Using Articles to Make Money Online

I'm always amazed when I see new internet marketers struggling day after day on the look-and-feel of their first websites. Trying to define the layout, positions, and images as well as work through the HTML and CSS can literally take days or even weeks.

What most people forget, however, is their time would be much better spent creating content and articles. Why would this be the case? Although a great site design can be a benefit in the future, the act of doing the work does nothing to generate inbound traffic - and, without traffic your site goes unnoticed. Even though everyone wants a great looking site the goal should be to build links early while improving the design over time.

If you talk to any experienced internet marketer today he or she will most likely recommend publishing articles and adding fresh content as the best way to get traffic back to your site and make money online. Although this can be at time consuming activity, it will end up being the most profitable one.

People are looking for quality information online all the time. If you have any expertise on the topics for your sites then it should be very easy for you to write 400-600 word articles on specific sub-topics and post them to article directories. By posting to multiple directories you can get backlinks that raise your site's rankings in the search engines.

There are many free article directories available for you to use. The key is to pick those that have high rankings so the search engines reward your site with quality backlinks from your URL embedded in the article footer or header. You should be submitting articles as often as possible because they will be the best way to get your site ranked in Google and Yahoo as well as get you traffic.

Articles don't have to be long, drawn out pieces of work. You really only need to create four to five good paragraphs about your topic of choice. But 'what would I write about?' you're probably asking yourself. The best way to start is to pick a step-by-step or how-to aspect to your topic and simply list the steps in order.

If I had a site devoted to yoga, for example, I could write a simple beginners guide to warming up and stretching before starting the yoga positions. Or, I could write about my favorites books that I've read on yoga. I could even just write about my own feelings on my progress and benefits. The options are endless - be creative!

Whatever you do don't copy someone else's work or fabricate things. If you feel you don't have enough information to write articles on your site's topic, see if you can solicit an interview with an expert. Be sure to get their written consent to publish the information on your site. Usually they will be glad to participate especially if you promote their site, product or services.

Going forward, once you've started to generate some revenue you can then have ghostwriters write your content. In fact your goal should be to use the money you earn to pay for articles and article submission services in the future. That way you can accelerate your backlinks even faster. This can have a cascading effect boosting your revenue even more.

Whatever way you approach the content challenge just remember to try and build content and articles at the same time as improving your site's design. Your first goal should be to try and make money online. Once perfected you won't be sitting idle wondering why there are no hits on your site.