topics you can choose to write about are limitless. What is the focus of your website? Be creative and think of why someone would want to visit your website and create an article about it. Someone who sells Tupperware for instance, could easily write about food related items or take it a step further an write an article about the fact that the plastic containers are great for organizing toys, bathroom items or even nuts and bolts in the garage.

If you do not like to write, don’t worry. You can hire a ghostwriter to write your article for you. You can ask other Internet Marketers for referrals on reputable ghostwriters. The prices for an article will vary, but an average rate is about $10 to $12 for a 500 word article. Once you discuss with the ghostwriter what you are looking for, they will write the article and send it back to you. Some ghostwriters may also include submit the article to reprint directories for you.

The greatest benefit of article marketing is that is an absolutely free method anyone can use to get free traffic to their site. The number of locations articles can be placed is enormous with each one containing a link back to a site of your choice. The best place to submit articles is site where you know they have a great deal of traffic every day; within a relatively short period you should start to experience more visitors at your site. This is the benefit of using popular sites that have authority and providing they accept your contribution it will help you as well; do not underestimate the power of trust in the online world.

This method of article marketing needs to be done almost every day if you want your name to be associated as an expert so people look for your work. Convincing people of your knowledge in certain areas ensures they will always trust what you write. Although it can take a while, this traffic from people that trust you will help your own search engine ranking; the benefit of this is there will be an increase in people that find you through the search engines. The more websites that link to yours, the more traffic you will achieve; the greatest benefit of this is none of it is costing you a single dollar!

One of the major benefits of article marketing is the links that can be contained within not just the text body but also the ‘bio’ box at the bottom of the page. Each time your article is placed (with the links) on another site, it just helps boost the ranking of your own website! Just how quickly you will visited by a search engine and listed can vary enormously from a day to months! The process can be speeded up a little if the sites where the articles are submitted are popular and you continue to write and submit articles.

The content on your website is what brings the search engines and hence visitors so therefore part of your article marketing campaign should be to continually add fresh content to your website. Bear in mind that when people visit your site, they are unlikely to want your product without learning more about it. People searching for details about a product or service will not mind the sales side providing the information is interesting. Once on your site it is not a complicated matter to show your visitors what it is you are selling. This a little like taking them by the hand so they know what they are buying and most importantly, why. By doing this you are securing any order you make and will receive less refund requests.

Article marketing this way will ensure you will always get new visitors and retain existing ones; this does require you to understand that all of this cannot be achieved with just one article. Remember, if you have an interesting site you will also receive links from other website owners who may also use your article as well; having your article duplicated on other people’s sites can bring a great deal of traffic. You cannot dismiss just how effective article marketing is at getting people to your site for free; all it requires is regular, fresh and unique article content to achieve this.

How is it done?

Without all the myths, hype and nonsense, you can develop a logical strategy to promote your website.

First things first, how does a website achieve top rankings?

Search Engines are out to deliver the most current, relevant and accurate information to the public. They do this by using top secret algorithms for site rankings. Therefore, they are at constant war with SEO experts, whose goal is to ensure the top is dominated by their clients.

There are two “strategies” for getting top rankings:

“Black Hat Strategies” and “White Hat Strategies”

White Hat strategies deliver relevant, accurate, quality and timely information to help reinforce Search Engine design.

Black Hat techniques are ways of cheating that manipulate loopholes and other cheating techniques. These techniques do have the potential to work but do not last for very long as Google programmers are quick to fix the loopholes and ban you at the same time.

Though nobody can verify what works best as far as ranking factors. Given the goal of Search Engines, there are a handful of strategies that have survived the test of time, make logical sense, and have been physically proven:

1. Quality themed content, and lots of it. This goes beyond just stuffing in your keywords as much as possible. The SE’s are getting better at determining themes by means of “latent semantic indexing”, which basically means using artificial intelligence to work out what the site is about, rather than just what keywords are on it. To achieve this you need to provide your keyword, certainly, and also other words and phrases that are linked to them.

