Article marketing is probably one of the easier understood ways to actually get ranking on the search engines. And more importantly, its totally above board when done right and you dont have to worry about getting blacklisted.It is often avoided because of the additional perceived "work" involved.Lazy people who are looking for 'shortcuts" avoid it at all costs.If you do it right, the hours and days you spend now will pay off for years to come.
A good first rule is to only write about topics you are very familiar with. Its just easier.Most sites are created initially around a topic the person considers themselves an expert on.This makes it far easier, as you are writing about what you know a lot about. Of course you can easily do research too – just go to an article directory, pick your niche topic and start reading.It is really amazing how fast you can pick up basic information, and use that to create an article.Also, make sure you write in a less formal manner that is easily understood. There is no point in using fancy words - afterall the primary focus is the backlinks in the article. This is not a doctoral thesis – you want to create an article in 15-20 minutes and move on to modifications and other stuff.
A second rule is to make sure you write your article in such a way that its easy to rewrite it some. Why?? You used to be able to mass distribute the same thing across the net and get a bonus for the numbers - those days are gone. Now days, the search engines are smart enough to see that they are duplicate copies – a few is ok, but having 1000′s you will actually get penalized for. This is where rewriting comes in. There are software tools out there that can help you - BUT do not let them do it for you. Often the result is a bunch of garbage text that makes no sense. The search engines are onto this too (they have semantics) and you will get penalized, plus it just makes your site linked look bad that such an idiot that cannot even write would link to you (readers would not know it was you who wrote it). One of the best tools I have ever used for rewriting exists at My Article Network.You can easily rewrite articles up to 1000%++ (each sentence has 10 alternates + other stuff) and distribute them on up to 10,000 blogs.
A good third rule is to try to limit your use of links in the article. Most article directories limit you anyway but outside of that you can post on blogs and elsewhere with as many links as you want. Again, use common sense - the search engines are smarter than that.If one link is good, 70 links are not better.A good rule of thumb is to not use more than 1 link per 200 words.You always want to be consistent with your keywords used to link to get the maximum benefit in the shortest time. Do not try to master 20 keywords at once by linking different ones each time. You need some repetition to get any ranking boost at all.Concentrate only on a few keywords in the beginning and move your rank up on those.Once you achieve ranking on page 1 or 2 on Google, then you can move on to other words to broaden the base.
A last rule to remember is that repetition not only keeps it going, it makes it work. You need to set up a plan to write one article every 2 days at least in the beginning for the first month or so. Even after you get higher ranking, you still need to pump in some linked articles at least once a week to keep it fresh. The search engines look at the date of the posts that have the link – over time they decay the value of those links if they see nothing new coming in.You will want accounts at all the major article networks such as Ezine that you can post on- search google for a list.
Done properly, article marketing can be a central hub to other stuff you do to boost your overall site ranking and visibility.