Every single business online does content marketing even if they do not realize it. When you make those simple facebook post you are doing content marketing; when you bookmark your site you are doing content marketing; when you start a thread on a forum you are doing content marketing.

Content is simple put - Written Words

This does not mean every single business online focuses on search engines though but their content must be of high quality to engage with their possible customer. Imagine trying to sell an article writing service and the sales page (which is content) has a grade level of 3 according to the Flesch-Kincaid test for readability. How many people are seriously going to buy the service ?

You see your content matters regardless if you are focused on search engines or not. If you are focused on search engines then that content is a “TOP RANKING FACTOR” and this is especially true for Google. While Google does use over 200 factors in determining the rank of a page / site, the fresh high quality content is on the top of that list of factors.

By high quality I mean, semantics, reading level, grammar, spelling and etc. (ever wonder why Google has these options on advanced search ? well that is why because they use it as part of their 200+ factors for rankings). Don’t take my word for this though because this is posted right on Google’s own blog.

Article marketing is far from dead, doing article marketing the proper way is very much alive and well. Many have it wrong yet they think they are right because they may see a commission or 2.

Article marketing does require - High quality content and properly built sites for syndication. While many article marketers will tell you that ezine articles is the best, I will fully disagree. The problem with article directories such as ezine articles is there are far too many ads and far too many links.

You will never see any link juice from places such as ezine articles. No matter how many marketers try to refute that, it is a proven fact. They have a PR 6 on the “HOME” page, your article is on an unranked page. See the proof on ezine articles losing rankings and traffic.

This is why it is important to syndicate to properly built sites that have proper seo, proper structure, and follows Google’s guidelines. The sites you post on do effect you rankings just as much as the quality of content you produce.

Your content must have proper spelling and grammar, it must have a proper grade level score for your niche, it must have proper semantics and keywords. Your content is given a quality score by search engines.

Wrong article marketing is just writing up some lame 500 word article and slapping it on 1,000 article directories with some lame mass submit software. This is what most actually do and then can not figure out why they make no sales and get no proper rankings.

Duplicate content issue has run around internet marketing for years and I suspect it will continue, no matter how much of a myth it is. You can post your same content on others sites without any fear. It is always best to post that content to your own site first though.

Using proper formatted articles and proper built syndication sites you will see how much alive article marketing really is.

For those that still think those lame article directories that are full of ads and links work, maybe you should look up Google’s Page Layout Algorithm.

A internet user ask:

I’m thinking of initially writing 10 good quality articles of a word count of about 700-750 words and submit them to 100 article directories allowing me to put 2 backlinks to my website. So if I calculate it mathematically, I get 2 * 100 * 10 = 2000 backlinks with these 10 articles.

The panda update was about more than just quality content, it was about quality websites also. Many of those article directories you are thinking of submitting to got hit hard because they are nothing more than content farms (Matt Cutts on article marketing).

Those article directories that are loaded down with ads, adsense, and massive links all suffered in the SERPS. Ezine articles lost over 1 million keywords in Google because the site does not offer the quality Google is looking for.

Article Marketing is very much alive but you need to rethink your article strategy and make sure your articles are high quality. Your articles must posses proper spelling and grammar, semantically related words, have a proper reading grade level according the Flesch-Kincaid readability test.

Once you have high quality articles then you need to submit to your own site / blog first and then syndicate your articles to websites that are built according to what Google wants. These sites must have proper seo and must have very little ads to 0 ads.

If you follow the above then you will see results but just slapping those content farms with articles hoping for backlinks, you are going to be hugely disappointed. Recently Google has implemented what is called the Google page layout algorithm which will start to devalue and even de-index sites that are built with too many ads and very little content.

A internet user ask:

what should be the minimum number of word for a article?

Is it 100, 200, 300,400?

Anything under 500 is considered a blog post and not an article. You should focus on writing articles that are very informative and reach at least 700 words. One reason why you would want longer articles is because you can re-purpose those articles easier for other uses.

For example an 900 word article gives me the ability to post that article on my site and then split the article into 3 mini articles. I can take these 3 mini articles and post 1 on multiply, 1 on livejournal, and 1 on jamespot. This way these social media sites have similar content but not the same.

I do this for readers and not some duplicate content myth.

A internet user ask:

I’ve written an article on my niche that I offered to an ezine publisher. The owner placed it on his article publishing blog, but did not say anything about including the article in the ezine.

The problem here is I posted the article on my blog 2 days ago, it didn’t get indexed by Google, and it’s now indexed by this blog.

So can I still take the article and offer it for syndication to other websites ?

Build a few backlinks to the post on your blog from social media sites. Take the article’s first half (first few paragraphs) and post it on places such as multiply, livejournal, and a few other social sites.

When posting the half article you want to add at the bottom “Read More” and link to the blog post. This will help you in getting your blog post indexed.

You are free to article syndication, after all it is your article. You could rewrite a few sentences if you choose to do so before syndicating it to other places.

You can find great internet marketing articles that you can republish on your blogs or website at article marketing services. Using marketing articles in a great way to fill your blog or website with fresh content.

