For a lot of folks, the goal of article marketing is simply about backlinks. Get as many as you can. Doesn’t matter if they’re good, bad or somewhere in-between. Of course, they’re always going to be more skewed to the ‘bad’ side of the equation, but hey, who cares? Well, if you want your articles to go viral, then you should care.

The trouble with focusing on quantity is that it requires a helluva lot of work. When your only focus is submitting as many articles as you can, you’re setting yourself up to be working like a machine. And you’ll have to continue working that way for the foreseeable future. Want to know why?

Search Engines Don’t Like Rubbish Content

And if you think you can still just put it out there, and fool the search engines into loving it because you’ve also thrown a few backlinks at it, think again.  Remember, the main concern of any search engine is providing relevant, useful information to searchers. Everything else is just gravy.

Your articles might be up there at the moment, but you’re going to see more and more of them disappear into the supplemental neverland. Which means you’re going to have to write more and more of them to make up for those that keep disappearing. Not really a great business model.

It’s Not Viral If You’re The Only One Sharing It

It’s true. Check your stats. How many of your articles are being republished? How many times are they being Stumbled, Dugg, Twittered… and don’t include the sharing you do. That just proves my point!

Low Quality Content Gets You Noticed Just as Much as High Quality Content

If someone reads a crappy article, do you really think they’re going to believe anything the author has to say? If other site owners aren’t taking your content seriously, you can bet your bottom dollar potential customers aren’t going to take much notice of it either.

Actually, scratch that. Readers very probably will take even more notice than other site owners. If someone is searching for advice on getting back with their ex and you have a zillion articles published on that topic, it’s fair to assume they’re going to come across more than one of your creations. Once they’ve seen your name over and over again, and every time they see it, it’s linked to some piece of crap… you can guess what sort of conclusion they’re going to come to about you, your site, your products, your services and anything else you might be writing about.

Quality Counts in More Ways Than You Know

Backlinks - Quality articles are more likely to be published by other site owners or picked up by ezine publishers, news sites, online magazines, etc, giving you more backlinks or every piece of content you write. And many of these will be high quality backlinks; the kind Google actually cares about rather than just Joe’s blog.

Sharing - Quality articles are more likely to be Twittered, Dugg, Stumbled, etc. Again, all of this will happen with no further work on your part. Imagine the time saved from having to go socially bookmark and backlink your own content. Heck, you could even (gasp) find you have enough time to write another quality article!

Traffic - Once readers associate your name with well written, useful, informative, quality content, they’re more likely to actively seek your content. When they realise your website provides them with all the information they need, you replace the search engines. Why bother asking Google when they already know where the best source is?

Reputation - Just read everything above. Better quality = more of everything, more articles published, more articles shared, more traffic, and ultimately more sales – because your street cred goes up with every quality piece of content you write.

I really don’t get why people insist on making life difficult for themselves. Viral marketing using articles means you absolutely need quality content. If you don’t believe me, then don’t. But it won’t make it any less of a fact.

About the Author

Few things annoy me more than seeing all the BS advice being dished out about article marketing. It’s not hard, it doesn’t take a lot of work (can you really call sitting at a computer typing ‘work’?), and it is the best method (either free or paid) for generating more traffic and more sales to your business.

Do yourself a favour (yes we Brits know about article marketing too), get the report, or visit the blog at http://www.articlemarketingexplosion.net/blog

San

You must publish fresh articles. Copying articles and submitting them as your own is an violation of copy right laws. Make sure your articles conform to rules set by the directories.

The Article Must Have Something to Say

If your article isn’t interesting and informative, it won’t get read. The article must grab the reader’s attention and make him want to discover more about the topic. He will then visit your site for information. Punctuation and spelling errors should be avoided and the articles should be written in a conversational style.

Getting Noticed

The articles should use keywords that will be picked up by search engines. The search engines will rank you articles by keyword usage. If you aren’t sure which keywords to use, check out Google Suggest, Overture and Wordtracker. Don’t over use your keywords, or the search engines will deem it spam. The best concentration of keywords is usually a 2% to 3% density throughout the article making sure to include the keyword once in the title, once in the first paragraph and again in the last paragraph.

The placement of the keywords is as important as the keyword density for search engine ranking. There are other keyword stradegies, like long tail keyword. This is the use of word or phrases related to your keyword. These can appear once or twice in the article.

You Presentation Must Be Attractive

Your article should be presented in a neat clear format. Use numbering or bullet points where appropriate, and break the article into short paragraphs. Clear simple language will keep the reader’s attention. If you have contracted an outside writer, be sure that you proofread the articles before submitting them.

Continuous Submissions

For article publishing to work as a method of driving traffic to your site, you must keep publishing fresh articles. Internet users have a voracious appetite for new data. It is best to submit several new articles per week. The more articles you submit, the greater the amount of traffic you will generate. That’s really the point of submitting articles.

Whether you have an existing website or are making your first foray into cyberspace, it can be a challenge to draw traffic to your site. There are literally millions of websites out there, so it’s easy for yours to get lost amongst all the traffic congestion on the information superhighway. The last thing you want to do is just sit back and wait for people to find you. Sure, there are lots of Internet marketing companies that claim to be able to help your site soar to the top of the search engines, but that can take time and cost you money, and it may not even get you to where you need to be. But by employing an effective article marketing strategy, you can get the word out about your site in a minimal amount of time.

If you are not familiar with article marketing, it simply involves writing short, general articles about your online product or service and submit them to the various article directories that populate the Internet. Your article will then be redistributed to scores of sites that are dying for free content that is related to what you have to offer. The key to success is to place a link to your site at the end of your article, so interested viewers can land on your site with just a click of a mouse. Not only is this an easy method of promotion, but it doesn’t cost you a dime!

But maybe you don’t consider yourself to be a writer. Fortunately, you don’t have to be the next Shakespeare to write effective articles. Since the articles you will be writing are fairly brief, generally in the range of 300 to 500 words, all it takes is some knowledge of your product or service, and you should be able to pen these yourself. Or, if you really want to take article marketing to the next level, there are plenty of Internet marketing companies that employ expert writers that can write persuasive articles for you.

If you do decide to write the articles yourself, in just a short time you will be considered an expert in your field since your byline will appear all over the Internet, which will add credibility to your website. With article marketing, you can soon have all the traffic to your website you can handle.

To submit your articles for massive exposure, visit http://articlehead.com Your articles will be re-printed with your content and links intact giving you traffic surges that will help increase your sales. Membership is Free! http://articlehead.com