Article writing has taken the web by storm, which is not surprising, considering the colossal potential benefits. You write a few articles and, if they are valuable and informative, can drive targeted traffic to your website.

The following are five key benefits of article marketing.

Article marketing is free and not too difficult

Unlike most other things in life, article writing is free and easy- a combination that's hard to beat!

When you submit your articles to niche article directories, they have the potential to be read by thousands of visitors. Some of them could be publishers or editors of websites, newsletters or ezines who are continuously looking for fresh content to offer their readers.

If your articles provide valuable and useful content, they would be only too happy to publish your articles on their websites for their readers.

Every article is accompanied by a resource box with your short bio and a link back to your site. Think of the free publicity! One of the biggest advantages of going this route is that you need to do nothing else besides write a couple of really good, content-filled articles.

The rest will take care of itself and very soon you will have an ever-increasing base of published articles. Even better, all the traffic you get to your website will be qualified traffic - a visitor drops by because they've read your article and liked what they saw. Or, maybe they're just curious.

Article marketing diversifies your traffic stream

The one problem with having a target audience is that it narrows your market down tremendously. At the same time, it's not worth having any and everybody visit your website if they are really not interested in what you are offering.

Article marketing is the perfect way to straddle this realm. It's all in the way you categorize your article as well as the catchy title that you give it. Take the article you've written and submit it to various article databases under different headings.

If you've written an article on 'Shoes & Fashion', you could post it in the 'shoes' category in one directory, 'fashion' in another and 'lifestyle' in the third. Your traffic is still targeted traffic, but it's diversified.

We all know that search engine rankings fluctuate. If you happen to lose your rankings, and drop your traffic, your articles will continue to send visitors.

Article marketing establishes your expertise

Article marketing gives you and your business credibility, even if you don't feel credible. Most people hesitate to do business with someone on the net, for fear of being ripped off by some fly-by-night operator.

If you write good articles, people will start to respect your opinion. Once you've established yourself as an expert in your field, people will automatically begin trusting you and your business.

Article marketing helps you get backlinks

Article marketing is the single fastest method of acquiring back-links to your sites. When your articles are published all over the internet, the number of links pointing to your site from other directories or web sites dramatically increases sending your search engine rankings upwards.

Compared to directory submissions, article marketing is a much more legitimate linking method.

Article marketing keeps you sharp and communicating your message Content is king in article writing and high-quality content is the key to driving quality traffic to your website. Combine high-quality with dynamic content such as free newsletters, polls and other fun extras and you will have non-stop target traffic visiting your website.

More than anything, article marketing is a fun, engaging, and dynamic marketing method. Unlike other methods, you'll notice your articles' benefit within a few days. All you have to do is put in the time to make it happen.

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