Could it be? Is article marketing a waste of time?

In my experience, no, it is not. I get traffic and backlinks from articles I've written. I get better search engine rankings. It works for me.

Why doesn't it work for everyone?

The first reason article marketing doesn't work for everyone is that not everyone goes at it right. They try submitting private label articles or don't spell and grammar check their work. They submit thinly disguised ads as articles.

In short, they don't think about what article publishers will want to use or what people will want to read.

What helps make an article stand out?

Article writing doesn't have to be laborious. If you know your topic well it may take only 10 minutes or so to write a reasonable quality article.

If you want to stand out more, you may need to do some research or be more detailed in what you write about your topic. The articles that really stand out are the ones that provide the best information to readers. This will help you to stand out as well.

Lists are said to work very well. You can do a top 10, 20 or more with some pretty good results. Shorter lists work well if you give details as to why you picked each item for your list.

Humor can also work. Humor is often some of the hardest writing to do, but when it's working it's a lot of fun. You may run the risk of offending people and you need to think about what impression a humorous article will give of your business. It may not be the one you mean to make.

Submitting your articles to the right sites helps.

While you can submit your articles to smaller article directories, the bigger ones such as eZine Articles are more important. But that doesn't mean smaller ones are good for nothing. If they are choosy about the kinds of articles they accept, your work may only be associated with other good articles.

Many article directories accept pretty much every article, and your work is hidden by junk and spam. If you're submitting by hand, skip this kind of directory.

Niche directories are a good choice as well. This can keep your article with other relevant content. Your odds of being read by people interested in the topic may go up.

And of course submit articles to relevant webmasters who accept article submissions. This can go a long way toward developing a relationship with another webmaster. You don't want a competitor so much as a complementary site.

It's making the extra little efforts that will help your work to stand out. People who fail in article marketing most often do so because they aren't working hard enough on it. Don't fall into that trap.