While article marketing probably won't get you the same volume of traffic as PPC right away, the visitors you achieve with a good article campaign will be of fantastic quality. And over time you can start to see some impressive numbers.
Regardless of how much technology advances, this fact will always remain: The Web is about finding quality content quickly.
People who surf cyberspace are looking for good information. No matter what business you are in, your potential customers are out there researching products and services like yours or trying to learn more about what you have to offer.
A quality article about some aspect of your field will do three things:
1. Establish you as an authority among your target prospects. When people who are interested in a topic read a good article on this topic they almost always assume the author is an authority figure in the business at hand and will therefore be likely to accept your recommendations.
2. Create laser-targeted traffic for your offers. Each time you add an article to the Web you will place a resource box - like an "about the author" blurb - at the end of your content that contains a link back to the Web page(s) of your choice.
3. Bring search engine spiders to your site. Search engine robots love to crawl article directories, and when they find a good keyword optimized link from your resource box back to your site they will begin to analyze your content based on the keyword rich back link; this can result in improved search engine placement.
There are loads of article directories, blogs, and ezines online that accept quality content on a variety of subjects. You can add your articles to a directory, and then ezine owners and bloggers will find your contribution and place it on their sites; and they are required to leave your resource box intact. Or you can find independent newsletters and blogs and submit your pieces directly to the site owner - the worst that can happen is they reject you.
Even if you're not a great writer you can still put together a simple article. All you need is a good idea and plain, everyday language skills. In fact you can hire somebody else to write a good article for you for $10 to $30.
To get started just sit down and write, or hire somebody else to write, a 400 to 500 word commentary about a topic within your field. Do not create a blatant ad because potential publishers will reject this.
The idea is to deliver real value, then invite the reader back to your site to learn more about what you can offer. Here are a few examples of how different businesses can employ article marketing:
· A florist might write a short piece on choosing the right colors for a wedding, holiday, or other special event.
· A restaurant could create an article on cooking tips.
· A Web designer might write an article about basic CSS.
· A store owner who sells wind chimes could write a piece on the history of wind chimes.
· A network marketer may submit an article about how to choose the right compensation plan.
· A mortgage lender could write an article about how consumers can clean and repair their credit score in preparation for their first home loan.
In all of these examples, the marketer would be providing useful, interesting content to their target prospect. Then, using the link within the article resource box, the prospect would be invited to visit the marketer's Website.
A prospect that takes the time to read an article about your field is the ultimate Website visitor!
I want you to be fully aware: This form of promotion is a "quality over quantity" measure. It will take many articles to generate thousands of visitors, but even if you receive only a few dozen visitors from your first submission these visitors will be of superb quality.
Tim Whiston is a professional writer and entrepreneur living in the southeastern U.S. He enjoys marketing and helping others achieve their dreams of success. For more great content on Entrepreneurship and Positive Thinking be sure to check out his blog.
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