If you are trying to make money from blogging or some other online venture there are certain things you must do if you are not to fail: you must get visitors and you must rank in the search engines. You can achieve both of these goals by paying for visitors at the search engines via pay per click or you can get visitors for free using article marketing.

The first thing to do is research your article marketing topic. There are quite a few good keyword tools available to help you decide which keyword phrases will bring you visitors but also you need to make sure there is not too much competition as well or you will not get good rankings at the search engines. Your keyword phrases need to be related to your sites topic and be getting plenty of search queries but not lots results. Read a more detailed post about keyword tools for a better explanation.

When you have researched your keyword phrases you will want to use them in your articles title, a couple of times in the first paragraph, a couple of times in the body and once again in the closing for best results.

Keep your article marketing real. In other words write it for people, not Google. Yes you can help it rank well by research and keyword tools but it’s no good being number 1 in Google if no one reads the article. Keep your articles easy to read and to the point. Use bullets or numbers as they are easier to read and get the point over better.

When you are done, read it several times and make sure it is written correctly and that you have your targeted phrases in the right places. Once you have done that, check it again, several times. If it doesn’t quite read correctly, write it again and remember while you may be an expert on the topic, your reader is not.

Summing up your article is the most important {part-section} but most who do article marketing miss the point all together. Your article gives the reader info that they have hunted out at the search engines but now you want them to want yet more info by visiting your website. Point out the benefits of clicking and visiting your website. “Click here for more info” does not work any more. Explain to them exactly why they should and what they will find: a a more detailed article, A valuable resource they can use etc.

Finally be particular where you offer the use of your articles and it helps greatly if you rewrite the article every time you submit it to a directory or blog feeder. Submit the original version to ezinearticles.com and hang fire until they accept it before submitting it to any of the other article directories. This is because ezinearticles are the most popular so get you most traffic but they accept articles that have already been submitted on other sites.

Article marketing is still by far the best way of promoting a website without spending big money on advertising. Just 1 article every day will result in 100 articles on perhaps 1000’s of sites in just 3 months time all with links pointing to your business.

For the ultimate bang in article marketing give serious thought to submitting your articles to Article Marketing Automation. This takes a little more work but the benefits last a lot longer.