Article marketing is a "white hat" technique. It doesn't cross the ethical or moral boundary of what may be considered wrong or devious, as opposed to "black hat" marketing techniques. In fact, search engines love articles. Writing high-quality articles on a consistent basis is the best form of free advertising, and thousands of websites are always looking for new content.

The whole concept behind article marketing consists of placing a link to your homepage within the article resource box. A lot of people, however, fail to realize that having just a link to your homepage is not enough. In order for your marketing efforts to be effective, writing articles must be part of a larger, more comprehensive strategy that includes "on page SEO."

I'm sure you've heard the term "keyword phrase" before. Choosing the proper keyword phrase is essential when it comes to article marketing. You must choose specific and relevant keywords and optimize your homepage using those keyword phrases. Once you have accomplished this, writing articles will help boost your website to the top of search engines.

As I said earlier, the idea behind article marketing is to place a link to your homepage in the resource box section of the article. However, there are many people who don't do this properly. Many think that just by putting the URL to their site they are helping their rankings. While it doesn't hurt any, it is vital to your marketing efforts to use an anchor text link instead if you want to rank well when someone searches for a particular keyword phrase in search engines.

Let me explain what an anchor text link is. You have a particular keyword phrase that you want your website to rank well for in the search engines. What you do is take that keyword phrase and make it a hyperlink that links to the homepage of your website. An example would be Your Keyword Phrase Here. Just make sure to delete the "~". Now you have your keyword phrase text anchored as a link to your website.

This will boost your search engine rankings for the keywords you choose. The more links for a specific keyword you have pointing to your site, the higher your rankings will go for that keyword and the more traffic you will receive. People who promote article marketing as a wonder cure to generate traffic and get search engine rankings don't understand the concept of using an anchor text link. Instead, they only link to their website like the first example, not utilizing the full potential that their articles have.

Do you have a blog? You should, but be certain that if you post your articles to your blog that it's not the exact same version you submit to directories. You will severely damage your article campaign. You don't want duplicate content posted on your blog. Change your article by at least 30% to be safe, more if possible. Don't forget the anchor text link for your blog posts.

Write targeted articles that are as niche specific as possible. Article marketing should be based upon you wanting to help your audience, or target market. Give your best effort because this will yield better results for you in the long run. Don't forget to keep your audience in mind. Write as though you were actually talking to someone. Be sincere and personal, and people will respect you for it.