Article Magic…
The Past, Present, and Future Of Article Marketing
Table of Contents
Part I ……………………….. What Is Article Marketing?
Part II………………………..The History of Article Marketing
Part III……………………….Article Marketing Today
Part IV………………………The Future of Article Marketing
Part V……………………….Article Marketing For Your Business
What Is Article Marketing?
Article Marketing is essentially writing and distributing short articles to a variety of
outlets, including article repositories, which are also called article directories and
article banks, forums, and newsletter publishers. Article marketing is one of the
most effective types of marketing that one can do – it is also one of the least
expensive ways to market a business. In fact, it can even be free, costing you
nothing more than your time.
There are many benefits to article marketing. Because articles become viral, your
message literally travels far and wide, increasing traffic to your website and
increasing newsletter signups. Article marketing is also used to make sales and build credibility. Anyone who wants to establish themselves as an expert in
their niche should take advantage of all that article marketing has to offer.
Here is how it works. Let’s say that you are in the weight loss niche, and you sell
various weight loss products, whether they are your own products or products of
which you are an affiliate. You write a weight loss article, preferably one that is
closely related to one of your products – but you don’t want to necessarily
advertise the product in the article.
Instead, you want to address a problem that the product can help to solve in your
article – without mentioning the product. For instance, if you sell a cellulite cream,
you can write an article about what cellulite is, what causes it, and the various
methods used to get rid of it. The article should be no more than 750 words and
have a compelling title.
At the bottom of your article, you include an author’s resource box. This is
basically a block of text, made up of one paragraph that is anywhere from five to
seven lines long. In this paragraph, you might say something like this
Once you have written your article, ensured that you have made all of the points
that you wanted to make, and checked the article for spelling and grammar
mistakes, you are ready to distribute it.
Article Magic – The Past, Present, and Future of Article Marketing
The History of Article Marketing
Article marketing has been around almost as long as the Internet has been
around – even though it wasn’t meant for actual marketing purposes. Many years
ago, back in the ’90s, people actually shared information with each other. This
was termed ‘the spirit of the Internet way back then, and that spirit still exists
today, even though it isn’t as obvious.
The Internet was designed for the free and fast exchange of information. People
wrote articles on a variety of topics, to share information and
educate others. At first, there really weren’t any article repositories. In fact,
newsletters, also called ezines, came into play long before article banks did.
So, when you wanted to share an article with the Internet community, you posted
the article on your website, in a Usenet newsgroup, or in your ezine.
Eventually,
people started allowing other ezine publishers to use their articles as well – and
the author’s resource box was born.
Because articles had such an impact in each niche (niche being another word
that wasn’t used at that time), intelligent marketers saw the potential for writing
and distributing articles – freely – to promote their businesses. They
started writing and distributing articles regularly – and article marketing
was born – even though it wasn’t necessarily called that then. It was simply
called ‘writing and distributing articles.’
Those articles were formatted much the way that articles are formatted today,
except HTML tags were not used. The articles were all text, just as many are
today. However, while links in the article are hyperlinked today, they were not
hyperlinked back then, in most cases.
In case you don’t know, when a link is hyperlinked, the reader can simply click on
the link to visit the webpage. When it is not hyperlinked, the reader must copy
and paste the URL into their web browser, or type it in.
Over time, people learned that some measure of copywriting skills were needed
for article marketing, writing outstanding, attentively getting
headlines, and creating an effective author’s resource box.
Even though writing and distributing articles was turning out to be an effective
and cost-effective way to market a business, the articles that were written and
distributed were of very high quality. The spirit of the Internet was still very visible
and in full swing.
The Future of Article Marketing
As stated, article marketing is here to stay. It is a stable method of marketing that
simply is not going away, no matter what changes may occur in the online world.
Because article marketing is here to stay, it is something that will benefit you
today and in the future.
