One of the biggest buzzwords in online marketing right now is article marketing, but many business owners and webmasters are missing the point of the concept.  Article marketing is a great component of a marketing plan to generate free traffic to the website, increase rankings in search engines through back links, and turn the business owner into a known expert on their subject. Article marketing should be done correctly to be most effective, and this means avoiding some of the most common mistakes every would-be article author makes.

The first mistake is missing the point. Every article must accomplish three things. First, it must provide valuable information to the audience. This is paramount in establishing the author as an expert, and setting up future communications with potential customers. An article that reads like a sales page will be ignored, or worse, will waste both the busy business owner and the customer’s time.  How will a potential client react if they feel you’ve wasted their time?  It’s like the boy who cried wolf.  They won’t listen to you when you finally have worthwhile information to share.

Second, the article must arouse curiosity, and draw the visitor to your website where they want to learn even more about the company, author or product.  Once on the site, the visitor should be compelled to share their e-mail address in exchange for a premium.  The giveaway is a great way to share even more valuable information with the market, enhancing expert building opportunities, and can include a sales page at the end.  (Although the sales process can be reinforced throughout the premium, and with the articles themselves, since establishing expertise in the eyes of the audience builds trust, and allows them to feel more comfortable in making a product purchase from an expert.)

The third thing the article must accomplish is being original.  There may be only one sun in the sky, but the life-giving light, the nurturing yellow sunlight, the golden globe hovering on the edge of the horizon- well, you get the idea.  There is a difference between rehashing information so that it’s presented in a new and fun way and just regurgitating the same information in the same tired format.  Be original, fun and entertaining.

Which brings us to your voice. A lot of people get scared when they think about writing an article, yet almost everyone in the world has a hobby they can talk for hours about.  Why not “talk” your article in your own unique voice?  Won’t that keep you original and set you apart from the competition?  Of course it will.  You may be one of twelve hot dog vendors on the city block, but by being the most original you that you can be, with all of your personality on display, you can have a voice that is unique to your expertise.  If you have heard the advice, be yourself, then take it to heart, especially in your writing.  The best tip you can take away from this is to write your articles like you were talking to a friend.

Your articles are a hard working sales force out in the world working to bring people to your website twenty four-seven, so don’t just spew worthless information out into the world wide web. Take the time to create a marketing plan, and be precise in how each article can affect your bottom line.  Don’t use a shotgun approach in your article marketing.  Use a rifle.  It’s better for you to pick one article site first, and dominate that article site with fresh original content until you are acknowledged as an expert on that site, and then move to the next site.

This is a lot easier than it sounds. Start by opening a blog on your website.  Update it every day for a week.  If you write one hundred related words per day, at the end of the week you will have one article.  At the end of one month, you will have four articles to post on an article site.  Follow your marketing plan to post an article every day on the site while you still create original content for your site.  At the end of three months, you will have twelve original articles on the one site, all linked back to your website, and driving traffic back to you.  Now you can move to the next site, and post starting with the first article.  This process can be speeded up, especially if you outsource the writing to an expert or several experts.  The process can take weeks instead of months, but the basic idea to select ten article directory sites and dominate them will keep the rifle approach to article marketing will be better for your site.

Use your articles offline to generate even more traffic. An electronic newsletter with your articles in it is a great way to promote your site and expertise very inexpensively.  Another way to generate additional interest and traffic is to combine your articles into an offline newsletter that you can print up on your own desktop printer. Go visit a salon or spa, places where people have to wait, and ask the owner if you can put their logo and ad on the front in exchange for printing it up and providing it to their waiting customers.  You can create as many of these partnerships as you can develop.

Article marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate free traffic to your website.  Think outside of the box, be original and have fun to develop your expertise and promote your business with great informative articles.