What Article Marketing Is And How It Can Help Promote Your Website

Article Marketing is one of the simplest ways to drive targeted traffic to any website. It may not be the fastest, but it is simple, cheap and can even be done for free. If you are just starting out in the Internet marketing industry, you need to be doing things that are simple and affordable.

In the same manner that many others have started out, you have probably blown your budget trying to build a website, getting your hands on just about every e-book out there, and probably still struggling to make your first sale. By the time you realize that Internet marketing isn't as easy as it has been commonly portrayed through hype, you may no longer have the financial capability for paid advertising.

Pay-per-click or PPC will send traffic to your site a lot faster than any method. However, if you can no longer afford it, you will have to rely on free alternatives. This is where Article Marketing becomes very useful.

If you can write with a grade 9 level English, maybe even lower, you can write marketing articles and publish them at various article directories. Other webmasters and bloggers who like your articles can then pick up and republish them as content at their sites, sometimes just as soon as they are published. Your articles, with your links, can spread out fast to give you free traffic for as long as they remain published.

So, how exactly can you do this? How do you have these articles with links to your website spread out?

Surely you have heard about keywords in anchored texts that are supposed to be in your articles to serve as backlinks to your site. But, as a beginner, you may not be well-versed what these really are and how they can lead traffic to your website.

Surely you have heard of "long-tail keywords", " reciprocal links" and so on. You've heard a lot, in fact too much, that you are suffering information overload while sadly unable to get started with this one all-important task that everybody is talking about. That's frustrating, right?

And just think of what you just went through or still have to do like setting up that website, tinkering with HTML, PHP, CSS and all those techie stuff. You're stuck. Now you know the meaning of paralysis by analysis. You have learned so much yet done so little.

It's time you move forward.

In this report, I will have to assume the following:

You have a website or a blog.
You want to send targeted traffic to your website.
You no longer have money to spend.
You have moderate writing skills.
You are dead serious in succeeding.

Before we get to the Article Marketing how-to, it is essential that you be clear about a few terms.

keyword
backlink
long tail keyword
headline
article body
keyword density
author resource box

So, what are keywords and how can you use them properly?

The Internet is primarily about information. Remember, IT means Information Technology. Virtually everything there is to know that Man knows can be found online. If you want to know anything, just try searching for it. The same thing is being done by millions of people all over the world.

This large-scale hunt for information is facilitated by search engines like Google Search. A person in search of information will type a word or phrase that describes it into a search box. After the click, the search engine will try to find a match for the word or phrase in its index of websites previously scanned and classified for specific keywords.

Search engines regularly scan websites using "spiders" or robot crawlers. These crawlers identify websites according to what they perceive as the most dominant keywords used. Websites they deem to be the most authoritative or important will rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs).

There could be millions of pages recognized for a single keyword. They will fill the SERPS up and most searchers will not read further than page two or three. Getting to these first few pages is a coveted position. It could mean a lot of free targeted traffic on autopilot. Article Marketing, among other methods, can help in this area.

Getting a site up the SERPs is the object of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO has two basic components: on-page and off-page.

On-page SEO refers to the little tweaks you can do to your website so it can be recognized by search engines better. This involves the placement of relevant keywords in the META tags as well as with textual content and alt tags. This is not so important nowadays but it still helps.

Off-page SEO concerns the build up of backlinks pointing to your site. There are reciprocal backlinks and one-way backlinks. Search engines look more favorably at the latter. A reciprocal backlink is a link from another site pointing to yours in exchange for a link at your site also pointing to that other site. A one-way backlink is a link at another site pointing to your site without your site having to point back in return.

A quality backlink comes from another relevant site, preferably using your keyword as anchor text in a hyperlink. Backlinks that come from sites with high page ranks (PR) favors your site with link "juice". It's perceived as importance by search engines. Backlinks from other relevant sites with varying domain names and IP addresses (servers) also imply importance.

The more backlinks that your website has, the more important it looks to search engines. This moves your site up the SERPs. With enough quality backlinks, you can even be number one on page one.

There are many ways to build up backlinks. You can buy them, join a link exchange, offer reciprocal linking with other websites, or write and spread out your articles.

