Article marketing is one of the most widely used methods of promoting a website and making money online. It’s not just those people submitting articles to article directories who should be considered to be an article marketer. Every hub on hubpages.com, every lens on Squidoo.com was put together by an article marketer. Whether they call themselves that or not.

Article marketing is changing rapidly with the advent of “Web 2.0″, Social Media and social networking sites. What worked back in 2006 isn’t so effective any more. But article marketing and marketing with articles will continue to grow in popularity and become even more powerful than it was back then.

Back in the day, you could submit an article to hundreds of article directories and everyone of them would give a reasonablly powerful “back link” to your site. For a time is was a marketers paradise, but you can see why the good times had to come to an end.

When something becomes “easy” it tends to become low quality. This is definately what happened to traditional “old style” article marketing.

What killed old style article marketing?

In my logical opinion, old style article marketing was killed by 3 things.

1. The proliferation of article directories on the Internet. So called “Internet Marketing Guru’s” made it too easy for “wanabees” to own their own directory. This in itself would not have been so much of a problem had it not been for….

2. Automatic article submission software. These were the real killer. With all that spammy content being submitted to all those spammy directories, Google had to do something. The changes they made hurt even the good quality content and top authors. (Traditional article marketing is less effective for everyone as a result of this).

3. All the hype about making easy money with “Google Adsense” that has been stuffed down the throat of everyone in Internet marketing circles since 2005. Without this hype they would have been less people wanting to own their own article directory.

With all that unmoderated, duplicate, “spammy” content filling up the article directories, the “Big G” had to do something. So they stopped passing link authority from all but a handful of article directory sites. You can no longer use Article Marketing alone to increase your Google Page Rank and SERP’s.

But that does not mean that you cannot get traffic from traditional article marketing or that it does not have it’s place in your overall online marketing strategy you just need to be more selective about where you submit your content and more importantly, the content that you submit.

Dan Blackburn is the owner of the popular article directory article content king.

(c) Dan Blackburn. This article may be republished as long as all links are left in tack.

1. The most obvious, they take all the money generated from the ad space directly. Having full control over the ad space, authors can even sell space within their articles privately.

The main business model of any article directory or “group content” site relies mainly on the revenue from ad space. Many sites are willing to share this revenue with the authors, but only one site (that I know of) gives full control over the ad space to the author… And ALL the revenue!

2. A less obvious benefit to the AdSpace articles model is the “elimination” of competing ads in your content. This is usually the biggest drawback of article marketing to the author. They submit their articles to other sites and within their content are targeted ads.

Yes TARGETED ads, unless you are PAYING to advertise on the site, those ads within your content will no doubt be promoting your competitions website. Your hard work is making sales for them! Sure you might be getting a piece of the pie if the site is sharing revenue with you, but it’s nothing compared to the money you would have made if the ad was making sales for you… or if you were the “broker” selling the traffic.

AdSpace articles give you full control over what does and what does not appear along side your content. You can even remove the ads completely if you so wish.

To get 3 free ad space articles visit here.

You'd be surprised at how many authors write articles but fail to do any keyword research whatsoever.

If your article doesn't have suitable keywords relevant to your article's subject it's unlikely to be picked up by search engines like Google for real people to find when they search online.

If you're not sure why keyword research is necessary then you'll find this article really helpful as it's purpose is to look at how keywords are recognised by Google.

For example lets consider the keyword «Article Marketing». You'll notice it's in the heading of this article, the first paragraph and also used elsewhere in the article.

As an exercise I'd like you to go to the main page of Google and enter the keyword «article marketing» in QUOTATION MARKS into the search box. It's important to put your keyword in «QUOTATION MARKS» as it keeps all the words in your keyword together making sure they're searched for together rather that getting results for each word separately.

When I did a Google search for the keyword «article marketing» the results showed there are 4,160,000 different websites displaying this keyword. What did you get when you ran this search?

Perhaps your immediate response was... FOUR MILLION COMPETITORS... it's not worth my while trying to compete with that many for the keyword «article marketing».

But, what if I was to tell you that all is not as it seems?

Supposing I was to tell you that you only have 897 competitors (number shown in Google at the time of writing this article).

As an author producing articles for article marketing... Do you think you can do better than 897 competitors to get your article ranking highly in the search engines for such a popular keyword? I bet you do.

But, I need to prove to you that you only have 897 competitors before you'll believe me... Right?

Here's what you do.

