It's the holy grail of marketing on the Internet. Without content you're nothing and Google will ignore you. Needless to say, if you are marketing on the Internet this takes on a whole new meaning. Article Marketing is one of the ways of getting traffic to your site, and hopefully to get people to buy your wares, right?

There's a bit more to it, unfortunately. HubPages is one of the places where you can easily see article marketing in action. After all, article marketers love this place, and why not, since it is an excelllent site to get your pages noticed. It's also very, very, easy here to see hundreds of article marketers going about their business the wrong way.

If you want to be a cut above your opponent, here are some hints on what not to do.

I bet you've been told that all you have to do is write lots and lots of articles and then publish them in places they will be seen. There may have even been a passing mention at research, but hey, who cares about that? In order to get that money you need to pump out those articles.

WRONG

If you write just any old thing, hoping that your readers will make it to the end of your article and click on that link, you're wrong. They won't. They'll click away before they get there. You know of the saying about Shakespeare and the 1000 monkeys with typewriters? You are not one of the monkeys. You don't have time to write 1 million bad words before you get to the good ones.

This follows on from point number one. If you can't care enough to write a decent article, then why should your reader care enough to read it. Think about what they want and you'll see the need to slow down and write something worth reading.

You won't get away with writing a sub-standard article. You may think you will, but in the long run you'll be dead in the water. I hate to break it to you, but it will require more effort on your part than you think. If you can't put in the effort yourself, then pay someone else to do the dirty work for you.

If you think that the people who read your articles are idiots it'll come across that way. Trust me on this. The people that read your articles will want to know that you are passionate about your subject.

Anyone can bang out an article. Not everyone can bang out a decent one. If you don't bother researching your subject. If you just repeat everything that other people have told you without thinking it through, and then typing it up, you are the one who will look like an idiot to your readers. It won't be the other way around.

I hate to break it to you, but unless you are a genius, you won't get away with it. The chances are that the reason people are reading your article is because they are either interested in the subject, and know a little about it, or they are researching it.They will know more about the subject than you do unless you are ahead of them.

If you think your readers are idiots it will show. Big Time.

I bet you've been told to inject some personality into that article. Write as though you were talking to the person. It's good advice, as far as it goes. If your guru told you to throw grammar completely out the window in order to do this, then get a new guru.

Honestly, I'm not saying you have to write as if you were writing an essay. You can write an article, with your personality pretty much intact and still have a passing wave at adding the occasional period (or full-stop if you prefer) and comma. I'm no grammar guru, so don't ask me for the mechanics of it all, but I bet you learnt the basics at school, too. You do want people to understand you, right?

Ha! I hear you saying to yourself. Got her in one, I did! Look above: she says don't write with an agenda to make money and then puts in two ads to Amazon products. What a little hypocrite! Not really. I'll be covering this issue a little later on. Now back to the topic at hand...

Unless the person you are writing to loves infomercials it is worth thinking about being just a little subtle. If your aim is to make money (and I bet it is) then you need to remember that no one likes to be led by the nose. The minute a reader smells an agenda they'll be hitting that back key faster than the speed of light.

The problem is that this can be hard to do. It does take skill and it is a skill worth learning. Guide your readers gently. Put your sledgehammer aside. You don't need it. What you do need is a teeny, weeny, little paintbrush instead. Make subtle strokes with it and woo your audience.

Put your agenda aside, if you can, and you'll have a much more appreciative audience, and more than likely more cash in the bank because of it. If anything you'll feel better about yourself for not trying to deceive others.

I added two Amazon capsules before and after the grammar section. You must have noticed: I wasn't subtle about drawing attention to them. I did it for a reason. Those Amazon products were put there because they are both damn good books that are easy to read and address the major issues in grammar. They are also on my bookshelf. This brings us to the topic at hand: writing blind about subjects.

Let's say, for example, you come across this fantastic affiliate opportunity and it involves wigets (oh, those wonderful widgets) and they are paying big money for promoting them, and it seems like everyone is making money off them and you want to, too. There's a little hitch, though, because you've never used this widget and have no idea what it does. But, hey, it's gonna make you lots of money. The sales page said so, and you don't really need to know all the details, do you?

I have a secret for you: The devil is in the details. If you have no idea what you're promoting then you can't render a service to your customers can you? It's very rare that a person can bluff their way along with this kind of thing despite what you may have been told. Think long and hard before you decide on this approach...which leads us to the next related thing not to do.

Let's be brutal here: most sales copy out there are the Internet's version of Infomericals. They are long...man are they ever long! They tell you a lot without really telling you anything. They are there to rouse curiosity. They are there to get you to buy that product. If nothing else, they are there to wear you down so that all you want to do is click on that button and whip out the credit card.

The sales page is not the place to do research. It is not the place to get to know your reader or what they really want to know.

Go to messageboards, and look at articles that have already been written on the subject. The chances are this is where your customer will be going, too. When they get to your article give them what they need to know, so that when they go to the related topic's page (the super-duper long sales page), they want to be there. I know this sounds like a contradiction, because to an extent you are leading your customers by the nose and I've already told you not to do that, but by researching you'll be able to be much more subtler.

The chances are that one piece of advice you've been given is that you should write lots and lots of articles. Pump those articles out and you'll be in with a winner. Like I've said before the chances are that if you take this approach you'll end up with a whole lot of nothing.

Getting speed up so that you can write lots takes time. You're better off moving slowly at first and writing the best quality article you can. When I first started writing again my articles were stiff and not that well-written. BUT they were the best I could do at the time, and you'll go through this, too.

You will get to a point where you shrug your shoulders and begin to write without thinking too hard about the consequences and it's then that your personality will come through. From then on composition will be faster and hopefully your articles will be easier to write and more interesting to read.

The sad fact is that you need the early, awkward stage because there is a certain amount of practise required for any new task you take on. Don't rush at the beginning because what you learn then will serve you for years to come and in ways you can't possibly imagine now.

The web is big and it's scary and Google is notoriously fickle. If you've done some keyword research then its very possible if you publish at a site like hubpages, that you'll initially end up on the first page of the search results. Unless you do at least a little promotion you won't stay there.

What I mean by that is bookmarking your article at places such as relevant social bookmarking sites, on bulletin boards, and if you can swing it, maybe even in the author boxes of other articles you've written. The reason for doing this is to draw attention to your article as being popular on Google. There are other hubs on hubpages that go into how to promote in more detail. It's worth finding out more on this subject so that all your effort in writing is not in vain.

You know and I know that making money is serious business. It can be fun, though. Writing articles can be frustrating and rewarding at the same time.

Some will come so fast and so easy it will feel like you are flying instead of writing.

Others will be like pulling out an impacted wisdom tooth without anesthetic.

Some you'll lose interest in, only to get the spark later.

While you are writing these articles, these quality articles, to assist your money making effort, don't forget to give yourself a pat on the back for your achievements. Many people want to write and never pluck up the courage to do it, and here you are doing it every week. It's an achievement.

Don't give up. The money may not come from the direction you expect it to, but if you keep your self respect it will come.