Article Marketing - How to Promote Your Website For Next to Nothing

                                                                                         

Article marketing isn't all that new - it has been around for a while but isn't as well known a web promotion strategy as some of those that cost you a lot more money - that's whether they actually work or not - but how often have you heard someone mention an interesting article they've just read? Probably a lot more often than you hear adverts talked about and this can add valuable
credibility over paid advertising.

It has long been known that one of the most effective ways of promoting a website in the search engines is by the building of backlinks - links from other sites to your own. These links are most effective in boosting your ranking when they link from relevent content or pages similar - but not identical - to your own. Equally links from large sites that themselves have high search engine rankings are deemed more important than links from smaller or lower ranked ones. Generally speaking, a page with a higher page rank will appear higher in search results for a particular word or phrase than one with a lower rank. It follows that a higher position means more traffic to that page.

The more backlinks you have to a page then the more effective this strategy is, so what needs to be done is to create a large number of quality backlinks without parting with large amounts of money for the privilege. This is where article marketing can prove to be a very powerful website promotion tool. To begin you need to write an article - typically 500 to 800 words - on a subject related to your website and no - I don't mean advertising copy or a blatent sales pitch - but something that's interesting and informative to the reader.

The article is then uploaded to a number of article directories who each typically allow you 2 backlinks to the pages of your choice - you are not normally limited to just a homepage link as you are with some blog sites. The great thing is that you have control of the link text - another factor determining its importance to the search engines - relevent text being deemed much better than simply "click here" or similar. So now we have a couple of links from some relevent content on a large highly ranked site - or several sites - just about the best thing you can do to boost your site's ranking.

We musnt't forget either the purpose of the article directories. As well as search engines, real humans read these articles too. They're not just any old random humans though - they've found your article by searching for particular products or information so are likely to be interested in what's on your website. Guess What? That's where the links at the bottom of the page go to. So in addition to a boost in your search engine ranking, real live people - potential customers - are also finding your site from the article. Good eh!

It gets better - the article directories syndicate this content for free use on other sites - the only stipulation being that other users do not alter the article and that they keep the resource box intact with your links and contact information. This service is used by webmasters as well as ezine and some magazine publishers to find content, so the article could very well end up on hundreds of sites each with the links back to yes - you guessed it - your website.

The obvious bonus - apart from a distinct lack of cost - of article marketing is that even if your own site isn't on the first page of search results, the chances are your article in one of the directories will be - along with its links to your site and there it will stay. The article will remain for years where it can be found by people searching the web, continuing to send traffic to your site but not costing you a penny more.

About the author:
Travel author Pete Buckley currently writes for the Internet Marketing Agency who offer copywriting and article marketing services to the small business. For more information please see http://www.theinternetmarketingagency.co.uk


Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com