2 types of Article Marketing

There are basically two ways to drive traffic to your website. Overtime, one method will build back links to your site and thus contribute to boosting your site's page rank. The other method will drive traffic to your website more quickly and help your site become known to a highly targeted audience. Links to your site from this method will depend upon the regard your visitors have for your site as a resource.

Article Directories

The goal of article marketing using directories is to establish yourself as an authority in the subject matter (best if you use strong keyword phrases for your subject matter) that is related to your website (or landing page or any other place to which you want to direct traffic). The more well written your article is in terms of style and content (it must have value to readers), the more it will be "picked up" by other bloggers and website owners who are looking for content to place on their sites.

Where do other online businesses "pickup" your article? They get it from the article directories where you had previously submitted your article. In order to use your article, the article must stay exactly the way it was written and it must contain your author box (which talks about you and very importantly contains a link back to the webpage of your choice).

The more desirable your article is, the more it will be placed on various websites (which of course means more links pointing back to your site). A well written article will also "pre-sell" your readers. They will perceive you as an authority that is worth of being placed on other sites. So, in addition to having the backlinks (which will contribute to higher page rank), article writers who distribute well written articles will experience increased traffic to their sites because a relationship is being established with the reader.

Many authors are concerned about duplicate content, i.e. having their original content spread around cyberspace and therefore diminishing the value it has on their own sites. The most important thing an author can do about this, is to make sure that the content that is about to be distributed through article directories has been posted on their sites first (make sure to ping it so it is also the first place for it to be indexed in the search engines... pingomatic.com is one such place to get this done).

Some authors prefer that they do not have one version of their article spread across cyberspace. Luckily there is software that can effectively recast your own original articles for you and do it in a way that makes the variations sound similar to your writing style. These are relatively inexpensive and can give you peace of mind over any duplicate content worries. Often you will find article submitter programs offered with the article rewrites.

One such service that I use for submitting articles is Submit Your Article and it will allow you to spread the submission over time in a more natural way.

Ezine Article Marketing

Article marketing through ezines is less well known but it is highly effective. Here is the reason: when your article is submitted to article directories, it becomes one of many in the article directory from which visitors may choose. Your article may sit there untouched and unread simply because it is lost among all the other articles listed there (particularly if the article topic is popular).

When an ezine goes out to its list of subscribers, your article is the one and only about your topic going out in that mailing. Ezine owners will make sure that the article they pick to be included in their ezine is highly relevant to their subscribers. Thus the added benefit to the article writer who submits to ezines (besides high visibility) is that the article will be seen by readers who are highly interested in the subject matter of the article (which will increase the chance of those readers visiting your site). Not only will you get increased traffic to your site, but you had the opportunity to pre-sell to someone who already had a high interest.

The most efficient way of locating ezines related to your niche who are also looking for articles is the Directory of Ezines. There is a cost to be a member of the directory, but the ability to spread your links, thoughts and name is well worth it. Additionally, you will learn which ezines are the best to advertise in for your niche as well as identify list owners who may want to participate in a joint venture with you. It really is cost effective and efficient.