How To Use Article Marketing To Promote And Sell Yourself

Article marketing is without a doubt the most effective traffic generation strategy that ordinary people can use to promote their websites and make money. By 'ordinary people' I am referring to those for whom internet marketing is more than a just hobby, but who could not go so far as to refer to themselves as being 'internet gurus'.

The 'gurus' frequently need do little more to make money than to promote each other's products, since they have already done the hard work of building massive email lists, and optimized these to contain very reliable prospects that are more likely than not going to make a purchase - not every time, but occasionally as products that interest them are promoted.

For others, email lists consist primarily of interested people, but people that are not particularly interested in buying, but that might be persuaded to do so if you can get a good product in front of their eyes before the gurus do. Who would you rather buy from: some unknown peddling a product online, or a well known and highly respected internet marketer such as Joe Vitale or Brad Callen? No contest!

However, by writing articles on your niche, you can use article marketing to promote, not only your website and ultimately your products, but also yourself. If you know how to use article marketing to promote yourself, then you have a massive tool at your disposal that will do you more good online than any amount of promotion of your products could do.

Once your name starts to get known online in your niche, people will begin to respect you as someone that knows the business and the niche, and they will then be more liable to purchase from you. The way that you should go about this is remarkably easy.

Basically you write articles. However, make sure that your articles are written well, and if you are unable to achieve that then employ an article ghost writer to do it for you. Alternatively, and much more profitably, learn how to do it yourself. It is not difficult to learn how to write articles if you have a basic command of English. If English is not your first language then you might have a problem, although that too can be overcome with practice.

A good article consists of several sections, each one of which should be looked upon as a separate entity, and each optimized to the best of your ability, both with respect to search engine optimization and 'stickiness' on behalf of the reader. What that means is that you want the reader to stay with it, and continue to read from one section to the next.

Although no section of an article can be regarded as more important than any other, there is the argument that each is more important than the next, because people will not read further once their attention or interest has been lost. Writing articles is an art, even without the content, vocabulary and grammar being considered. The structure of an article is a skill in itself, and if you can master the structural aspect of article writing, then the rest is so much easier.

If you are to use article marketing to promote yourself, it should be as both an author and somebody that projects themself as being an expert in his or her field or niche. To achieve that form of respect, you must consider each of the following aspects of your article writing:

The Title - The title should make the subject clear, and should also contain the primary keyword at the beginning. A keyword can be one word or a phrase, although it is best to be restricted to a maximum of three words. Hence, 'article marketing tips' is a good keyword, but 'how to use article marketing tips' is not. You can use the second example, but restrict the optimization to 'article marketing tips'.

Also try to include a secondary keyword in the title, such as "Article Writing Tips: How to Profit from Article Marketing". That is good, but you must also catch the readers eye, by offering them a benefit from reading your article, so a better title would be: Article Writing Tips: How to Make Money Writing Articles".

See the difference? I am not suggesting these are brilliant examples, but the second title is better than the first, because it stresses the benefit of writing articles better than the first example.

The Opening Paragraph - If the reader is attracted by the title, you have to keep them reading by means of the opening paragraph. This should expand on the title, and offer them more benefits of writing articles, and perhaps explain how easy it is to make money or promote their website or products through article marketing. By reading on they will learn some secrets that will enable them to write articles that will make them money.

In doing this you are also promoting yourself, because you are demonstrating yourself as being an expert in your niche of article marketing. Incidentally, article writing and article marketing are different skills: many people can write articles, but don't have a clue how to use them in internet marketing.

The other sections of your article include the article body, the concluding paragraph that should lead into the resource, and the resource itself, which is where you advertise yourself or your website and provide a link to it. Also important is the summary, which should persuade people to read the article itself.

It is important to understand how to use article marketing correctly, so that you promote yourself, not only your website or product, and take a step towards becoming well known sufficiently for others to seek you out and trust your products. One final tip: Use your name and product in your keyword list.