What is Article Marketing?
Article marketing is an online promotional technique in which marketers write informative articles about their business opportunities and submit them to article directories. These articles are made very appealing with proper headlines, easy to read formatting and useful content to any reader. The articles are followed by a short bio of the author, where the author can write about his or her business and even provide a URL to the business website or blog.
The intention is to make these articles highly visible on search engine ratings through expert SEO. When that happens, more people will be able to come to the article and if they are interested in it, their chances of visiting the website or blog increases. Article marketing is a method of increasing traffic on websites or blogs, from where further marketing strategies can be employed.
What are the Pros of Article Marketing?
One of the best advantages of article marketing is that it works in increasing awareness of the business. The directories on which the articles are submitted have good search engine optimization, usually better than what the promoter can do. Also, most of the popular article directories have great page rank, which already brings them up on the search engine results.
A person who writes an article comes across as an expert on the subject. This kind of credibility works immensely in the prospecting. Also, people who come to the website or blog through the link provided in an article have come there because they have liked what they read. In a way, these people are already presold to the idea, which makes prospecting easier.
Article marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods of online promotion – low costs, high results. This makes it one of the first choices on newbie online entrepreneurs and those who are working with a shoestring budget.
What are the Cons of Article Marketing?
Article marketers should know the pulse of the reader and write on what they may be interested in. They have to know their niche market for this. They must also be good at writing and presenting their ideas. They can hire freelance writers, but that increases costs.
A few articles here and there do no good. Article marketing needs to be kept up as a constant endeavor and this takes time and effort. Some marketers may find the process of finding new topics to write on quite harrowing.
Marketing through articles can only lead a visitor to the website or the blog. From there on, the website or blog itself has to be riveting enough for bringing in the conversion. Hence, article marketing is not an absolute promotional technique – it depends on several other factors for its success.