Article marketing is simply one of the best ways to increase your web presence and promote your hubs, blogs, Squidoo lenses, or whatever else you want to bring attention to. Done properly (and this is key, as many people who claim article marketing doesn't work make a lot of really basic mistakes) article marketing can help your hubs on Hubpages, or your blog or website, shoot up through the search engine rankings, in addition to bringing a lot of publicity and direct visitors from your articles. There are literally hundreds of article directories online, but only a couple dozen get a lot of visitors, and the giant article directory that is head and shoulders above the competition is ezinearticles.com. The request this hub was made to answer was: "What is the best way to bring publicity to your hub?" While social bookmarking can do a little bit, search engine traffic is always best, because if you're #1 on Google, guess who people are going to visit whenever they're curious about a subject? I'm a firm believer in article marketing strategy, and in this hub I'll reveal why.

Article marketing is the technique of writing articles for article directories in order to get direct traffic to another website being promoted, as well as building backlinks. Backlinks are the main factor in Google's determining which websites should be ranked at the top and which are at the bottom.

Article marketing is a process where not only do the articles give direct links which can be followed by readers to your blog or website, but those links also work as backlinks increase your search engine rankings. If the links are keyword anchored, then they can be very effective in getting your sites and blogs (or Squidoo lenses or Hubs) ranked very highly by Google.

There are some people who aren't big on article marketing, but many of them have made mistakes, or expected to be #1 in credit cards on Google after two articles (very unrealistic expectations). There are many individuals who firmly believe in article marketing as a great way to get traffic, better search engine rankings, and more profits because of that.

Many individuals believe article marketing is the answer because they've seen it work. Jeff Herring is a great example of an individual who has used this technique to not only make a great living online, but he has helped many others do the same, as well.

I am also a firm believer in article marketing because I've seen it work, and if you're looking for a way to improve your website search engine rankings while increasing traffic, article marketing can be a great way to go.

While the basic idea of article marketing is simple, there are many nuances to it that can determine how effective (or not) your article marketing campaign ends up being. I made a lot of mistakes early on that really limited my articles' effectiveness, and I still saw some weekly traffic and ranking improvements. Follow some of these tips, and you'll be in great shape to make sure your article marketing campaign is a great success!

Article Marketing Tip #1: Use keyword anchors in your resource box. Instead of saying "visit my page at…" learn some basic HTML code to make a keyword anchor. So for example, if your site is about cat sweaters, instead of putting "fakecatsweaters.com" at the end, you can use HTML to allow the words "Cat Sweaters" to link directly to your website. This is HUGE in getting your website to rank highly in Google for your keywords.

Article Marketing Tip #2: Think of your resource box as a sales pitch, not your bio. You want to invite readers to check out your other stuff. If they want your bio, they can click on your profile…or they can check out your other stuff like you want them to!

Article Marketing Tip #3: Focus on specifics! Don't write one 1,000 word article on a topic when you can break that into four different 300 word articles, all with links back to your other blogs, pages, hubs, etc.

Those are just three tips to help insure that your article marketing campaign is a success. Learning how to take advantage of article marketing is a key part in learning how to succeed as a freelance writer.

One of the reasons I really love article marketing is that it continues to keep on working long after you are finished with each individual article. The articles you write and post to online article directories remain published and online for basically forever. This means those articles, those links, and those backlinks are up on the web for as long as that article directory is online – and the big name ones aren't going anywhere.

If you write an article on January first, that article will continue to get readers and traffic for days, months, and years afterwards. Writing even a few articles a week can really add up over the course of one or two years.

Article marketing isn't a one time thing. It's cumulative, and many successful online Internet marketers have reported making money from, and getting traffic from, articles even years after they were published and posted. By continuing article marketing, you're not only getting an immediate one time benefit from articles, but the benefits of using article marketing continues long after the first posting.