Article marketing is fast becoming the most popular form of online promotion in modern times. Gone are the methods when PPC ads and banner ads were all the rage; now websites are trying harder and harder to attract people with article marketing. Article marketing is also the most intelligent way of garnering traffic. The articles are generally written expertly, and that creates a very favorable impression in the mind of the reader about the author.

This increases the chances of the visitor coming on to the author's website and most likely doing some business.

When the owner of a website attempts to use article marketing as the tool for promotion of his or her website, naturally the onus of the success of the scheme depends mostly on the article. Needless to say, the article must be so attractive that the person reading it must feel tempted to click on the backlink in the author's box below the article and visit the website. But with people of so many varied tastes, it is very difficult to work out a formula that would work for all.

Same is the case with a marketing article. You would think you have written the best article possible and it is sure to drive people in hordes to your website. But then, that may not happen at all. What goes wrong? The likely reason could be, your article does not find high appeal among the readers, though you may feel it is the best ever possible.

This is where the method of split testing can help in a very huge way to improve the quality of your marketing article. Split testing is a method of trial and error, where you find out what works best for your marketing article. What is Split Testing? Split testing is a method in which you test two options against each other, and find out which works the best. When you split test your marketing article, you are actually trying out two different options and trying to see which one of them will work in a better way for your website.

With marketing articles, you can split test the following things:- (i) The keyword used in the article (ii) The heading of the article (iii) The formatting of the article like bulleted lists versus running paragraphs etc. (iv) The lead and the closing paragraphs

(v) The info provided in the bio box (vi) The call for action line, if any. How to use Split Testing to Improve Your Article Using split testing methods for an article does not require much skill. This is what you have to actually do. Let us suppose you have to test two keywords against each other and see which works better for your article. For example, your keywords could be 'dental works in Oklahoma' versus 'Oklahoma dental works'. So, you will make two articles, which are identical in all respects, except the keywords.

Now put up the first version of your article (let's call it A) on half your article directories and the other article (B) on the other half of your article directories. Then you track which of the articles brings more click through traffic to your website. There are tracker softwares available for this tracking process. The end result is, you come to know which keyword has actually brought in more traffic.

You will then discard the poor keyword and retain the strong one. If you now wish, you can split test the strong keyword with another option, and again see which works better. This process can be kept endless and you can always keep searching for better options. Once you have checked for the best keyword, you can start checking out for other aspects of your article, and make it more and more appealing to get in better traffic.