I might have stumbled across the opportunity I've been waiting for. I'm actually already on my way making it happen, just by writing articles like this one. The idea is simple and brilliant. It's the wave of the future and everybody's talking about it. It's called article marketing.

If you have a website (I have a bog), all you have to do is start writing about your business. Then, once you've written a couple of articles that someone will want to read (this is important), you distribute them to content sites that will publish your articles, such as e-zines, content sites and newsletter publishers. They provide your articles for other people to grab and use on their sites for free. There is money in it for you -- don't worry!

Here's where the magic happens. You write an "about the author" box, sometimes called a resource box, that you attach to the bottom of each article. This is where you put your link. When people online start to publish your insightful, informative or just plain funny writing on their websites, they are also publishing a link back to you!

What does this accomplish, you ask? Well, think about it this way. Your standing on search engines like Yahoo! and Google are dependent upon the number of links that exist back to your website. When I started, I didn't even show up in a Google search when I looked for my name in quotes! Nobody else is going to find me if I can't even find myself.

Now that sounds almost like existential philosophy, my friends. I'm using that gem again!

Anyway, after writing only two articles, I'm beginning to get a trickle of hits on my blog every week. People are finding me! At first, it's the small victories that really make me smile. Admittedly it's not much -- not yet -- but like any new business endeavor, article marketing requires a little effort and patience before it starts to work overtime for you.

Do you have a website? That's the first and most important step. Without one, article marketing won't do much for your page rank -- or any rank at all! It's easy to set up a free blog using Blogger or any number of other free programs out there. I'm no techie and I didn't have to use any code, so don't be scared.

Next, can you write about your business? Maybe you sell wacky shoes online. You can write about a customer you had who sent back her pair six times because they were the wrong size. You can write about working with distributors. You can even give people advice about how to start their online shoe business. Anything you can think of, as long as it's well-written, around 750 words or so and keeps the reader interested until they get to your resource box that holds your link.

Believe it or not, it's not that hard to do. I've set a goal: I will write two articles a day until I start to see some real hits (and maybe even show up on a search engine or two!!) and generate a steady stream of traffic.

Article marketing is a proven system that works if you put in just a little time. I find that writing an article takes me about an hour, and that's with several read-throughs because I'm a perfectionist. Realistically, you can write between 500 and 750 words in 30 minutes if you just write about a topic you know.

Since I'm learning about article marketing, I'm writing about that. But the possibilities are endless. I've seen articles about hot air balloons, Chinese medicine -- even taking care of exotic pets! Use your imagination.

Is there a topic you've been curious about but never had an impetus to learn? This is the perfect time to inform yourself and then teach others what you know. After all, they say teaching someone is the best form of self-education, right?

In that vein, I hope to have inspired you to start your own online marketing campaign. It's easy and affordable (it's free if you do it yourself!) and you will see a difference almost immediately in increased traffic, improved search engine results positioning and (eventually) sales of your product or service. That's the bottom line.