If you want to be a successful online entrepreneur, you’ve probably tried increasing traffic and sales through search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. Have you tried article marketing as well? Article marketing is the strategy of writing articles about your business and publishing them on other websites and ezines with a link back to your site. This type of online promotion is a very effective way to increase traffic and sales. The main ways that article marketing can help you are listed below.
1. It is the most effective way to establish yourself as a “expert” in your field.
Why should someone buy from you rather than one of the thousands of your online competitors? The few lines you write in your website’s “about us” section may not be enough to distinguish you from the competition. If, on the other hand, your potential customer sees your name on well-written and informative articles that appear on a variety of websites across the Internet, she will regard you as an expert in your field. The more you publish, the more you will be recognised and your reputation will improve.
2. Informative articles foster trust in your ability to deliver a high-quality product or service.
When selling online, your most valuable asset is to be perceived as knowledgeable and trustworthy. When another publisher chooses one of your articles and places it on a website or in an ezine, that publisher is effectively endorsing you. This type of endorsement will impress the readers of those articles, making them feel more confident in doing business with you, especially if your article is published in an ezine or on a website that they already respect.
3. Your articles aid in the “pre-selling” of your products and services.
It is the quality of website traffic that is important, not the quantity. People who have read one of your articles and liked what they read are the best type of traffic you can get. These web visitors arrive at your website eager to learn more and are far more likely to purchase something from you than someone who arrives at your site “cold,” or without any introduction to your ideas.
4. Writing articles is an excellent way to generate content for your ezines and your own website.
Although article marketing can be viewed as an outreach activity primarily intended for publication elsewhere, you can also use these articles in your own newsletters and on your own website. Using a regular newsletter to stay in touch with your customers and clients is an important part of doing business online. However, in order to be truly successful, you must have a consistent flow of good material. If your articles are good enough to be published on another website, then please do so first in your own newsletters and on your own website.
5. Articles published on other websites aid in the development of one-way links to your website.
Link building is one of the keys to a website’s success, but, as with traffic, the quality of the links matters more than the quantity. You will receive a link back to your website whenever one of your articles is published on another website. These are one-way links because you did not have to exchange links in order to obtain them. These links are typically from pages with fewer outbound links than the standard link pages where your link is typically placed when making a reciprocal arrangement. One-way links from pages with few outbound links contribute more to Page Rank than reciprocal links.
6. You can make a lot of money from articles that are published elsewhere.
I’ve seen several guys running online businesses from Montenegro, one of the most unlikely places on the planet. Despite this handicap, they have had people call them and order thousands of dollars’ worth of services. All of this is the result of articles I’ve written and published about website promotion and search engine optimization over the last few years. Think about what you can do from your location if they can do it from Montenegro
