How Important is Article Writing For Your Home Business?

by Rick Carbone for Home Business Research

What is so special about article writing? It seems everywhere you turn, at least on the Internet, there is another item about article writing and why you should be doing it. The fact is, you should. The answer is both simple and complex so I will try and tackle both in this discussion.

Simply put - Article marketing just plain, flat-out works if you're looking to drive traffic to your site. Obviously, if you have a business enterprise being run on your web site, the need for traffic becomes an absolute necessity, since without traffic, no one visits the site which means you get no business. That's not the only reason.

In order to properly market your product or service on the Internet you need credibility. Writing authoritative articles on your given topic of expertise and submitting them to article directories is one of the fastest ways to get credibility.

The fastest distribution method for these articles is to submit them to article directories. The problem is, there are literally hundreds of these directories on the Internet. Some are general purpose and others cater to niches, such as Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing or Home Business. Some have a wide and active readership and others are quite narrow in focus. But all of them share in one basic thing that is important to you as a marketer, website owners use these articles for content on their sites. Why is this important? Your articles get syndicated to other sites, and become, in internet marketing terms, "viral."

It stands to reason that once your articles become syndicated they then become part of a dynamic distribution system that is worldwide. It's a very powerful marketing tool and cost effective as well. Your fixed costs are your article marketing software and your time.

I was amazed at my first test of article writing last year. I wrote a couple of articles on some internet marketing topics that discussed the issue of getting traffic to your website. I used my own software, My Article Pro, to distribute them to the article directories. Within a month I had over 40,000 backlinks to my website! I was totally flabbergasted. I could not believe how quickly these articles, about 500 words each, spread. Additionally, I really didn't spend a lot of time distributing them either.

Writing articles accomplishes two distinct marketing tactics, free viral advertising for a product and authoritative status for the writer. The first tactic happens literally overnight, the second takes time to build. There are many faces on the Internet associated with a product or a service that we have come to know. In years past the only way to accomplish this was to have a big advertising budget or a very large affiliate base selling your products. Today, with article writing, you can accomplish both easily.

Although article writing as a marketing tactic has been around for decades, it hasn't been as prominent as it is right now. The reasons are primarily the Internet and the technical ability to post articles immediately with a world wide audience.

There really isn't a better way to market your products or thoughts. With all this being said what are the drawbacks to writing and distributing articles on the Internet? We can examine those as well.

In order to be successful at article marketing you need to write more than one article. It sounds so simplistic yet many people write one article and distribute it and expect that they will receive thousands of backlinks and traffic to their sites. This is not the case by a long shot. In order to be successful, at article marketing, you need consistency and good content. If you maintain a regular schedule of writing and submitting your articles your chances for success will be very high.

The second area that is a potential drawback to article marketing is submitting your articles to the article directories. Each time you submit to a directory you need to enter in your article information in segments such as Title, Author, Body Text, Summary Box and the Authors Box (The most important piece of information because it contains all of your specific details such as your URL or the URL of the affiliate program you are promoting.) This submission process can be quite tedious and consumes a great deal of time, unless you are using article submission software like My Article Pro.

Article submission software takes the tedium out of article submitting and automates the process for you. There are plenty of article submitters on the market ranging from $19.95 to well over $100. I like My Article Pro because it's simple and it works. I fill in my article information once and My Article Pro does the rest. What My Article Pro doesn't do is spam the article directory sites. In fact the Article Directories won't even know that you used submission software when you use My Article Pro.

Rick Carbone is the owner-editor of Home Business Research a top website focused solely on online home business development and management since 1998.

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