Friday, May 16, 2008

Unique Content - The key To Article Marketing

By Mark Thompson

If you happen to be completely new to running an internet business, then you should already have heard the term article marketing. Article marketing is a way that the regular Joes like you and I can get a foothold in niche markets. You are through this form of marketing able to target interested visitors and then turn them into motivated buyers.

Article marketing is without a doubt one of the most powerful ways to promote your website. If done properly it is a highly effective way to gain targeted traffic and build backlinks. Using short, informative articles to promote a site may seem a like a lot of effort, but the return on investment can be phenomenal. So how does article marketing work?

For a start it cost little or not to write an article and then submit it to various article directories or even to other websites. Then in turn a directory or website will publish the article you have written on them. The affect is that the rankings for your site on search engines will begin to rise because of all the backlinks which have been created because other sites are now using your content.

Article marketing is extremely viral since a single article, if well-written and targeting good keywords, can generate dozens and dozens of links back to the author's site or other designated landing page.

Another benefit that article marketing provides you with is that it allows you as a new website owner or author to build a reputation for being an authority in the niche you have selected. When someone comes across one of yours through an article directly and finds them self keen to click on your link and visit your site, then this offers you the opportunity to now develop a relationship with them. Now it is up to you to start cultivating that relationship further by offering them more content that they find relevant and address any questions, wants or needs that they may have.

At various times, you'll hear that article marketing is no longer effective or that submitting an article to hundreds of article directories does nothing more than create duplicate content and puts a site at risk of being de-indexed by the top search engines.

Putting aside any arguments for or against duplicate content for the moment, article marketing is every bit as effective as any traffic or promotional tactic touted these days. Various promotional strategies will come and go, but the strength of article marketing lies in the fact that the World Wide Web is built upon and needs fresh, relevant content continuously.

Millions of people come online everyday to search for information, products, answers to questions, interaction with online communities or any other number of reasons. By providing this content through means of article marketing, you are establishing your own stake in this enormous arena. Provide enough decent content and you'll be rewarded with a stream of traffic to your site. Put forth good content and the right offer in front of your site's visitors and you're likely to capture the sale.

Article marketing is the one free or nearly free strategy to promote a product or website that anyone can do. It is an excellent way to bring in targeted traffic if you are willing to work at it consistently and for the long-term.

Writing informative articles that use well researched keywords no matter what niche you are involved in cannot only get your more exposure, but increase your rankings in search engines. However, submitting the same article to numerous article directories or specialist websites will dilute just how effective your article marketing efforts are.

In order to succeed with your article marketing you need to submit only unique versions of the articles you produce to a various websites and directories. Although this may seem somewhat daunting the results are amazing and it will be worth all the effort in the end. The risks of duplicate content are gone along with the risks of your site or product slipping in the search engine rankings. But whilst what constitutes being duplicate content is still one of the hot subjects of debate online, many of the more experienced webmasters are happy if each article they produce is different by not more than 30%.

Of course, the greater the difference between versions, the better, but keep in mind that the top search engines spiders review a webpage in its entirety and take other elements of the page into consideration. Even a seemingly small 30% change can be quite sufficient to avoid being "sandboxed".

Submitting unique versions of any articles you write is the best way when it comes to article marketing. Not only will you be getting more targeted traffic to your website, but the boost in your sites search engine rankings also tends to last for longer because of the backlinks built through you marketing articles which are unique.

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