For the sake of protecting the innocent, and the guilty, no names will be mentioned in this article. However, just recently, a fairly well known and successful Internet marketer painted article marketers with a very broad stroke of the brush, essentially calling them all a bunch of spammers and a lot worse. Well, it’s time to set the record straight on this in defense of legitimate article marketers.

It should probably come as no surprise that these comments are made. After all, there are a number of article marketers who, unfortunately, do break quite a few rules in the process. Forget about the fact that they can’t write their way out of a paper bag. Add that to the mass submissions of poorly spun articles and you end up with the mess that the marketer in question was referring to. But to paint all marketers with that same brush is quite unfair.

Even more unfair is what the person said about article marketing in particular, that it was an inefficient way of getting traffic. So let me address that point right here and now.

Are there quicker ways to get traffic to your site? Of course there are. I can name three off the top of my head…pay per click, ad buys and joint ventures. However, these have their drawbacks…especially for those who are either just starting out, short on cash, or both.

Pay per click and ad buys cost money…lots of money. To make any decent return on investment, you need to spend at least $100 per day. Tell that to somebody who is just about able to afford their rent when suggesting that they use pay per click. But it’s even more than just the cost that’s a problem.

With pay per click, you have an incredible learning curve that even some seasoned vets have trouble with. You have keyword selection, geographical targeting, ad writing itself and the quality of the landing page you’re sending people to. Any of these things can turn you pay per click campaign into a total disaster. Ad buys are just flat out expensive…period.

What about joint ventures? Well, try getting one when you have no name and no product. Affiliate marketers have very little to offer when seeking a joint venture. And even product creators, unless they already have a reputation, will have a hard time getting somebody to promote their product for them to their mega list.

Article marketing takes time. There is no question about that. It’s not an overnight thing…especially when done legitimately and not like the marketer in question alluded to in his rant. Yes, the mass submitters and garbage writers give us all a bad name. But that’s true with any type of marketing.

Bottom line is simple though. There is no cheaper way to build traffic to your site than through writing articles. But you should be doing more than just writing articles and submitting them to article directories. You should do these, among other things.

Put articles on your own blog.

Write articles for other blogs as a guest author.

Package articles together as a free report and give it away.

Turn your articles into an autoresponder series for your list.

And there is a lot more that you can do with your articles. The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. However, you do not have to resort to spam and writing garbage.

I took offense at the broad strokes but I also saw the point. Yes, this industry needs a lot of cleaning up.

How about doing YOUR part?

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Sick of not getting your articles read? Fed up with resource boxes that don’t get the job done? Want to write articles that will turn you into a killer article marketer? Get my book on article writing and marketing located at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html – This is my own book written from over 30 years of writing experience.