Article Marketing

If you decide to put all your eggs in one basket, and focus on just ONE marketing tactic, then this is the one. It has all the advantages of just about every other kind of marketing, and it is 100% honorable and effective when you do it right.

Article Marketing is just about my favorite type of online marketing. It is a total winner when you do it right, there is no down side. Of course, it is also one of the harder ones to learn to do right, because it requires good writing skills. But it has such power, that developing good writing skills is well worth the effort!

The advantages are:

• It is free if you can write.  
• If you cannot write, you can pay someone else, and then you can use the article in more than just one way.  
• It is viral.  
• It starts the relationship building process before you ever meet the customer.  
• It demonstrates your expertise.  
• It reaches out beyond where you could imagine.  
• It keeps working long term.  

It works like this:

1. You select a topic that relates to the product or service you are offering through the website you wish to promote.  
2. Write an article that meets certain criteria to help it do the job right. That means NEVER EVER using the article as an ad!  
3. Add a signature line that has your URL and a short background on you. This is the ONLY place you can advertise.  
4. Post the article to article directories, where other people are able to read it, and reprint it (with the signature line) if they choose.  

Article marketing is very powerful, because it reaches beyond your own sphere of influence, and into other people's spheres of influence. It also gives something to your prospective customers, in a way that helps them feel they can trust you to deliver on what you promise later.

Because it offers instructions and a bit of personality, it starts the relationship marketing process for you. It increases credibility, and markets indirectly. It is viral, and spreads itself if you give good value that other people want to share with their own site visitors. It accomplishes not just one objective, but a whole range of them.

The concept is incredibly simple, and very powerful. It is also 100% free if you can do the work yourself. Some people cannot, and for them, it is still worth paying someone else $50 or so for a high quality article that targets their business topics in an effective way, because they will certainly get more for their $50 than they would if they spent it on Pay Per Click or any other “pay per visitor” type marketing.

Article marketing is considered to be a “permanent and free” marketing method. Permanent online does not mean forever, but it means that it goes on working for you, for years after you made a single effort.

There is a reason why this is our favorite type of online marketing.

The whole process is FAR more detailed than I can possibly explain on this one simple page, so I'll refer you to my site that deals just with that topic, at http://www.articlemarketingmagic.com/

It is well worth either taking the time to learn to do it well, or paying someone else to do a quality job for you, because articles end up benefiting your business in more ways than just posting them on article directories.

Once you have a good quality article that you hold the copyrights to, you can use it for a wide range of marketing and product creation objectives. Content is king on the 'net. Articles are content. With them, you can carve out your own little kingdom!

Written by Laura Wheeler
Owner, Firelight Web Studio
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com 
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