How Article Marketing Works

Article marketing is the next logical step after web publishing.  There is only so much maintenance work you can give to your own website.  Once you fill the virtual shelves with lots of great information, it’s time to take your message outside the building—not just with advertisements, but with the age old concept of networking.

Consider article marketing as a fast-track method for building an audience.  Writing articles for article directories and magazines lets you promote your company name, promote brand awareness and brand trust, establish your expert credibility and give links.  All of these factors are very valuable in web marketing, so much so that you don’t really need payment in return for your articles.  The publicity an article directory brings to you is payment enough.

This practice actually predates online marketing and was done back in the heyday of print publications, when writers would write articles in exchange for a byline and a reference to their company.  Naturally, a magazine that reached millions of readers would be great publicity for an author.

Today it’s much the same, though article directories don’t necessarily have a following of millions.  Instead, they are search-engine friendly websites that are often ranked in the top 10 or 20 search results for popular keywords.  Even if the directory listing doesn’t help you climb to the top 10, it will still create more backlinks (to your website) and the total number of backlinks does affect your overall search engine ranking.

How does one get started in article marketing?  You either write or buy the content, and then simply submit the article to a popular article directory.  The best approach is to work with top directories that allow for unlimited article submissions.  Always make sure that the articles reflect you in a positive light and as an expert—this means that the articles uses proper spelling and grammar, has an appropriate tone and is free from formatting errors.  The best directories have human editors, so don’t be satisfied with the “easiest” or the “cheapest” directory you can find.

Manual submission to directories is important because these sites are already searched and indexed on a regular basis by major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Most directories will allow you two links to your website, a byline and a signature explaining your credentials.