Nothing could be easier than just using the good old fashion copy and paste which is the fastest way to republish others content and making sure you give them credit. It is very important that you give credit to the author and link back to the source.

Ignoring this credit could get you into a great deal of trouble and even cost you your blog or website you put the content on. So make sure you always give credit where credit is due. You are given the opportunity to republish content, don’t abuse it by not given the author the proper respect that they deserve.

At article marketing services you have a very wide range of articles you can choose from to republish on your blog or website. There are 19 different categories to choose from but for most the internet marketing articles is by far the most popular category.

Browse around and see what would fit best with your content and when you are ready all you need to do is click on the publish link on the article and it will take you to the publishers page giving you the article in text or html format.

It will also contain links that you need to use to link back to the article source and giving the author the credit for the article. As I said above this is very important because if you do not link back to the source and the author finds out then a DMCA Take down notice will be issues.

This will be sent to your host which your host by law can not ignore. Your host will give you a choice to either remove the article or link back to the source. If you refuse then your site can and will be shut down.

Article marketing applied by writing articles that are formatted properly can be very powerful. The article marketer can increase his or her website traffic through article marketing services that are designed for search engine optimization.

Marketing articles is no different than marketing your own website. This is where many get confused about article marketing. You could use article submission sites but are you really getting the results without writing articles properly ?

Think about it you write articles on marketing or some other product or service. You write these articles based on what the general internet marketing crowd says how articles should be written. You may see some sales and think the results are fantastic.

A proven fact is the free article directory is only going to get you so far and with all the ads around your articles, your links are devalued. The link juice that should flow to your site is bled off by these ads. This is only one reason why your results are not what they should be.

Before you waste your time on article marketing services that give minimum results you should look into applying real article marketing to your business. Apply properly built article submission sites along with article marketing tools that have been proven to get results.

The quest for online marketing tools to help increase traffic to your website is a never-ending task. However, there are ways to get better search engine indexing and targeted traffic as you will discover in this guide to internet marketing. The first goal is to understand methods that will work and avoiding those that do not produce.

One of the biggest misconceptions in the online business world is that internet marketing software will give you everything you need as far as traffic and search results are concerned. This notion is flawed as most website marketing tools do not provide what the search engines truly want from websites. Additionally, failure to provide what a potential lead is searching for, results in bounced or non-responsive traffic.

The real guide to internet marketing is how to get the best of both worlds in that you want to provide high quality content to the search engines and provide the solutions to those seeking your product, offer or services. Obviously, a person searching for an answer is less likely to interact on your site if there is not the information they are seeking or the relevant content to pique their interests.

What is the cream of the crop when it comes to online marketing tools? Obviously, a lot of different opinions exist on this question. Nevertheless, it is the most obvious answer that is often overlooked. When a business is looking for a guide to internet marketing to help improve traffic and the bottom line, many look for fast, simple automated programs. While the true answer is not always in the software used in internet marketing.

A real plan of action to increase targeted traffic to your website is found in the oldest method online to secure visitors and potential customers. That method is known as article marketing. Shockingly, many internet marketers have abandoned this strategy in exchange for what they believe are better methods. However, the reason article marketing may not have worked for your business is in the strategy you use.

The foremost website promotion strategy includes utilizing content to help your visitors to understand your product or service and to answer their needs. You can not form a relationship with potential leads or customers until you are able to satisfactorily convince them that you are capable of answering their needs. This is easily accomplished through content and articles that directly solve problems.

Practically every guide to internet marketing encourages the use of article marketing because it does work. The secret to getting targeted traffic is that your content is well written and optimized for two purposes: one with the visitor in mind, and the other with search engines in mind. Responsive website promotion requires you write to the best of both worlds and then follow up that content with a syndication or distribution network to get the word out.

The implementation of online marketing tools to help promote your website could draw visitors and increase your search engine rankings. However, you must apply a strategy that is compatible with both searchers looking for your solutions and search engines which require quality content. Most website marketing tools do not provide both solutions to getting targeted traffic to your website.

Proper website promotion is the application of quality articles and content on your site as well as similar content posted on other sites (also known as off-site promotion). While some internet marketing software will promise to provide traffic by auto-posting to dozens of social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, the truth is, unless those posts are relevant to the receiving audience, it likely will not provide any measurable amount of traffic.

The major failure of many websites and blogs, is that internet marketers are under the mistaken impression that everyone has an interest in your service, product or offer. In reality, the only respondents are those that have an interest. Therefore targeting a mass audience is largely unproductive. Your efforts in website promotion must have a direction towards those targeted audiences that are sincerely interested. Otherwise your message will fall on the deaf ears of disinterested persons, and furthermore lend less credibility in search engine results.

The best website marketing tools you can apply to your website promotion is an article marketing campaign. This method is targeted at an audience that has a genuine interest in your product, service or offer. While a lot of internet marketing software promises to provide traffic, what good is it if people bounce off your site faster than they arrive? The fact is, people looking for your product are more likely to buy as opposed to you trying to convince someone that has no real need or interest in your product.