The benefits of article marketing

I have been reading recently about the benefits of article marketing. A recent post to the ezinearticles blog asked if writing articles was worth wasting time over. I have been writing articles for quite a long time and in my opinion it certainly is. I will explain why I think it is in this article.

Around a year ago I wrote my first article and posted it to ezinearticles, which many people regard as the best article directory/website. Looking back I have to admit that I did not really know what I was doing, and in truth the article was not that impressive. I continued to write more articles and continued to make mistakes.

Unlike other directories who seem to accept any old article, ezinearticles check what you are submitting. In these early days a guy called Wally would regularly e-mail me with advice on how I could improve my articles. At that stage my articles were too short, not thought out, and basically rushed. I did not realise the value of writing articles and did not make the required time available for this form of web promotion.

I found it difficult to keep thinking of new material and fell into another trap of re-submitting articles I had already written. I would change a few words or would re-word paragraphs. I was not aware that this was against their guidelines, however Wally soon informed me that it was. Tip, always read the guidelines.

I am now spending a lot more time when I write the articles and feel that they have gradually improved, this has been confirmed by Wally himself I am pleased to report.

As for the benefits of writing articles and is it worth your time and effort? I have had e-mails from all around the world from people who have enjoyed reading my articles, maybe I am a bit sad but this gives me a little buzz. Some of these people have included the article in their blog or on their website, thus creating an additional backward link to my website/s.

The people who read the article are potential visitors to your site, a visitor you would not have had, had you not written the article.

That visitor could of course turn into a client or purchaser of your product/s.

For me search engines are going down the path of seeing one-way backward links as by far the most powerful form of link. Many people are offering link exchanges with other websites to boost their page rank or search engine position. There are many automated link building programs which make link exchanges even easier to obtain.

Search engines have realised that this is taking place and place a much lower value on these type of links. One way links are not as easy to obtain, however writing articles has the potential of creating many one way backward links to you site and therefore is a must for any serious webmaster.

I have now written nearly two hundred articles and have seen huge increases in traffic to my websites as well as increases in their page rank.

People may disagree with my belief that article marketing is worth the time and effort, I do not really care as it works for me.