Five Steps For Successful Article Marketing

On a client call a few months ago my client asked me a very interesting question. He said: "If you had to promote a new product or web site, or if you just wanted more web site traffic and you could only use one online marketing technique, what would you do? What would that marketing technique be?"

I love questions like these from clients, as they show that they are engaged and really want to learn how to become more successful online and promote themselves better. I didn't have to think too much about this question, though. My answer to him was article marketing.

Article marketing has been my favorite online marketing technique to use and to recommend to my clients for a very long time. This is because article marketing can bring targeted traffic to your web site as soon as you start using it.

When I just started using article marketing, I saw immediate results. First, I saw increased traffic to my web site from articles that I had posted in article directories. After some time, my articles started getting reprinted on other people's web sites, blogs and in newsletters. This resulted in even more newsletter subscribers and clients from exactly the same articles.

So how do you start with article marketing? Here is a 5-Step Plan to help you get started with using article marketing for promoting your business, products and services:

- Understand The Goal Of Article Marketing. Any time you are taking action you need to know exactly why you are doing it and what results you are expecting from it. With article marketing, your goal is to start a conversation with your potential customers, let them know about who you are and what you do and ask them to take the next step in this conversation -- visit your web site, subscribe to your newsletter, buy, etc.

- Find Good Topics For Your Articles. In order to start the conversation with your potential customers (and have them respond!), they need to be interested in having this conversation. If they are not interested in conversing, they will drop the discussion before it even starts.

How do you get them interested in the conversation? By writing articles on topics that they are interested in! Good topics for your articles are ones that your target customers are interested in.

- Write The Actual Article. Now that you know what the topics are, pick one and write an article on it. Once your article is ready, let it sit for a day or two, then come back to it to make revisions and changes. If you made any mistakes, now is the time to correct them. You want your articles to have good grammar and spelling.

- Create Effective Article Resource Box. Your Article Resource Box is the most important part of your article. It introduces you to your article reader and contains link(s) to your web site. This is your one chance to continue the conversation you started with the article!

- Submit Articles To Article Directories. Congratulations on your new article! Now is the time to submit it to article directories to get exposure for you and your business.

Use this 5-Step Article Marketing Plan to start your article marketing campaign and get more traffic and clients!

About the author: Biana Babinsky, the online business expert, teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to get clients and newsletter subscribers by writing articles! Need more clients? Get her How To Get Subscribers And Clients With Article Marketing Home Study Guide at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zarticles and start making money by writing articles!