Article marketing has its pros and cons.  It’s not for everyone.  There are those that will swear by it and those that would not touch it with a 10 foot pole. On one hand article marketing is the best free methods of generating traffic to your web sites while at the same time it is time consuming.   Lets take a look at to good, the bad and the ugly side of it.

  • When you write an article and submit it to directories you are generally allowed to add a link back to your website.  Besides the direct traffic it can produce, with time and constant work those back links start to add up and helps your site rank better in the search engines.

  • Along the same lines, when people start seeing your name associated with a particular product or topic you start to gain credibility. Being recognized in your field is a HUGE benefit for your online business because there are far more people out there trying to rip you off then are out there to actually help.

  • Getting targeted traffic is a key factor in being successful online. When you are writing article to directories, you are just trying to educate readers. DO NOT SELL in your articles! Your effort to educate is PRE-SELLING which is far more power full then a full blown pushy ad. Gain the readers trust, take there hand and lead them to the product they are looking for.

Those are all great reasons to get involved in article marketing.  The one biggest downside and turn off would be the time it takes to get tangible results.  When first starting out it would be wise to stick with something you are all ready familiar with.  Learn the ropes and broaden your horizons. It takes time to research and write and then submit to the various directories. Even after that it takes a little time to see results and longer for the search engines to reward your efforts.

But then again – Once you’ve done it right it will pay for years to come…

Like a musician spend a year making an album and get royalties for life.

One man that made article marketing ‘Cool’ was Travis Sago.   He coined the phrase “Bum Marketing” and is for the most part set for life from the work he has done years ago.  Constantly getting traffic and making sales through his articles.  I would encourage you to be on his list by going to http://www.bummarketingmethod.com/ He is considered a leader in the field.

There are strategies to using articles to generate traffic.   With each article you can include a link to your site.   The higher ranking the site has, the more powerful that back link becomes.   So far in 2009, the top ranked sites to submit to are listed here.  Even if you just submit to just the top level sites, other sites will use them. Also other people will be allowed to use your article on there sites… now your article is getting spread around which means even more back links to your site.

Ezine Articles

Buzzle Web Portal
Associated Content
eHow | How To Do Just About Everything!
Searchwarp
GoArticles.com
Article Dashboard Directory
iSnare
Articlealley

Maybe you don’t have the time to do all that work. Reading and writing and submitting.  There are services for that to.  Actually as you grow, it is even recommended that you pay others to write and distribute articles for you.

But for those just starting out it’s not to practical to start off that way.  There are tools available that will cut the work to a fraction of the time. My personal favorite for generating new and original articles is Instant Article Wizard. With it you don’t even need to know anything about the topic you are wanting to write about.   It takes snippets of stories from all over the internet where you can just put them in the order you want.  It allows you to create articles day and night at 10 – 15 minutes per pop.

Another skill that needs to be developed, is being able to re-write an article – because you can’t just send the same thing to a dozen places.  It might get rejected and even hurt your ranking in the search engines. WordFlood is the program to resolve that little problem. Whether your hard drive is full of PLR articles (Private Label Rights) or you have a few of your own originals – they need re-written either way.  If you have tried article spinners, you know how bad they suck. If you haven’t used an article spinner, save your time. Take a look at WordFloods website and see how much time it will save as well as how much control you have over each project.

In Closing…

There are a lot of ways to get traffic faster to your site like Pay Per Click, social book marking, ad exchange sites. But for long term traffic and income an internet business, article marketing should at least be included in your business plans.  Despite the time it takes to build – it is a firm foundation.