Close down all your browser windows... and then open a browser showing the Google main page.

To the right of the Google search box you'll see three links... Advanced Search, Preferences and Language Tools... Click on preferences.

In the Google search engine the default setting for each page is set to show 10 search results on each page. But inside 'preferences' there is the option to change «The Number of Results per page» in a drop down menu to 20, 30, 50 or 100.

Select «100» from the drop down menu and click «Save Preferences»

You'll now be able to view 100 search results on each page instead of the standard 10.

Type your keyword «article marketing» in «QUOTATION MARKS» into the search box and click on 'Google Search'.

Notice in the top right side of your page the results will read «Results 1-100 of about 4,160.000».

Scroll right down to the bottom of the page until you see the «Goooooooooogle» sign with page numbers 1 thru 10 shown underneath each of the «o's» in the word Goooooooooogle.

Click on «10» taking you to the very end of the available 1,000 search results from Google.

When I did this at the time of writing this article the very last item was this...

* »In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 897 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.»

What does your's say?

So, as an author writing articles on article marketing do you think you can structure your articles skillfully enough to be included as one of Google's «Most relevant results» and them compete against only 897 competitors... not 4,160,000 to get a high ranking in the search engines?

That's why keyword research and structuring your articles to make full use of your keywords is so important.

Dave Mackay encourages you to submit your articles by going to Article Content King. Eager publishers are waiting to use your articles on their blog or website with your links and content unchanged allowing you to earn money from your sales so you can improve the quality of your life. There's even an opportunity to control all the advertising on your article pages. Sign up at Article Content King and open your membership account today.

Permanent link: Keyword Research for Article Marketing (Write a comment).
Read more: Authors Articles Revenue Sharing.

Why should we submit articles?

• Article writing can and will help you become branded as the expert. Becoming branded as an expert in turn will increase your web sites traffic, sales and ultimately your profit! If you are not promoting profit the information you are giving to the masses will also find its way to your targeted audience. That includes any program you are marketing.

• Submitting your articles to article directories and ezines provides a way to get free advertising through your resource box, increases page rank by having links pointing back to your website and increases website traffic by getting your articles to targeted readers.

• People also go to article directories looking for content for their own websites. When they get there and find yours, they may use it. When they do, you get further links to your website and more credibility as the expert.

Did I say POWER?

Yes, I said power. As you can see above, there are very valid reasons why one would submit their article to the article directories for free. Now let me say this:

Why would anyone submit their article to a directory and pay for the submission?

Well, I call it article marketing with a twist. Let me explain.

People run an article directory for a few simple reasons. The directory generates free traffic for their promotions. They use it to build their list. They make money through the ad space in the articles. They can also turn around and sell that same ad space to the public, allowing the advertiser to control the ad spot for a nominal fee. This can all turn into a very nice income for the article directory owner.

Running an article directory is not for everyone. If it were, the market would be so saturated that the extreme value of article marketing wouldn't even exist. Yet it does.

What if you could take on the rewards of article marketing and those of the article directory owner without the hassles and expenses of running an article directory yourself? What if you could control the ad space that would otherwise be controlled by the article directory owner? What if you could sell that very same ad space and keep the cash yourself?

Talk about power! Power Articles! Release the power of your article marketing efforts.

Article Content King has the Power.

1. Become a member and submit for free, as usual.

2. Pay to post individual articles and control the ad space yourself.

3. Pay to submit unlimited articles and control the ad spots on your article pages.

4. Pay to post unlimited articles, control that ad space and then get syndicated to a group of other related directories, and control the ad space on all of those, as well!

5. Pay to Post? You get to control the comments to your articles as well, allowing you to create your own social network.

Article-Content-King has scoured the web and created a huge collection of quality articles. Our database of authors is 14,000 plus and growing with submissions of 2000 plus articles per week. Our Power Article Directory is in a blog format, making promotion that much easier.

Would you submit free articles? Would you pay to post Power Articles? Visit us today.

Watch this feed as I will be following up with Tips, Tools and Training to help you bring Power to your Article Marketing Efforts!

To your success:

Randy Wood
www.articlecontentking.com

Randy Wood is an online marketer providing Tips, Tools and Training in various methods of marketing and self promotion. Visit Randy Wood at JRandall'sWeb.Com. Randy Wood is also passionate about Diabetes, as having been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes himself. He promotes Diabetes-And-Me to help others be informed about life with diabetes and have a place to interact with others.