If you happen to be completely new to running an internet business, then you should already have heard the term article marketing. Article marketing is a way that the regular Joes like you and I can get a foothold in niche markets. You are through this form of marketing able to target interested visitors and then turn them into motivated buyers.

Without a doubt article marketing is the most powerful way in which one can promote a website. Done properly article marketing is the effective way for getting targeted traffic to your site as well as helping to build backlinks. A short but informative article in order to promote a site may seem to take a lot of effort, but the returns you get are quite phenomenal. So just how does article marketing work for an online business?

Initially, it is going to cost you little or nothing, you if you want write your own articles and then submit them to different article directories and other websites. When submitted these sites in turn will then publish them on theirs for you. The benefit is that your site's search engine rankings will begin to rise because of the backlinks which you have gained because other sites are now using what you have written.

Article marketing is extremely viral. As you will find it only takes one well written article using the appropriate targeting keywords will allow you to generate numerous links back to your site or to some other designated landing page.

Through your article marketing you as a new website owner or author can develop a reputation in your niche market of being an authority on it. A person who comes across one your articles in an article directory and remains interested so that they click on the link provided and visit your site, provides you now with the opportunity to build a more lasting relationship with that person. The next step then is to cultivate that relationship further by offering them more relevant content which will address certain questions or problems that they may have.

On occasion you may hear that article marketing is not as effective as it use to be. Also by submitting an article to a number of different article directories is only actually helping to create duplicate content, and which is putting your site at risk of the major search engines choosing to de-index it.

But putting aside the arguments that rage for and against duplicate content just now, article marketing is still as effective as any other promotional or traffic strategy being used today. Promotional strategies are constantly changing, yet the strength of article marketing remains because the foundations of the World Wide Web are built on it. Plus the WWW is always in need of fresh and relevant content.

By creating content in the form of articles you will start to attract a steady stream of visitors to your site. Everyday millions of people go online looking for answers. With your articles you can place yourself in a strong position to provide the answers to their questions and convert the traffic into sales.

Article marketing cost you little or nothing as a way for you to promote a product or a website that you have and anyone is able to do it. It is the ideal way of getting targeted traffic to you as long as you are willing to work at it over a period of time and consistently.

Through writing articles which are informative and where well researched keywords have been used you will gain more exposure and your rankings in search engines will increase. But, if you just submit the same article to hundreds of article repositories or niche websites over and over again this will actually will reduce the effectiveness of your article marketing.

For your article marketing to succeed you should be aiming to submit unique versions of articles that you write to directories and websites. This may seem somewhat of a daunting task initially but the results you get back will be worth all the effort in the end. Gone are the risks of you producing duplicate content and slipping in search engine rankings. Yet whilst the definition of what actually constitutes duplicate content continues to be a subject for discussion, the majority of experienced webmasters are happy for around 30% difference in each article written.

Yet the greater the difference between each article written, then the better this is for your online business. However, you need to keep in mind that the spiders used by top search engines not only review entire web pages but also will look at other elements on a page and take these into consideration. So even a small 30% change between one article and the next can being more than sufficient to avoid yours being ignored.

The smartest way when it comes to article marketing is to ensure that you submit unique versions of your articles. Not only will you gain more targeted traffic, but the increase in the rankings tends to last for much longer because of the backlinks you have built through the marketing of unique articles.