If you want to drive millions of people to your website annually without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so, you must become an expert in article marketing. This progressive, low cost marketing revolution is changing the face of advertising and public relations across the U.S., and indeed around the world. Before the dawn of the Internet, only companies with tens of millions of dollars set aside for marketing and advertising could make an impact on the psyche of an entire country. And where did all of those tens of millions of dollars go? To television, radio, newspaper, telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. Yes, these marketing vehicles are still effective, but they are losing their power hold month by month around the globe. Usage of traditional media is decreasing daily. Article marketing (writing pivotal articles and publishing them online) can help build your site and your company in many significant ways.

Not only you will drive astronomical numbers of visitors to your site, but you will also achieve a high level of credibility with your target audience, increase your Google ranking (which in turn will bring you lots of free advertising), and build your name in ways that only expensive PR firms were able to do in the past. Why you ask? As already mentioned people are increasingly turning to the Internet for information, entertainment, and communication and shopping. According to InternetWorldStats.com, growth of Internet use in North America rose 106.7% from 2000 to 2005 alone.

Mega publishers and media outlets such as newspapers in major cities, network television and large radio syndicates used to have all the power. In the past, they dictated to the populous what we should be interested in. But the rise in consumer media has changed all that. Nowadays, people just want information about the issues that are of most interest to them. And since most people now turn to the Internet for answers, search engines now rule.

What is the first thing you do when you want information? You go to your computer and type in your subject in a search engine such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. The goal of article marketing is to get people to click on one of your articles, and that article is hosted on your website of course! Once they are already on your site, your chances of engaging them with the rest of what you have to offer (and ultimately becoming a customer) go up exponentially. The more you understand the logic behind search engine ranking systems, the more you can tweak your articles to garner the coveted higher positions in search results. How much will this cost you? The good news is that article marketing is extremely low cost, and in many cases, totally free. You can achieve wide visibility of your articles with very little or no money at all. There are some inexpensive software packages (such as automated article submitters, etc) but these are generally low cost ($70-$300) and are not absolutely essential for success. Article submission software normally comes with a few hundred article "hubs" already installed (websites whose sole purpose is distribution of articles to thousands of other information sites).

You can discover these hubs on your own, but it will take you much more time to find, test and learn to navigate each one. A simple rule - what you don't have in resources, you will end up investing in time. Masterful Article Marketing can accomplish something even more important for you. When people find and are impressed with what you've written, you become an expert in their minds, which translates to a high level of credibility. And let us not forget that this respect is being nurtured in the minds of the exact demographic you seek to reach ? you perfect target audience. Another amazing benefit of publishing articles online is the free publicity that follows beyond the places you post. Well conceived, clearly written and smartly distributed articles can be as effective as press releases by top PR firms. Remember, the goal of successful marketing is increased business and profitability. Increasing visitors to your site does something more for you ? it improves your page ranking with the major search properties, which actually becomes free advertising for you. Search engines can see how much traffic each site has and rewards more highly visited sites with better ranking for articles housed on them. This is only one element in their alga rhythms, but an important one to keep in mind.

I have written extensively about the other secrets to super charging your articles for high positioning in search engines. Just remember, search engines are continually being tweaked to deliver the most relevant results to the information seeker. In summary, there are many reasons why one should add article marketing to their advertising mix. Among these reasons are that article marketing is free, it drives tons of traffic, is highly valued with search engines and makes you an expert in the field. Bottom line, you can't afford.