Sunday, November 16, 2008

Enhancing E-commerce Using Article Marketing

By Don Bethune

Businesses and entrepreneurs have come to define article marketing as a brilliant way to advertise. This is because articles can be used to promote goods, but they also identify the marketers themselves as the experts in the field. Articles are used to convey ideas, in a journalism sense, but they can also strengthen legitimacy beyond what customers might read in local or see on the late night infomercials.

The concept of article marketing has been around a long time. You can find relationships between businesses and publishers as far back as when mass printing was invented. These relationships involved business people providing information and expertise in articles that were provided freely to publishers who printed the articles, essentially advertisements, for the public. The target population for these articles was of course, the readers of the publication.

So now you know how to identify article marketing when you see it, but you might still be wondering, aWhat is article marketing? How do I even begin to write such an article?a The articles are usually short pieces, and of course contain information and content pertinent to the type of business conducted by the establishment or entity providing the written advertisement.

Informative articles can really boost a businessas client list and foster a reputation of credibility. When writing an article for mass marketing publication, it is essential to include your name and title (if you have one), contact information and biographical information. If the article is to be circulated online, then a valid web address or URL should also be included. The idea is to establish oneself as a trustworthy source of expertise in your field or industry. This means that the biographical information should include items such as credentials, educational background and achievements in your field of expertise.

Today, online marketing and commerce for businesses is part of our every-day lives. This necessitates even more article marketing. That original relationship between business and publisher still exists, and really, itas even stronger because of the potential of reaching millions of people, making our target audiences even bigger.

The identification of target markets for article marketing is the key, and this information can be obtained by studying search engines: who is using them, what is being searched, and which sites are showing up in the search results. You will want your online article to address a subject containing certain \"keywords\" so the search engines can find you easily. This is referred to as \"Search Engine Optimization\", or SEO.

When an article is published online, itas important to use effective search engine optimization because it attracts search engine users to your site, therefore driving business to your door. The more visitors you have, the more sales and profits you make. This validates the concept of effective article marketing as a traffic generator, and including business owneras website address brings more \"hits\" and a higher rank in search engine results.

There are certainly drawbacks to be considered with article advertising, especially with articles that are poorly written or contain bad information, which visitors then take away with them. This type of quality directly effects the credibility of the information as well as the legitimacy of the business. To solve this problem, many businesses use professional article marketing services to help convey well written information as well as making sure they are distributed effectively.

The above information only scratches the surface of the answer to the question aWhat is article marketing?a Hopefully, business owners who are not quite as internet savvy as the rest of the cyber marketing industry can take some of this information to make use of advertising through informative, industry-related articles and to gain a better understanding of the all the potential that exists in online marketing. - 16651

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