Article marketing is a popular Internet marketing tactic for building both incoming links and a reputation as an expert in a certain industry or niche. Article marketing is basically the process of writing an article, adding a credit link or two to the author’s sites within or following the article, and publishing it to article directories, e-zines, or websites, to create quick and free backlinks from within targeted content pages, making article marketing an ideal link-building strategy for SEO efforts.

There are three basic steps to effective article marketing:

1. An article is written by a professional, company executive, site owner, or a paid ghost writer in the niche of the site the links will be directing to.

2. A resource box, or some other kind of credit including one or more links to the author’s site(s), is added to the end of the article (the length and number of links will vary depending on the article directory’s or other distribution outlet’s rules).

3. The article is either submitted to e-zines, niche websites, or article directories (or some combination of them) for publication.

Article Marketing and SEO Link-Building

By granting distribution rights to article directories, authors of articles improve backlink-generating potential. Visitors of article directories can often use the articles for free in exchange for keeping backlinks in tact, expanding the article marketing benefit of link-building on relevant pages, which is a vital component of search engine optimisation. With free article distribution, there is essentially unlimited link-building potential with each article marketing effort.

How to Use Article Marketing for Reputation-Building

Article marketing can also be used for reputation-building, by helping to brand an author as an expert in a niche or industry. Authors would use the same basic article marketing process as they would with link-building efforts, but they may choose to keep distribution more limited. Rather than mass-distributing articles through article directories, to build an expert image it’s often better to distribute through one or two niche websites or e-zines that have a large reach. With the content appearing to be more exclusive, it can carry more weight with the reader, and the exclusivity also offers an extra incentive for publishers to use the content and distribute it directly to the target audience of the article marketing campaign.

How To Write a Good Article

1. Have a niche topic to write about and make sure it relates back to your website. Try to write something that you think someone might go searching for on Google, that relates back to your niche.

2. Write with your target audience in mind as it could drive prospective customers to your website.

3. Make sure to include your most important keyword in your article title and to write an introductory paragraph telling readers what they are most likely going to learn from reading it.

When article marketing is done successfully it can achieve link building and reputation building for your website, but if you do it extremely well it could even help to drive new customers to your website.

Author Bio: Sinead is the operations manager of the Dublin based Internet Marketing Company Redfly. Apart from Web Design and PPC training, Redfly offers professional SEO for medium to large businesses as well as search engine friendly Website Design that’s beautiful yet functional. Head on over to Redfly for lots more free search engine optimisation guides.

Category: Business
Keywords: article marketing, seo, link building, article directories, marketing, reputation,