But what if there was a powerful way you were guaranteed traffic - free traffic?

There is, with article marketing. Basically article marketing means writing articles which perform as advertising, bringing visitors to your site. Article marketing is powerful, and has major benefits over standard advertising.

The benefits include: it's free, so it sends you traffic forever without you having to pay for it, it raises your credibility, and it builds trust.

I'm sure you know that to get traffic, you send your articles to article directories. But there are other ways you can use your articles' power.

Let's look at four additional ways you can use the power of article marketing to get more traffic to your site and make more sales.

1. Post the articles to your own site - increase your presence in the search engines

Before you send articles to article directories, post them on your own site. Each additional page on your site increases your footprint in the search engines, and over time, the articles will provide gateways for more and more traffic to find you.

When you post the articles, don't just dump them into an "Articles" directory on your site. Integrate your articles with the rest of your content, particularly with your sales pages.

2. Send the articles to subscribers to your ezine

If you don't already send out regular email to people who've opted in to receive messages from you, create an ezine today. For the small amount of effort it takes to mail out an ezine, you'll get additional traffic.

Creating an ezine ensures that the traffic you attract to your site returns, rather than visiting once, and being forever lost to you.

3. Offer the articles to bloggers in your niche

Whatever your industry, bloggers are covering it, and all bloggers need material for their blogs. Send your articles to bloggers in your niche. If they publish articles, you've just gained an additional flow of traffic.

4. Turn a collection of articles into a free report

Over time, your articles will mount up. Now it's time to get more value from them. Bundle up a collection of articles into a report, and offer them as an inducement to get subscribers to your ezine.

People keep such reports for years, and you'll get more traffic to your site.

You can also offer your reports to bloggers, to give to their subscribers.

Make your Articles Traffic-worthy for Even More Powerful Results

As you can see, articles are the gift which keeps on giving.

For even more powerful results, ensure that your articles are of high quality. When you post your articles to the article directories, high quality articles will be picked up by other sites to share with their site visitors - this can result in an enormous boost in traffic for you.

Therefore, spend time crafting worthwhile articles, or have them professionally written for you. The money you spend will give you a much better return on investment than advertising, because the effect of articles is much longer lasting.