2. Links pointing to your site. Links coming from Authority sites are generally worth the most, as they are trusted sources of content. Links from so-called “bad neighborhoods” count for very little. Theme sites related to yours are worth more than non-related sites, ie political sites won’t help you nearly as much as a pet site if you are likewise, a pet site. Search Engines don’t penalize you for bad links coming into your site, but they certainly don’t reward you for links from Free-For-All pages (FFA), link farms or other sites dubbed “bad.” Google Page Rank is a good rough indication of how valuable a site is, the higher the better. PR is probably going to become theme specific, meaning that you may have a low PR for one theme but have a high PR for another theme.

3. Sites that have been around a long time – If all factors are equal, Google Page Rank will rise with time. This makes older sites more worthwhile due to this reason.

4. Fresh sites – In the Search Engine’s quest to find hot news, they generally look to new sites and therefore give initial priority to the newer sites. SE’s also look for links pointing to these new sites as they are sometimes a stepping stone to other new content.

5. Links OUT to authority sites are also worth points. But don’t have too many. While you are not penalized for any bad links coming in, you can be penalized if you link out to bad neighborhoods.

6. The keywords themselves – obviously some keywords are a lot more competitive than others. Aim to get ranked for your most specific keywords first. If you are a local business, then tag on the name of your town or state to the keyword.

7. Unique content. The last thing that search engines want to do is to deliver to the public 20,000 pages that all say the same thing! Duplicate content is quickly recognized and filtered out by the SE’s. Don’t just slap up the same articles that everyone else is using. You need unique content. That applies both to your own site, and also to the pages that are linking to you.

Publishing articles is far and away the most effective method existing to build long term interest in and traffic to your website, but many people would rather chew off their left arm to keep from having to face the keyboard in the morning. They think it is far too much wasted work and effort to produce an article no one is going to read anyway. On the other side of the see saw are the people who know that reading those boring and bland articles is a tedious chore. But articles exist to be read and enjoyed. An article unread actually was a waste of time and effort.

To insure your articles get read and enjoyed, these 6 tips are guaranteed to keep the reader on the hook:

1) Use short paragraphs.

When the paragraphs are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it. It seems confusing and too much of a chore to read all the way through. Your reader will quickly jump past that long paragraph and move on to much easier reading articles that are nice to look at as well as to read. Paragraphs can be a single sentence, sometimes even a single word! Remember – 8th grade level works.

2) Numbers and bullets.

Numbers or bullets can quickly make your point easy to remember and digest. Readers will know this is the important part of the article and their attention can easily flow through the structure of your article. Format your bullets and numbers so your article won’t look like a single block of square paragraphs. Add a little bit of flair and pizzazz to the shape of your articles. At least the ones where the format is under your control.

3) Sub-divide your paragraphs too.

This will break each point into easy to digest sections that would still be incorporated into one whole article. It will be easy for your reader to move from one point to the next. You will hold your reader’s attention long enough to get your point across.

4) Provide a good attention-grabbing title or headline.

Go out and study the headlines of the great copywriters. A title that makes your reader curious gets you most of the way to your goal of getting your article read. Include statements and questions with keywords people are looking for. Describe your article’s content in a short and concise manner with your subtitles.

Use titles like, “7 Tips To Make Her Want You More”, or “The Secret To Making Her Swoon and Blush Guaranteed”. You could also use titles that command people, such as “Make Her Yours In Six Easy Steps”. Your titles should stand out in a crowd without much effort.

5) Keep up a fast pace.

Use stories and real situations to draw in your reader. Descriptive language and the use of metaphors can keep your reader’s interest while you make your point. Don’t go overboard with flowery language, though, just to build up your word count. People still want the information quickly.

6) Use specific facts and figures when possible. Not just weak and ordinary statements.

Using specific facts and figures strengthens your article because it makes it authoritative. But this is no college paper. Don’t make it too formal.

Writing a great article does not have to be a tedious chore. The above are just a few quick points to watch out for. Some simple guidelines you can use to improve your articles. Writing articles can be fun and profitable once you get the hang of it.

Expose your articles on the web with the help of an article submission tool. This tool is a vital component in successful article marketing. It can be either software or an online service which assures the exposure of your article to a greater number of readers online.

For an article marketer, getting articles to be exposed on the internet can be a tedious task and will take a lifetime. There are numerous sites to place your articles into but that doesn’t assure you that your articles are correctly placed. An article submission tool helps you place your articles correctly. This means that the right audience is targeted and feedback is therefore good.

