Article Marketing - Strategies for Writing Articles that Bring Free Traffic

Let me be clear, writing articles brings free traffic!  If you have not experienced success with article marketing then you could be doing a few things wrong.

1. You are not writing GOOD articles. In other words the article may not be uninteresting, does not offer worthwhile information, it does not flow or has poor grammar and spelling.

2. You are submitting your articles to the wrong article directories.
Not all article directories are the same. Specifically, many of the directories were not including my resource box. That leaves the playing field wide open for people to copy and use your articles as your own.

There are really only a few directories that are worthwhile submitting to. I recommend submitting to the directories with the highest Google and Alexa rankings:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.webpronews.com/ 
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.amazines.com
http://www.isnare.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://searchwarp.com/
http://pubs.acs.org/
http://www.articlesbase.com/
http://www.Buzzle.com
http://www.site-reference.com/
http://www.web-source.net/

3. People are not linking to your articles.
This is often because readers don't consider your article to be good or impressive enough to use on their own sites or link to. This will kill your article marketing efforts.

Marketing Success Tips using Articles

Start by writing articles that are impressive. By impressive I mean writing articles that turn words into traffic. Write articles that offer worthwhile information but at the same time are unique enough to grab the attention of the reader, no one wants to read the same old stuff, but if you present it in a unique and personal way, you will capture much more interest.

Next, Submit your articles to the directories listed above.  There are lots of article directories but in my experience the above directories have offered the best results.

I have found 'Ezinearticles' to be, by far, the best directory. For this reason I submit my articles to them first. Strive to gain 'expert status' at Ezinearticles. It may take submitting a few articles over time, but reaching Ezinearticles expert status builds up your reputation.

Whatever article directories you use, first start by submitting quality articles that offer the reader useable information. No article directory can help you with article marketing if you don't write quality articles first.

Finally, also submit to relevant websites, blogs or newsletters. This can be a little bit more challenging but here's something that I do to find these resources.

Use Google Alerts

Google has an alerts service that notifies me when someone uses my article on their website or blog. Here's a way to use Google Alerts to find relevant websites, blogs and newsletters to submit your articles to:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts

2. In the 'Create Google Alert' window enter the following into the optional fields:

Search Terms:  Enter your article's title. Be sure to put your article title in double quotes "article title". If you don't use the quotes you will get all information Google has on whatever you enter into the search terms field. Instead you want exactly the title of your article.

Type:  Comprehensive

How Often:  I use weekly but the choice is yours.

Deliver to:  Your email address

Based on the information you supply, Google will deliver to your email all the places it found your search term (your article's title).

This will turn up all the websites, blogs and online newsletters that are using your article. Once you know the sites that use your articles you can begin sending them your other articles as free content they can use. Before you know it you'll have a nice list of sites that will potentially be open to using other articles that you have written.

Using Google alerts is also a great way for you to see who may be using your articles without a resource box or without permission. This has been extremely handy for keeping the pirates from stealing your content.

In summary...

Don't underestimate the power of article marketing for generating free traffic and backlinks. It's an excellent promotional tool and used properly will bring you a flood of traffic each and every week, plus it's a free.

Once your articles reach the first page of the search engines for high quality keywords you'll start seeing a steady flow of traffic which in turn can mean more sales.

More Article Marketing tips & Advice