Article marketing is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your business website. Many people know this but they don't know why it works. It works because valuable content, content that provides benefit, establishes the author and the related business as an expert in their field. Books and reports accomplish the same thing, however they're more difficult to create and they're more difficult to make available to the general public.

Article directories have in large part made article marketing a sure thing. It works like this, an article is written, it is submitted to an article directory or directories of choice, a bio or contact box is created that will be attached to the article. The article is published. People searching for information on your topic find the content they need and one of two things generally happens. The reader reads the article and visits the website of the author - bingo! OR the reader reprints the article on their blog, newsletter, or website and suddenly the company's exposure skyrockets.

There is no downside to article marketing. The strategy increases exposure, credibility and website traffic and best of all the content provides value and benefit to readers. It's a win-win situation.

The downside to article marketing is that it takes time. Time to write the articles, time to research appropriate article directories, and time to submit them to the directories.

PLR or Private Label Rights is a great tool because it gives you the foundation for great articles. Private Label Rights means you're purchasing content that has been written on any topic of your choice and only sold to a handful of people. Users of PLR are free to publish the content under their name as is or they can modify the content to fit their needs. It is a great time saver for busy business owners.

Article submission services are an excellent time saving device because they automate the submission process. Instead of spending days researching and submitting to article directory sites your prospects visit, one article submission program can get it accomplished in a few hours. One of the best article submission programs available is Submit Your Article, http://www.submityourarticle.com/main.php. It not only submits content to relevant directories, it gives users the ability to make quick modifications to their content and submit it to multiple directories without duplicate content penalties by the search engines.

Speaking of duplicate content...it is possible to take one great article and spin it into several articles which still provide all the value and search engines don't penalize your website in their rankings. Dupecop, http://www.dupecop.com, is a free program that allows users to paste in four spun or modified articles to see if they're different enough to satisfy the search engines. The general rule of thumb is that articles must be at least 25% different from each other in order to be considered unique content.

Article marketing doesn't have to take hours out of already busy days. Instead, it can take minutes and still pack a powerful punch.