The article marketing that you do today will still be benefiting you ten years from
now. Article marketing is viral, and it’s a virus that can’t be killed. You see, when
you take the time to write and distribute an article, other people, such as web
publishers, bloggers, and ezine publishers, will use your articles on their
websites, in their newsletters, and on their blogs.
People who read their websites, blogs, and newsletters will also use your articles
on their websites, newsletters, and blogs, as will their visitors. The process just
keeps going and going, for as long as the information in your article remains
relevant to the current trends or the information does not change. Believe it or
not, methods may change, information, however, rarely changes.
While many of the new article repositories may not be around in the future, some have been around since the first article repository made its
appearance. The longevity of an article repository depends on how well it is
promoted, and how long the person who owns the article repository decides to
stay in business.
Article Marketing For Your Business
If you are not already using article marketing for your business, you are missing
out on sales and signups that could be garnered from this time-tested method of
marketing a business online. Anyone who isn’t already marketing their business
with articles should get started on it right away.
Remember, your article marketing efforts of today will continue to pay off for
years to come. You can’t say that about any other type of marketing that exists.
For the future of your business, this is an area of marketing that you need to
learn – and you need to learn every aspect of it as soon as possible.
You may shy away from article marketing because you can’t write well, or
because you don’t think that article marketing is right for your niche. These are
valid reasons – but they are wrong. Even if you can’t write well, you can pay
someone who does. Having articles written is surprisingly cheap. In fact, you can
have one article written each and every week for less than ten dollars.
You can also take one of the many free writing courses online to learn how to
write articles. Once you get the hang of writing articles, you will find that you can
write a short article in less than half an hour. If you are slow at typing, or your
article will require more research, you can knock one out in about an hour.
As for article marketing not being right for your niche – wrong again. Article
marketing works for all niches. Have you been to a search engine lately? No
matter what you think of type in, you will find web pages on that topic. Where
there are webpages, there are readers, and where there are readers, there is a
need for articles.
Go ahead – try it. Visit your favorite search engine and try to think up something
off the wall and type it in. Bet you find webpages that have content – aka articles
– on them! Web content comes from articles – whether they are articles that were
written specifically for that website, or articles that were found in the article
banks.
You may not think you have time for article distribution. You can pay someone to
do this, but the fact of the matter is that even if you just submitted your article to
ten article banks each week, you will still benefit. You will benefit even more if
you submit to more article banks, publishers, and forums – but just ten will work
as well. Doing nothing at all, however, won’t get you anywhere at all. It takes less
than one hour to submit to ten article directories.
Article Magic – The Past, Present, and Future of Article Marketing
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So, if you have an article written for you, and you submit it to ten directories, you
are looking at half an hour of work a week. If you write the article yourself and
submit it, you are looking at about two hours per week. If you outsource all of it –
writing and distribution, you are looking at ten minutes a week or less – and this
includes sending an email to your writer and paying them once the work is done,
once you find a ghostwriter that you want to work with continuingly.
You have everything to gain from article marketing, and nothing to lose – as long
as you are doing your article marketing in the right way. Even if you did it in the
wrong way, the most you stand to lose is your time. Frankly, article marketing is hard to fail at.
The process is incredibly simple: write an informative article, include a resource
box that has a call to action, distribute the article, and reap the benefits for years
to come. That’s all there is to it – and this is a marketing method that is available
to everyone – even if they are new to Internet Business. You don’t have to be a
guru to write articles.
You become a guru by writing articles.
You don’t even have to own a business to start writing articles and profiting from
them. Affiliate marketing, where you promote other people's products and
services for a percentage of each sale, can easily be done through article
marketing – and this is where many gurus got their start.
If you aren’t article marketing, you are leaving money on the table. It is as simple
as that – and you can start article marketing today. Right now. If you can write,
write. If you can’t, hire a ghostwriter, pay eight to ten bucks for the article, and
start distributing it. All of that can be done now – TODAY.
Don’t let another day go by that you are not benefiting from the uncontested and
unrivaled effectiveness of article marketing! The future of your business, as well
as your own financial future, could depend on it.
