There are many free marketing methods and one of those is article marketing. It is also a great way to get free one way back links to your site.
While there are many people writing articles if you do it correct it will help you gain traffic and boost your sites rank.
There are a couple of things to remember when writing an effective article.
1) Don't sell your site. People won't want to read the article if they think it is just another attempt to get them to buy. Instead talk about something related to your site that you know a lot about and make it informative.
The article should be informative and interesting. Don't make it to long though in case they lose interest. At the end put a sentence saying for more information you could visit this site (link to your site)
2) Use keywords relevant to your site. However don't use keywords used by loads of other sites.
The best way to find the best keywords for your articles is to go to google and in the search bar type your keyword surrounded in ". This is how you search for an exact phrase. If you just type in some words it will look for those words in any order or place with that exact order starting at the top then the random words. If you place the " on each side of the words will it search for that exact keyword phrase and that only, and you will know exactly how many people you need to beat to the top of that keyword for the search engine placing.
For example if your site is about "football skills" you would not make that your keyword as there is 501,000 other sites with that keyword. It is to broad and used by everyone in that site category. Use a small sentence like "Football Training Skills" It only has 359 in that keyword phrase. You don't want to be in any keyword phrases over 15,000 till you have the hang of getting to the top of the search engine for keywords. These will allow you to get to the top of those searches and will start to slowly generate traffic the more articles you write for more keywords.
You will need to place your keyword in your article about 3 - 7 times for about 400 words. The closer to 7 the better but make sure they fit there and doesn't make the article sound funny from over use in close areas. Try to choose a minimum of 5 keyword phrases and write articles about them with a link for more info to your site at the bottom.
Also try to get your keyword in bold somewhere in the article as search engines like this. You will need to put your keyword in the title of the article to.
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Now you know a bit more about article marketing and how it can help you.