Article marketing, also called 'bum marketing' has a lot of benefits. It allows you to brand yourself and your website, establish your expertise, and generate traffic from high ranking article directories and the websites that reprint your articles.

Notice I didn't mention backlinks. Whilst some SEO professionals will make a point of the hundreds of links you can get from an article, and even promote this as a viable method of gaining backlinks, the truth of the matter is that the websites that reprint your articles aren't usually of great quality. True, there are some that are. And you do get backlinks from the many article directories.

However, the search engines effectively only count 1 link from a site back to yours, in terms of link popularity. And the majority of sites reprinting your articles generally don't have a high PR.

But they all send you traffic. And when you have enough articles published, that can really add up.

Articles also allow you to pre sell an affiliate product, by writing about the topic of the product and then linking back to a page on your site with a link (or review) of that product. They also are a great way to build your list, or sell your own products.

How To For Article Writing

1. You should aim for a minimum of 400 words for your article, preferably 450. If you plan on writing a lot of articles, you don't need to have them over this by much. I go for 450 to 600 words usually.

2. Don't mention your product or service in the article. That's what you have your resource box for.

The resource box is also called the author bio box. It's a good idea to include your name (or pen name). And don't link to more than 2 url's, even if the directories you're submitting to allow it. Publishers don't like it and it will cut down on the number of reprints for that article.

Include a call to action when referring to your link. Make it interesting, and benefit laden. You want people to click through to your site.

Don't link to affiliate sites directly - most directories don't allow that. You can feature the affiliate product prominently on your web page however.

3. Choose keywords with not too much competition to write your article around. They often make more interesting topics when it comes to writing the article itself (helps with writers block), and it's easier to get those pages ranked with the search engines when you piggy back on the authority of the link directories.

4. Include the main keyword in the article title, and in the link text of your resource box. You don't need to overdo it in the article itself. The main directive there is to write naturally.

Articles are a great way to promote your website. You can make money from contextual advertising, or selling affiliate programs from your site. If you don't have a website yet, you can easily create one with a free content management system, such as Joomla. There are some great video tutorials on how to set up Joomla here.

Or, if you'd really like to make some serious money, why not try setting up your own membership site. You can earn a great recurring income, and build a solid business. There's nothing like having a hundred or so members paying you anywhere from $10 to $30 or more a month.

You can find more help on article marketing here.