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As a zero-cost, exposure-rich way to get your site noticed on the Internet, article marketing is hard to beat. After all, what other method lets you tell people about things that interest them, put your link into other large sites for free and virally spread the word about what an expert you are - for free?

The techniques are simple and well within reach. In fact, effective article marketing means keeping away from sophisticated literary styles. You are communicating with people who want good, clean information that's easy to digest and quick to read. It's as though you were explaining something to a friend. When you write your article, imagine that person to be in front of you and write your article so that they can immediately understand what you are talking about.

Although the techniques are simple, there are some basic rules to be observed. First of all you do need to write correctly. If you have doubts about your ability here, take heart. There are ways to get around this (notably, write short, simple sentences that have a good "flow") and tools to help as well. If you are using a text editor like Microsoft Word, then use the built-in spelling and grammar checker. In fact do this even if you have supreme confidence in your ability to write. It's extraordinary what errors can go unnoticed because you are re-reading the text that you wrote yourself. The checker will find these for you.

In addition to this, a number of article sites, focusing on quality articles, include basic spell checking as a possibility in the submission procedure. Note that quality for them means the same thing as indicated above: articles that are of interest to their readers and that bring them clear, relevant information in an easy to digest way.

Your choice of article sites will be important as well. Some of them are very big and well represented in the search engines. On the other hand, it may be more difficult to get your articles authorized for inclusion. You'll want to write a series of articles in any case to get into the swing of it and to test on various sites. Submit your articles and keep track of how quickly they get included, what the click rate is (how may people reading your article) and how well your articles get rated in search engines, especially for keywords that interest you. Then compare and focus on the article sites that are getting you the best results.

Article sites also have guidelines on length of articles. In fact, make that "restrictions" rather than "guidelines". When you read their submission procedure, you will typically see how they want articles to be submitted. For the length, 250 words is a minimum, 500 words is more in favor. But don't make your article too long either. If you find that you have a lot to say, then chop your article up into 500 word chunks, each chunk dealing with one aspect of the topic. That way you'll be able to submit multiple articles as well and benefit from multiple exposures.

Next on the list is the resource box that is also a feature of many article directories. This is where (and it is the only place) you get to sell. Do not sell in the main text of your article. Inform, entertain, question if you like, but avoid the sales pitch. Editors will often refuse articles that come on too strong on the sales side, and even if they make it through, readers will lose interest fast. After all, their goal in reading is not (yet) to buy. Warm up the discussion by degrees. Give them good information that encourages them to get to the bottom of the article and to click on your link to then go to the next phase of "pre-selling" or possibly a sign-up page for a newsletter, a product or a service.

Have some fun with the resource box if you like. Apply some of the classics to grab people's interest, like spiking their curiosity, using appropriate humor or appealing to their instincts of greed or fear. That's what will incite them to click on and go to your site, to make your article marketing a success.

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