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Article marketing is a method of online advertising through which a person writes short articles related to a product, service or a respective industry and makes their articles freely available for distribution and publication in the marketplace.
Each article contains a 'bio box' and 'by-line' or a 'profile link' which includes references and contact information for the author. Well written content articles released for syndication (free distribution) have the potential of gaining the author or business valuable credibility within his or her market, as well as new clients.
On the Internet, one of the most effective methods of distributing an article is to publish it in an article directory such as ArticleDirectory.co.za. These directories work by allowing published articles to be made easily available for syndication to a network of publishers
who use the articles as content in their websites and newsletters.
The benefit of publishing an article in an article directory, such as ArticleDirectory.co.za, is that it sets in motion the organic distribution
of an article to numerous sources around the internet. So, a well written article, published once, can be reproduced and published many hundreds of times without any additional effort on the part of the original author.
With regular publishing of well written articles, the result of article marketing is a chain events:
Improve your page rank with more links
Hyperlinks are the doorways of the internet. When you click a hyperlink you are taken from one point to another. There are literally billions and billions of hyperlinks on the internet. The question is, "How many of them are pointing at you?"
Publishing articles in an article directory like ArticleDirectory.co.za enables articles to be reused. Each time the article is reused, it carries with it links to the article directory, the author and the website of the person or business that wrote the article.
So publishing articles in an article directory is a great way to increase the number of hyperlinks out there that point to you. The immediately obvious benefit of this is that the more times an article is reused, the greater the chances are of it being found and that somebody will click through to the authors website.
However, that is only half the benefit. The real benefit sits with the impact all your hyperlinks will have on the page rank of your website with the search engines.
Hyperlinks are one of the main factors search engines use to determine the authority and popularity of a website or a particular page on the internet. The more hyperlinks a website has pointing to it, the more the page rank of that site will improve in search engines. The higher the page rank, the higher the website or page is displayed in the search results return for a specific keyword search.
Therefore, writing and
distributing articles that contain a link to a business owner's website
or to the authors 'bio box' should not only increases the chances of being found, but also result in more links back to that website. Which in turn increase that website's rank within search engines.
Getting more targeted exposure
Audience is a valuable commodity that is extrememly difficult and time consuming to build. By regularly publishing, well written quality articles, to an article directory, the job of building and reaching a targetted audience is made easy.
Website media and newsletter publishers already have huge audiences. Publishers are careful to select and publish content that specifically addresses the interests of their audience. For example, a website that publishes a website or newsletter about real-estate will not select to publish articles on internet marketing, unless the article speaks about marketing real-estate on the internet.
As publishers filter the content they publish, authors publishing to an article directory can be more of less assured that their article is being positioned in front of a targeted audience that is interested in the subject of their article.
Getting more quality traffic
It's easy to put up a website and, without much effort, people will visit it. However, each visit to the site takes bandwidth which has a cost attached to it. What a business website wants is for the majority of traffic visiting their website to be interested in the products or services on offer. The better targetted the traffic, the more likely the website visits will translate into sales.
On any website there are three types of traffic:
- Direct traffic
- Referal traffic
- Search engine (organic) traffic
Direct traffic is generated by people who bookmark a website or know the website URL and go directly to the website without visiting any other website. This type of traffic is usually comprised of "the converted". People who will regularly visit a site to do something because it offers them a service or product they want.
With these visitors the only task is to keep them engaged and returning. Each year there will be a percentage of a customer base that will be retained and lost. For a business to remain viable and continue growing, it needs to continually work on retaining customers and adding enough new custmers to replace those that are lost while winning new customers.
This is where referal and search engine traffic come into play.
Referal traffic is comprised of visitors that resulted because of a link contained in a page on a website other than a search engine or because of direct access. When using an article directory, a referal visit is likely because of a click through from an article that was syndicated and published somewhere on the internet or in a news letter. Referal traffic also is generated through business listing directories, classified advert boards and forums.
Search engine (organic) traffic is comprised of visitors that have visited a search engine, entered a search using some keywords and clicked on a search result that is linked to a website.
To continually increase client base, a business website always wants to be increasing the numbers of new, quality targetted visitors reaching their website through referals and search engines.
Through constant writing of well written, quality articles and publishing to an article directory, exposure and page rank is increased. Over time mass is formed and traffic from referals and search engines starts to build.
Getting more sales through frame building
More visitors of a targetted and quality nature will arrive at a website because of article marketing. The question now is, "How many of them do you convert to sales?"
The answer is a combined host of factors that cannot all be attributed to article marketing. So what role does article marketing play in creating sales?
We have already discussed the apects of link and traffic building. What else is there?
Yes, there is more.
Article marketing not only acts as a link, exposure and traffic builder it also serves as a frame builder.
Visitors reading an article are more likely to have built a mental picture of the author that wrote the article or the product or service described therein than they will from an banner. Reading an article allows the author to build credability and explain things in smaller detail. This gives the reader more time to reflect and decide on many factors before clicking through.
Chances are that once a reader has read a well written article, they will already be in the correct mind frame for buying. If they click through, then the chances of making a sale are most likely more than good or they would not have clicked through. All your website must do is provide the final reassurance and take the order.
So the hidden benefit of the article directory is that it filters visitors into an ever narrowing funnel and sets the mind frame where, once on your website, the barrier to sales conversion is already much reduced.
Getting More Money
More money ... that is the whole point of article marketing. The skilled article marketer can make build huge income streams with a very small budget and consitent writing of quality articles that build more links, more exposure, more traffic, more sales.
The more referal and search engine traffic one generates, the greater the chances of making more money, it's that simple and it's even easier to get started with ArticleDirectory.co.za . Start writing articles and publish articles and join the article marketing world today.
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