Article Marketing: A Traffic Builder

Article marketing is the production and distribution of short, informative articles.  Once written, the articles are presented to article directories that grant “reprint rights’ to anyone that wishes to use the article at their own place of business.  In exchange for using your article, you get unlimited exposure throughout the internet where your article may appear since the link to your place of business must accompany the article by legal agreement.

Distributing branded articles is the cheapest and most effective traffic builder method to attract traffic to your place of business.  It is a proven strategy that anyone with a high school education can do.  The quality of a typical high school English essay would qualify so long as the content of the article is valuable to a reader.

Using article marketing for building traffic is good for any type of business whether it be health supplements, pet products, and so forth.  The purpose of the article is to promote your credibility so that the reader will want to find out more about your business.

There are at least two factors to consider when producing the article.  We already know that the content must have informational value.  However, the next thing to consider is that you must make use of keywords in the title and within the article.

First of all, your title must contain the major keyword.  Look at the title of this article.  The keyword phrase is article marketing with the secondary as traffic builder.  Those keyword phrases should be salted into the article with proper balance.  You can also use some other keyword phrases within your article that will carry the same objective of linking the topic of your article with the most probable keywords used by searchers in the search engines.  It does become important not to abuse the use of the keyword phrase.  In other words, the keyword itself should not be so prominent that it becomes obvious to the reader.  You could make use of synonym words, but never abuse the system.

There are hundreds of article marketing directories that can be found by making use of your search engine.  Some of the top ones are articledashboard.com, articlepros.com, goarticles.com, articlealley.com, ezinearticles.com, etc.  You can easily submit to several of these on a weekly basis, and you should easily be able to write at least one article per week. 

You can create your article in Word and then simply paste to the interface at the article  directory.  Each directory is very easy to use once you have registered with each one.

My method of writing an article is to use a pen whenever I go for an afternoon coffee.  It is amazing how much can be done when relaxing away from the office.  This first draft should be done quickly as the ideas flow without major concern for the eloquent.   Then, I transfer my draft onto the Word screen while making corrections and improvements.  This is where I would enter or modify my keywords.  Although all of my English classes have brainwashed me into being rigid, I try to write like I would talk to a friend.  Be loose and not rigid.  I don’t mean that you should break grammar rules but to merely be casual.  Remember that the important thing here is to impart valuable information that can help a newcomer to the scene.  For a final review, I make a print of the article and go over it one more time ready to slash and correct.  I save a hard copy along with a Word file.

In order to be truly effective as a writer, you must motivate the reader to go beyond the current page to the next step which is to click over to your place of business.  The directory article is meant to establish your credibility and to create interest in the particular issue leading to the finding of greater detail at your business site.

Keep in mind that your article should not advertise your own product or service.  The body of the article should be based on generalized, informative fact or opinion about an issue.  Your only sales pitch comes at the bottom of the article which goes into a separate author byline interface.  The byline must be short with no hype but must be strong.  Consider ending with something like this:

(Your Name) is dedicated to helping people stay informed.  For more information and more detailed reviews like this one, please visit: (YOUR WEBSITE URL)