One of the best ways to drive traffic to your website is by writing articles. Getting your own articles written, distributed and published on the Internet is one of the very best Internet marketing techniques in existence.

Once you have become an author of an article, you become an instant authority. When visitors locate and read your article they could obtain some useful information from it. They would most probably appreciate you. When appreciation turns into trust, it is very likely that would click the link in your article resource box to visit your website to get more information.

Chances of them signing up with you in one of your recommended business opportunities or buy one of your recommended products would be greatly enhanced.

The question is how to write the relevant articles which might demand some of your effort and time?

If you are good in writing and enjoy doing it, you might decide to write your own articles. Otherwise you could join an article cooperative to get access to private label articles OR hire someone to write articles for you.

Let’s discuss the differences of these 3 possibilities:

1) Do Your Own Research and Write Your Own Articles.

The main advantage of writing your own articles is that it's "free" and it would give you a sense of pride in accomplishment. You might enjoy writing articles to share your experience in Internet online business. The downside is that it'd take up some of your time to conduct some research work.

2) Join An Article Cooperative to Get Pre-written Articles.

A recommended article cooperative is InfoGoRound where you could get hundreds of pre-written articles for a small enrollment fee. From these you could choose those discussing subjects related to the content of your website. These are referred to as the "Private label articles” which you have full permission to use and also add your own name and article resource box to the article as the author.

3) Hire Someone to Write Articles For You.

If you are not comfortable writing your own articles or if you find it too much a hassle especially when you're new to this business or if you do not fancy pre-written articles due to lack of originality, you could use an article ghost writing service such as Just Articles to put your own ideas into writing.

For a relatively small fee you can get your articles written very quickly.

For article marketing on the Internet, articles written with between 400-700 words would suffice. It goes without saying that your articles must be relevant to your Internet business. Hence topic of your articles should be related to: "working at home", "home based business", "Internet marketing", "making money online", "promoting a website", etc.

The next question is how can you ensure that your articles will reach the maximum amount of potential web visitors?

Below are some routes you can use:

1) Submit to Article Directories

The best place to submit your articles are Article Directories. Many publishers of websites, blogs, and ezines visit the sites of these Directories. Hence your articles will be quickly exposed to people who have a large amount of traffic.

2) Submit to Article Lists/Newsletters

The next step is to submit your articles to article lists such as newsletters on Yahoo and Topica. Articles from such sources are normally better received by publishers. Hence when a submission is done by you via an article list, publishers have more confidence in your articles and would very likely use them.

3) Approach Individual Related Websites

Many Websites focus on providing valuable information and educational materials to their readers. You could submit your articles to these sites if your articles are relevant to what they need. It is best that you only contact sites where the readers would have an interest in the topic of your article.

4) Search Through Ezine Directories

Once your articles have been submitted to directories and article lists as mentioned earlier, you could start contacting individual publishers such as the publishers of ezines that are related to your topic. Choose those who accept articles and write to them and convince them that your articles would be of value for their purpose.

5) Give The Articles to Your New Affiliate members

To help your affiliates especially the newly "recruited" ones, you could give them your articles as a way to help promote your site. They could either publish them as they are or they could substitute your link with theirs in the resource box of the article. They would be impressed by such generous gesture from you.

In conclusion, submitting your articles and getting them re-published on others' websites and newsletters/ezines is one of the most powerful Internet marketing strategies. Your articles will then start working as a free advertisement for you forever. And you do not have to pay even a dime for such advertising space. You will continue to enjoy free traffic driven to your website for a long, long time!

This article was posted on November 14, 2005