I’m a big fan of article marketing myself. I have regular goals for how many articles I write each and every month for publication on other websites. It has really helped me to build traffic.

But it doesn’t work for everyone. Why is that?

A lot of people try to skip steps when they write articles. They dash off a quick piece, possibly full of links to their own site and submit it to tons of article websites. The part they don’t understand is that in order for article marketing to work, someone has to want to post your article.

And the good article directories are picky. They don’t post just any old piece of junk.

A good article should be at least 400 words of relevant information. Some say 750 words is ideal, others don’t really worry about it. But it is much harder to really impress people with fewer than 400 words.

There are tons of article directories out there, but just a few important ones, such as Ezine Articles. Many of the rest will probably never do much more than provide a highly obscure backlink, if the search engines notice it at all. The better article directories give you a chance that webmasters will decide to use your article.

You should also be submitting to selected webmasters who are willing to receive articles from you. If you can develop a relationship with a webmaster you are more likely to get them to publish your article to their site or newsletter. If they have a good readership, that can mean a nice amount of traffic to your website.

A lot of people recommend using automated solutions to article submission. There are some good services out there, as well as software solutions. My own personal favorite is Article Marketer. I’m a Lifetime Member there.

What I love about their service is that I can queue up my articles in advance, telling them when I want an article sent out to their publication list. Article Marketer is also picky. They review my articles and tell me if, in their view, there’s a problem. It’s just a bit of prescreening that helps to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

They absolutely require a minimum of 400 words, they make sure you haven’t overdone your use of keywords (their opinion, of course), they make sure your resource box HTML works, and they make sure your article is correctly categorized. These things can be a help.

Right now Article Marketer has a deal going on, and I don’t know the end date. They’re offering discounts on their quarterly, annual and lifetime memberships. And if you sign up, they’re also offering 1, 2 or 3 articles written for you, free with the purchase.

I love using them because it simplifies my overall article submission process. If I want to target a particular webmaster, I can still do that myself, but I don’t have to take the time to submit to the various websites. I’ve used article submission software, and using Article Marketer is just a better use of my time in my opinion.

What Else Should You Know?

A lot of people worry about duplicate content when they submit articles. The quickest way around that is to not post the identical articles on your site. The other part is to remember that it’s not quite as bad as people say it is, so far as I can tell.

I often have what I post on my site be different from what I submit to directories using Article Marketer. The information on my site generally has the most detailed information. The submitted articles are good, go into some reasonable depth, but there’s just a bit more to them on my sites than elsewhere.

It also takes a LOT of article submissions to really make a difference. Two or three articles won’t do a lot for your site. You have to be persistent in your efforts.

I would also suggest that you read my recent article from the newsletter on what I find keeps an article from being marketable. It’s from my own experiences running one of those really minor article directories.

Starting a Home Business Series:

Get Your Home Business Going in the New Year
Brainstorming Your Home Business Ideas
How I Research a Market for a Product
How Do You Get a Website Going?
How Much Does an Online Business Really Cost?
How Complex Does a Website Need to Be?
How to Set Up a Wordpress Blog
These Are a Few of My Favorite Themes
Can Article Marketing Work for You? (current page)
It Sounds Like a Lot of Work - Is It Really That Hard?
Building Your List
Getting Social with Your Blog
Is Your Site Ready for Pay Per Click?
Article Marketing Statistics
Putting the Pieces Together