Article Marketing

Article Marketing
Article marketing can be a great advertising utility for all businesses. Writing articles for online journals, ezines, blogs and directories can increase visibility and conversion rates. Article marketing allows business owners and modern day affiliates to drive targeted traffic to their sites and create product buzz. After all, targeting individual niches has proven to be one the most effective ways to increase online conversion rates.

Modern day article marketing varies little from its humble roots in newspapers and magazines. Article marketing has been used by marketing professionals far before the Internet was even thought of. Article marketing, in its primitive form came in the form of newspaper and magazine articles which were exclusively utilized by business owners as a means of obtaining free advertising space. There was normally an agreement made between a newspaper or magazine and the business professional. The business professional agreed to provide useful content for the paper/magazine and in return they received free advertising in the form of basic business information (phone number, address etc.) located in the articles by-lines. Since its inception, article marketing has been modernized and has transitioned to the world wide web. The basics of online article marketing remain the same with a few minor variations. Business owners and affiliates alike, utilize article marketing in the form of ezines, article directories, blogs and more, to drive targeted traffic to their websites, landing pages, affiliate pages, lead capture pages and more.

Why does article marketing work?
Websites thrive on fresh content and marketing programs need inexpensive advertising (free is good). Article Marketing provides the best of both worlds. Article marketing provides retailers, business owners and affiliate marketers with free advertising (via article by-lines), and website (ezines, article directories etc.) get fresh content. Article marketing has quickly become a staple among marketers as a method of product and service promotion.

Does article marketing have other benefits?
Search engines are becoming increasingly complex. The way sites are reviewed and ranked is based on a number of factors. The two most important factors to discuss here are back-links and content. First, as I mentioned earlier, article directories benefit from articles written by Internet marketers through an increase in content. Search engine spiders seem to feed on fresh content and normally reward content rich sites with higher page rankings. Achieving front page search engine rankings is the ultimate goal of any online business. Second, articles create free back-links to business or affiliate sites. Not only do businesses and affiliate site benefit from the increase in direct visits from their articles they also invaluable back-links. Fresh content and back-links can increase your search engine rankings.

Article marketing also has some major backend effects as well. Most article directories allow republication of articles written and submitted their authors. This can really compound the overall effects of your article marketing campaign. Here’s the low down: You write one article and publish it to an ezine (like ezinearticles.com), the ezine allows other websites to republish your article and ad it to the content of their site as long as their terms of service are met. The terms of service always include keeping the authors information and by-line intact (for copyright reasons). This can greatly increase the amount of direct article traffic you receive from one article but can also increase your sites total number of back-links.

Are there risks involved with article marketing?
Yes and no! There are many individuals who are worried about duplicate content penalties set forth by my the major search engines (ie. Google). That is if your article is duplicated and published on numerous sites in its original form, there may be some search engine ramifications. Sites who reuse content may be downgraded and see a decrease in their overall page rank. My advice to article marketers is to never, and I mean never publish any article on your website or blog that is going to be submitted to an article directory. This assures your site will not incur any negative penalties from major search engines.

I think its fair to say that Copyright infringement is a risk. I can’t count the number of times I have seen individuals completely disregard Copyright laws and article directory terms of service (as it pertains to reprints and article submissions). Article theft and online copyright infringement is on the rise. Although many article directories have instituted policies (like duplicate content searches etc.) to limit article theft and copyright infringement , they can only do so much. With that said, there are many individuals who are still willing stretch and even break copyright infringement laws. Going down that road is a slippery slope and it will catch up with them. Creating unique quality content is safer and carries more weight. Authority status is what all article marketers should strive for and copyright infringement takes you further from your goals. Developing consumer confidence and loyalty takes time, honesty and hard work.

Can article marketing increase affiliate sales?
Yes, article marketing can drive niche specific traffic to your affiliate site or landing page and can also increase your affiliate site visibility. All affiliate marketers should utilize some form of article marketing.

Article Pointers: Be Concise and Precise
Article titles are extremely important. They are the first thing that readers see when they come across your article. If your article title doesn’t spark interest in your article, viewers won’t bother reading it. Internet users are becoming more savvy and want to find what they are looking for quickly. With that said, article titles should be very specific and provide a concise yet precise title. Your article content should adhere to the same rules. When writing an article remember to add relevant content early on and don’t create 3000 word essays. Readers are often times taken back by long articles and refuse to read the entire article. Keep this in mind when writing your next article: If your readers get bored and move on to another article or website, they will never see your by-line (site link and information) and your work will have been for naught.

Article Marketing Cons:
As I mentioned earlier, becoming an authority on a particular subject is how marketers gain loyalty and readership. If you want return visits you need to be committed to quality. There are two ways to look at Article Marketing. Number one, are you looking to drive targeted traffic to your site and gain visits? If so, submitting your article to article directories (like ezinearticles.com) is valid. You will get more site visits and you will get a few back-links. However, these back-links may ultimatley come from splogs (spam blogs) or blog farms. The page rank of these sites (splogs etc.) may not carry much weight, but at least they are back-links and I suppose there is something to be said for that. On the flip side, are you looking to drive targeted niche traffic to your site using high end authoritative websites with a page rank? Obviously, the second option is a major improvement. The problem is, finding authoritative sites willing to publish your work proves to be difficult. For instance, if you ran a sports blog and you wanted to gain more visibility, which would be more valuable: An article published on a hodge-podge directory or an article published on a major sports site or ezine (online magazine). Getting your work published on a major site will be difficult, but should be your ultimate goal as an Internet marketer. While you are trying to develop your online presence it is an excellent idea to publish unique content rich articles to online directories. Once your online presence has been established you will have a better chance of leveraging a major site or blog.

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