by Irene Lizarraga

Created on: November 19, 2010

Article marketing is, in a nutshell, the fact of writing articles and allowing other people display non exclusive rights over them, so they can be used on their own websites usually for free. In layman's terms, this mean creating high quality content, distributing it for free and letting others publish it even for commercial websites. Article marketing is also increasingly popular and directories dedicated to the submission and distribution of articles seem to be everywhere. But why is article marketing, or giving great content for free, so popular?

The key to article marketing is that while anybody is allowed to publish the article, the article must be published in its entirety and attributed to the original author via a byline, or credits box. What this means is that somewhere in the article, usually at the end, there will be the name of the author, contact information and potentially links to the author's website, and that will be published along with the article. In practical terms, it means every time somebody uses that article they will be advertising the author's details to their audience, and in most cases also sending most welcome link juice towards his website.

Looking at it this way, the popularity of article marketing is easy to understand. Article marketing is popular because it's a clever way of advertising. It first shows the author's expertise on a certain subject, and after impressing the reader shows him how to reach that author. Compared with displaying ads that many people find uninteresting, article marketing is a way of proving you know what you are talking about, before offering your services. With the right writing technique, the flow of the article isn't interrupted by the byline, and the reader is subtly guided to click on those links and reach the marketed website, in the right frame of mind to make a purchase or enquiry.

The main reasons why article marketing is so popular are probably its effectiveness, low cost and minimal entry barrier. For many business owners, writing a short 400 or 500 words article about their niche industry is considerably cheaper in terms of time and money than renting advertising space on a magazine or managing complex AdWords campaigns. Also, most quality article directories are usually only lightly moderated, and you don't need to be Shakespeare to get your articles published in relevant niche directories. This makes article marketing an affordable and relatively easy marketing initiative that can bring great benefits to any business.

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