With an article submission tool, you are building the credibility of your website. The more your articles are exposed, the more back links are created to your site. This means the more traffic is attracted to your site. This isn’t just any other traffic; the right audience is drawn to your site.

If you have the right audience, this means there is a bigger possibility that your products and services will be made use of. The more your products and services are sold, the more profits you earn. Without an article submission tool, it will take you several years to appreciate the profit generation of such a market.

Manually exposing your articles is one thing but the other is to expose them faster and receive results quicker. There are different ways in which you can expose your articles to the viewing public. One option is through article submission services where you pay to get your articles exposed and traffic generated. The downside to these services is that you don’t pay once; you have to pay a monthly fee.

An article submission tool or software is a prime alternative to article submission services online. There are software which can be bought at low costs and there are those which are free. This is a very good option to get that large number of reader’s right where you want them to be, reading your articles.

An article submission tool is programmed to work by themselves with minimal supervision from the user. They can be set to do their tasks automatically or semi-automatically. You get to submit more articles and generate more back links with the help of these tools. You acquire more traffic to your website thereby boosting your sales. Most of all, you get to achieve all of these by just a few simple clicks.

Do not become handicapped and get the first dibs on article marketing and what article submission tool is best for you by visiting my website.

Did you know that you can work at home and make money online without ever selling anything? There are very few home based business opportunities that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing.

There are businesses and people bring in thousands of dollars yearly working in affiliate marketing. The business plan is simple. Your clients are already established online businesses selling a wide array of products and services. You get compensated by referring customers to the website you are an affiliate for. You are paid either a set fee or a percentage of what is brought.

The opportunities associated with affiliate marketing are numerous and growing every day. This is how it works. The affiliate places a banner or link advertisement on their website and each time a customer clicks through from the affiliate website to the merchant websites and makes a purchase the affiliate earns a commission.

It is not that difficult to find affiliate programs because it has become so profitable and popular as an internet marketing tool that almost everyone seems to be doing it. This does not mean you should settle for just any affiliate program.

It is very important to select a affiliate program that is at least somewhat relevant to your website or business. This way you will have the best possible chance of your customers clicking through to the affiliate website. For example, if you promote cameras or photography equipment you might join an affiliate program with a company that sells photography books or magazines

Read the affiliate contract carefully. While there are many excellent affiliate programs out there, there is always somebody trying to rip you off while making a quick dollar. Avoid these scams by reviewing affiliate agreements carefully and go with your gut about whether a website or program is legitimate.

The best thing about working a affiliate marketing program is that you are not limited to doing only one program. You can work as many programs as you want as long as you have the space on your website to put their link or banner.

Here are some tips for finding a good affiliate program.

1. Is the product appealing to your customers?

2. How much money does the merchant pay and for what do they pay? Click throughs? Purchases?

3. Do they give you a percentage of all future purchases by that customer? Or do they pay only for the first purchase?

4. How frequently are you compensated? This information should be in the affiliate agreement.

You can find the right affiliate programs for your home based business by doing some good research and in no time you will be making money simply for referring customers from your website.

The Internet offers lots of opportunities to earn money at home by taking advantage of article marketing. This would be excellent for writers or people who have been laid off from their regular jobs. It would be ideal if you could accept an assignment from an editor with an arranged payment schedule, but that’s not how it works anymore.

Instead of going through the time consuming process of actually creating an article and then determining how or if it should be marketed, it’s more advisable to determine the marketability before the creation of the article. This will save time and also can help achieve better results. In today’s media you want to make sure you will be able to sell the article before spending your time creating it.

A hot story idea that grabs audience and editors interest is the key to marketing to traditional print media. Find something topical and timely. Every day there are news stories, breaking trend stories, personal experiences and more, that provide marketable articles. Check the news web sites and portals for the latest items.

Article marketing can be done in new ways on the Internet. Writers can find several services soliciting articles. Money is made for these services through advertising messages associated with the submitted articles. These articles are often on topics that are of interest to potential web researchers. They often contain key words that search engines are likely to use to locate information. Instructional articles, holiday themes, beginner guides, and reviews are examples of this type of writing.

You can establish your own blog and join an advertisng affiliate service directly to collect revenue from attracting advertising viewers with your articles. If you have a particular interest such as cars, art, or cooking, you can quickly establish a web blog and a following if readers.

