Article marketing is no doubt one of the quickest and easiest way to promote your website. But most webmasters don’t look into this method of promotion because they think that it is difficult and time-consuming.
The fact is, article marketing is probably the cheapest and fastest way to get free targeted visitors to your blog or website.
Step 1: Keyword Research
To start off your article marketing campaign, effective keyword research is a must. If you are after a specific niche, then the keywords you are after are probably researched already. If you have no idea how to do keyword research, don’t be afraid, here is the perfect place to learn.
Some tools to help you get started:
- Google Keyword Tool (One of the Must-Use of any online marketer)
- Micro Niche Finder (My personal favorite, because it tells you exactly whether the keyword is good or not)
- Market Samurai (Another pretty cool market research program, and a bunch of other functions)
Make sure the keyword you are after isn’t too generic, (example: dogs) because there will be an impossible amount of competition and the traffic you receive will not be as targeted. A good keyword should be 3-5 words, and has a moderate amount of competition. (You don’t want no competition as that will probably mean that the keyword isn’t good – or being searched for.)
Step 2: Writing the Article
Once you know which keyword you are after, then it is time to write the article. Your first option would be to write the article yourself. This might take a while, and the result might not be optimal, but it will be the cheapest way to produce a quality article.
Another option would be to outsource the writing part to a freelancer. This option is the way to go once your business takes off, or you need a lot of high-quality articles but you are too lazy, or find it too big of a challenge to do so.
Some places to look for cheap yet high-quality writers:
- Craigslist Philippines (The cheapest place to find quality writers)
- Elance
- Freelancer
- DigitalPoint
Step 3. Submitting the Article
This is probably the easiest thing to do, just paste the article to your browser and press submit. Here are some good High-PR (PageRank) article directories:
- EzineArticles (PR 6)
- Helium (PR 6)
- ArticlesBase (PR 6)
- Article Dashboard (PR 5)
- GoArticles (PR 4)
Make sure you include a resource box with your website address in it, so that it can help drive traffic and link juice.
Step 4: Article Promotion
Now it is time to promote your article. It would be a huge waste of time if you went through all the trouble and not promote your articles. The first thing you should do is submit it to social bookmarking sites like:
If your article is well written, and has an attractive title, then it could end up on the front page of these sites. The result? Thousands and thousands of traffic to your article, and in turn to your website. Make sure your website can handle it.
Over to the Readers: Have you tried article marketing? Do you do anything different? Have you had any successes with Article Marketing?