How To Fast Track Your Article Marketing Program: The Concept

When Johannes Gutenberg created the first mass production printing process in 1440, he revolutionized civilization; including commerce. By 1499, printing operations had spread to 2500 locations across Europe and there were an estimated 15 million books in print covering over 30 thousand titles. There is no argument about the influence mass media has had ever since. Given human nature's shrewd tendency to exploit technology, it's a safe bet the concept of article marketing began taking shape about the same time.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and you quickly see that not much has changed in the fundamentals of the written word. Writers still write one word at a time. Readers still read to obtain information or amuse themselves. Of course, the craft has been honed, polished and refined a good bit, but essentially it remains the same. Simply put, it is the main way humans disseminate information.

Articles have many uses and purposes. Our focus, however, targets their importance as an internet marketing tool.

This article answers these questions:

* What is article marketing?
* How and why does it work?
* What benefits does it offer the internet marketer?

What Is Article Marketing?

Article marketing is a practice used by internet marketers to enhance their expert status in their particular field and to improve their ranking in the search engines. The intent is to increase exposure and attract pre-qualified targeted traffic back to a specific web page.

Articles written for distribution should not be confused with web copy. Web copy is more akin to direct response sales copy in the print world. Distribution articles, written for submission to article directories and publishers across the Internet, have a different focus and purpose. They don't sell products or services directly but rather sell the expert status of the author.

This is usually the hardest concept for new article marketers to grasp; "how can I make sales if I don't push my product?" The answer is you can't and you will pitch your product or service once you get the reader to your web page. That's the whole idea behind article marketing: get the reader off some obscure article directory or blog and onto your web site where actual conversions take place.

How And Why Does Article Marketing Work?

Put yourself in your customer's shoes. Envision what their shopping experience is like before they ever see your article:

You're curious about a new widget. The one you have now has been a lifesaver over and over again. But alas, like everything else in life, it's getting a few years on it. The power cord is frayed, half the attachments are lost or broken and it simply doesn't get the job done anymore. You hate to let the old guy go but you just can't suffer through his poor performance any longer. You need a new widget.

You've heard the gossip at work about a new type of widget on the market that does everything but make the bed. It's all the rave on the radio and ads for it are popping up everywhere. Ever the skeptic, you need more information before you'll be sold on hearsay. The man who sold you the old widget has retired, so that option's out. It's time to pound the pavement again.

You drive over to Gadgettown, park the car and start down the street on foot. By the time you get to the far end of the shopping district, you've been pinched, poked, prodded and pitched to in every way possible. Everyone will sell you something but no one will tell you anything. You sit down on a bench to rest a bit before you fight your way back to the car and home. Empty-handed.

Across the street, a scholarly looking man is standing back in a recessed doorway quietly smoking a pipe and gazing upon the street hawkers up the way. The subtle blue neon letters in his shop window spell out "Widget World." The smaller red ones underneath reveal that he is an "Authorized Factory Dealer."

You stroll over and strike up a conversation and quickly discover this is a guy that really knows his widgets! He answers your questions in a friendly yet knowledgeable way. He tells you he has some additional free information in the office from corporate. He also has some floor models of the new Blue Fuzzy Widget if you would like to step inside and see for yourself. Thirty minutes later, you're out the door with a new widget under one arm and a box of attachments under the other.

The shop owner (article) didn't sell you a widget. What he sold you was trust in his expert status. He gave you answers to your general questions and offered the rest of the story inside the shop. His signs (links) gave credibility to his status and told you exactly what you could expect from him: he is an authorized dealer.

That's how article marketing works. You have to get the customer off of the street and into your shop in order to conduct sales. It's a pretty simple concept.

What Are The Benefits Of Article Marketing?

* It builds your reputation as an accepted expert in your chosen field
* It brands you and your product
* It improves your value to search engines by creating large numbers of backlinks
* It's 100 percent "White Hat" and won't get you in trouble with the search engines
* It provides you with content you may recycle through blogs, forums, newsletters and emails
* Depending on niche and quality, articles continue to drive traffic for years
* It's very cost effective. Once a piece is distributed, that's it, no more financial outlay regardless of length of effectiveness

No doubt you will think of many more benefits, but you get the idea. In a nutshell, article marketing is about building your expert status, generating traffic and leading qualified prospects to your website.

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