The best articles are ones that deliver unique content. If you have personal experience or expertise this can deliver the spice needed to make your stories special. Unique articles can be well researched compendiums of basic information. Many people are using the internet as their first stop in shopping, travel, news, and entertainment. If you are able to bring a special point of view, sense of humor, or are slightly ahead of the pack with a personal perspective, article marketing will be easy for you.

Article marketing is a form of advertising which has become widespread and popular among Internet businesses. Companies have formed with the sole business of providing unique content and unique articles to use as part of their promotion. Articles that provide specialized content are the best. You are able to make your stories stand out if you have personal experience or knowledge in the topic. These articles can simply be comprised of basic information on any given topic. The web is often the first place people around the globe look for information. If you can write, this will be simple to master.

There are probably over a thousand ways to promote a website, but most of them are too expensive to be cost effective. Those looking to find success in the electronic commerce field absolutely must find ways to promote their websites. A lot of people have actually doubled their revenue just by successful promotion of their websites or the use of affiliate programs. Make sure you truly understand the concept of marketing if you want to generate a steadily-increasing flow of traffic to your website.

Many authors will spend time writing hundreds of articles which will not reach the target audience. This is not because the articles are poorly written. It is because these authors do not understand the importance that marketing has on their writing. The purpose of this article is to make clear the concept of ‘marketing of articles.’ With the proper instruction, you can most certainly learn to write articles that will sell.

The Internet has become one of the most visited places in the whole world. It has a enormous amount of information about almost anything and everything thank you can think of ! There are three different types of information that can be given over the internet, these there type are video, audio and text. Even tough many people do not read the whole text of all articles they do extract information that is relevant to their search.

Therefore, those web sites which have a better ‘page-rank’ on a search engine will definitely attract more traffic. That is why the importance of Search Engine Optimization must never be sidelined. ‘SEO’ services are very important for efficient article marketing. You must make sure that your articles contain the right keywords.

To attract an extensive readership, your copy needs to have a good heading. Under no circumstances should you use search engine spam techniques. If you are prepared to expend sufficient time and effort, you can easily learn what you need to know to profit from article marketing.

If you want to learn about article marketing at no cost, there are lots of relevant websites available to you. The most important step in article marketing is composing copy that has truly unique content. Unique articles are ones not copied from other works online or offline. When writing them, avoid using terms which are hard to comprehend.

A lot of writers expend fruitless hours penning hundreds of worthless articles which don’t generate the traffic they want. It’s not a question of inferior writing ability, but rather that these writers don’t comprehend the significance of marketing in their area. This article will discuss the basis of article marketing. If you follow our suggestions, you can surely produce copy that is more effective in boosting your sales. There are many web sites which teach you this concept for free. Writing unique articles is also a smart technique. Make sure that every article you write has unique content.

A new trend in the world of advertising is article marketing. Marketing of this kind uses published articles to help website owners generate new traffic. This additionally increases their search engine rating. These articles function as the primary source of marketing, seeking to bring in new customers. New customers are the sole source of profits.

Although you may indeed be capable of composing all the copy for your article marketing by yourself, you could also take advantage of the many firms that can do that job for you. Lots of authors are busy composing fresh copy for marketing services throughout the world. They have assorted perspectives and backgrounds and therefore can pen a wide variety of interesting articles.

Successful article marketing depends on unique content. It is important to write hundreds of different articles on the same subject. This might be time consuming and it may seem difficult to come up with so many different ideas and different ways to phrase them. This is why article services are so convenient and are so important for your business.

Article marketing services are able to provide a nearly endless line of articles on any topic you choose. No matter what business you are in, marketing with a service like this can help gain traffic to your site as well as search engine optimization. The more articles you use, the more keywords are on your site, and the more likely it is that a new customer will find you.

It is vitally important on any site to vary the content of the articles. This communicates to the viewer that the site has a broad and multi-cultured knowledge of its subject and naturally contains many unique articles that holds the viewer’s attention and keeps them engaged – which leads to more purchases. Unique content can lead directly to extra sales.

Such services really facilitate your work. You can just organize your operation and then rake in the money. It seems clear that article marketing and the firms which support it will be around for a long, long time. The technique is effective and can change your life as your profits and client list increase.

