You might have heard of article marketing as a way to promote your business.  But what is this and what does it do?

Article marketing helps you get a higher search engine ranking.  Your marketing article includes something called a "resource box," which is basically like the short bio you see on professional journalists’ articles in magazines and on websites.  In addition to the bio information, your resource box also includes a couple of links to your website, both URLs and contextual links.  When your marketing articles are distributed via article distribution sites, these links to your website start appearing all over the Internet.

To understand how this helps your business, you have to first understand how search engines decide how close to the top of the search engine results your website should go.  The important factors include relevancy (how many times the relevant keywords appear on the page) and link popularity (how many other sites link to yours).  The idea is that a really good website that deserves a higher search engine ranking will generate a lot of links back to it, as other people find it interesting and helpful.  Link building campaigns play on this by getting as many links to your website as they possibly can.

Basically, by increasing the number of links back to your site, you are also causing your website to appear closer to the top of the search engine result lists.  This means that potential customers are more likely to see your site, which in turn brings you more business.

Article marketing also brings you more business directly.  Besides its impact on your search engine rankings, article marketing also helps you build branding and gain referral traffic.  When your articles start appearing all over the Internet, more people start reading about your company.  You will also get more people coming to your site just via the links in your resource boxes.  This means greater visibility, increased traffic, and more opportunities to turn visitors into customers.

Of course, a successful link building campaign is a time-consuming project.  Furthermore, if you really want it to work you can’t just do a short stint — you have to keep it up, week after week after week.  Since most small business owners don’t have the time for this, most opt to use a search engine marketing company.  It’s well worth it to them to pay for an Internet marketing service, leaving them free to spend their time on other aspects of their business.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, Internet marketing service, link building campaigns, higher search engine rankings, search engine marketing company, contextual links