So, how does Article Marketing work?


As has been mentioned, those who search for information online use keywords. For Article Marketing to work best, you have to write valuable information about your chosen topic and use your keywords.

Well, of course, you have to know what these keywords are. If you can do this right, you'll start making money online. This is very important. Otherwise, you'll remain struggling.

Those who search for information online don't just use a single keyword or keyphrase. They may also use other search terms, often more particular ones such as long-tail versions. Long-tail keywords are also less competitive, meaning you have less other users to compete with. This is one Article Marketing secret that you should bear in mind.

Take the keywords "money", "make money", "make money online" and "make money online for beginners". In that order, from first to last, competition declines. The last one is an example of a long-tail keyword.

Now, how would you know how many people are searching your chosen topic's keyword? How do you know how many other advertisers are using it as their keywrod?

Simple. Use the Google AdWords Free Keyword Tool and Google Search.

Type in any keyword you have in mind at the the Google AdWords Free Keyword Tool. The result will feature all the related keywords that are being used in searches. You will find the average monthly search volume for each one. As to the number of advertisers using them, you'll also find the data at Google Search. Type any keyword in quotation marks (e.g."keyword") and the number of websites that show up on the search result is your competition. Anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 would be a good battle ground for beginners.

It's not a fixed rule. You can go lower by using long-tail keywords. Just make sure that there are AdSense ads on the search results. Otherwise, your keyword may be in an unprofitable niche, reason why there are no advertisers. But then maybe not. There are small but profitable niches that have no or too little competition. These are where savvy marketers make a killing.

As I said, Article Marketing is one of the simplest ways to drive targeted traffic to any website. The secret is to chose a keyword relevant to your website and write an article about it. Then you create varying versions of this article and submit them to article directories.

Basically, your article will have a headline, a summary, an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Then you will have a signature or author's resource box where you can place anchored links using your keyword. Anchored links are hyperlinks using keywords which when clicked leads to the intended website.

Be conscious of keyword density.

You need to use keywords that search engines recognize to get noticed by them. However, too much keywords in an article could be considered spammy and get your article delisted. A keyword density somewhere between 2%-5% would be fine. This means 2-5 keywords for every 100 words.

Include your main keyword in your title (headline) and sub-title if any. Include it in your summary, introduction, first paragraph, last pargraph, paragrtaphs in-between and conclusion. You can add or substitute long-tail versions of your main (root) keyword. Avoid using synonyms as they too are keywords that rank distinctly.

The Author's Resource Box

Your article should not sound like it is selling or endorsing. Rather it should be informative, a show don't sell approach. It should just be enough to make your reader interested in clicking your link at your resource box.

The resource box is most important when it comes to article directories that don't allow links within the articles. Every time your article is used or republished by others, it will provide the important one-way link to your website from their websites.

An Article Marketing Innovation

In principle, those who republish articles taken from article directories are obliged to include the author's signature and links. Unfortunately, this isn't always followed.

There is a new free traffic system that involves the cooperation of a growing blog network. If your article submissions to article directories are being rejected, this could be your big break as the literary standards are not too restrictive. You still have to do your best, of course, as the end-users can be picky.

Here's how it works...

You write a 450-word article and submit it to the system. There is an on-site spinning tool that will produce 30 non-duplicate versions of the original. On each of these versions, you are allowed to add 2 anchored links within the article itself. No need for a signature.

The system sees to it that the recepient blogs do not omit your links. This is important.

With 2 backlinks at each of 30 blogs, you gain 60 for a single original article. So, 100 articles will give you 6,000 backllinks. These are quality links. Why? Because these come from many relevant sites with different domain names and IP addresses using your keywords.

As these blogs are also building page rank, if you keep on submitting articles to the system, your site or blog will rank for your chosen keywords faster than with article directories.

Too good to be true? Well, if you're not scared of being on page 1 of Google, why not give this free traffic system a try.

Conclusion

The biggest secret to Article Marketing success is to write and submit as many articles as you can. It may take a few or several months for your site to rank high enough with search engines but, once it does, you can milk free targeted traffic for all it's worth.