As for advertising, the new wave is in article marketing. Many writers feel using a service is an easier way of doing business. These writers have the opportunity to write a variety of unique articles expressing their points of view and knowledge. Because unique content is so important in such marketing, it is vital that you make sure you can write perhaps hundreds of different articles on the same topic. No matter what business you are in, marketing with a service like this can help gain traffic to your site as well as search engine optimization.

Article marketing is taking the world by storm. This new form of advertising is making it exciting to visit new websites and learn new things. The articles are not long, and often contain useful information that you may not have known before. Perhaps the biggest benefit to this kind of marketing is the generation of new traffic to a website.

Article writing is not going to be effective unless you are continually coming up with unique articles. This will insure a constant flow of new visitors to your site. People are interested in new and interesting information and viewpoints not the same old same old. Your aim is to quickly grab a person’s attention.

The more unique content that you have, the more traffic you are likely to generate. People all over the world are using search engines to find what they need to know. If what they are searching for is included in one of your articles, then you have generated potential new traffic to your site

Since there is an abundance of article marketing on the Internet it is important that your article stand out from the others. You need to write short interesting pieces that grab and keep the readers attention. A few keywords and not a lot of words or a certain term repeated again and again will keep your readers interested.

Why should you include these certain words? The main reason is that you want the article to flag Internet search engines, which will increase your ratings at these search engines. This will lead to increased new traffic from your article’s keywords.

An additional way to make article marketing work for you is by allowing your text to be used on a foreign site in exchange for a link back to you. This is guaranteed to bring in new readers. Remember that the number of new eyes “trying out” your site will be directly proportional to the number of links out on the web. Ultimately, this will make you money, which is the ultimate goal.

Article marketing is an important tool in the modern day business world. It can be adapted to nearly any topic and has the potential to generate tons of new traffic. Keep in mind that it is not static, however, and it must always be changing. Writing an article a day is perhaps the best way to make it work for you.

Article marketing is an exploding way to have fun while making money. If you think you have the interest to pursue this endeavor, remember that you must write articles that catch the reader’s interest. These should be unique articles that no one has read yet. These new fresh articles filled with unique content are a sure way to gain the attention of new readers. Remember this is not really difficult and you don’t have to expend a great deal of effort on it. Keep in mind that it is not static, however, and it must always be changing.

by Theo McLanahan

Writing articles is an effective way to express yourself, whether for website promotion, your blog, or to become a professional writer.Remember that “Content is King”.

The better way you organize your ideas, the more publicity you get. Two basic points to be kept in mind while writing an article are:
1: Keep the language as simple as possible

You want your writing to reach the largest possible number of readers, so you want to write it in the simplest language you can while still getting your points across. Writers for magazines and newspapers often write to a fourth grade reading level.

In other words, they’re using language that could be understood by a fourth grade reader.

That’s not to say they can’t write at a higher level, just that they don’t want to limit their readers by their reading skills.

There are obviously some cases where you’ll need to write at a more advanced level – a technical article or political commentary for example. Only do this when necessary, however.

2: Represent your ideas in an interesting manner

Your ideas should be represented in such a way that they are useful to the audience. The better you frame your ideas, more readers will be attracted towards your article. Organize your ideas in such a manner that it entertains the readers. Make sure that don’t write whole descriptive stuff so that the readers feel bored.

Most of the articles written for the internet or for magazines are in classic style known as “five paragraph essay,” which is an ideal format for writing articles in brief. If this style is followed then you can express your ideas in a very beautiful way with the good and interesting start and end.

Step-by-Step Guide to the Five Paragraph Essay

First paragraph – An introduction to the topic of your articles and any related ideas in it.

Second, Third and fourth paragraphs: Which will support or expand points in the introduction in the simple and creative language.

Fifth paragraph – Conclusion, including a summary of the points in the article.

If you can use the 5 paragraph essay format effectively, you can write for the internet or magazines. Use the simplest language you can, organize your ideas effectively and you’ll be a successful writer before you know it!

About the Author ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Struggling to get your internet business off the ground but feel adrift in a sea of gurus and products promising the world? Visit the Internet Marketing Chaos blog for a hype-free look at how to run your business.