As every website owner knows, content is essential to raising your rankings in the search engines. There's another way to use content to bring even more visitors to your site. It's called article marketing. You can use one article in dozens of venues, to multiply your exposure exponentially. More traffic means more sales. Let's look at some strategies you can use in your article marketing campaign.

Pick a topic that you KNOW.

The key to writing good articles: write what you KNOW. Don't try to pass yourself off as an expert in a field you know nothing about. This damages your credibility and hurts your future efforts. Stick with what you know. If you need some help in getting started, you'll find plenty of information about your subject. Take your time, and read what other authors are saying on your subject.

Are you an expert at making peach cobbler? Write about that! If you're a mechanic by trade, write an article about how to change out a clutch or replace brake pads.

I am a firm believer that everyone has plenty of good articles just waiting to be written.

Let's say you sell seeds, gardening supplies and gardening books on your site. You're facing stiff competition, as there are many websites marketing these products.

You know your products and their uses best. Write an article on how to start seeds. Give detailed and useful information such as equipment required, temperature and seasonal concerns, thinning and transplanting. There are many topics you can write about.

Write an article telling your reader how to choose a good pair of garden gloves, and the advantages of a leather glove for one task, or a sturdy cotton glove for light work.

Or, tell your reader how a quality bulb planter makes short work of a big planting project. I'm sure you get the idea. Do not write an advertisement!

When your articles are prepared, your article marketing campaign is ready to launch. Do a search using the term "article directories gardening". You'll get hundreds or even thousands of results. Visit some of these article directories and browse their gardening category. Take a look at the quality of their articles. Unfortunately, there are many article directories with poorly written articles, so be choosy when selecting those you want to be associated with, as quality-conscious directories get the most readers.

Here's how it works: you submit your article to the directory. You are not paid money, but are rewarded with a byline and a link to your site. Every person who reads your article has the opportunity to click through to your site. Give your reader useful information in an engaging style, and chances are good they'll come to your site to see what else they can learn. You can submit the same article to other directories, and watch your traffic and sales grow.

Your article marketing strategy should include contacts with other website owners, especially those with an e-newsletter. Offer your article as newsletter content in exchange for a byline. See if you can negotiate reciprocal links. Of course you don't want to contact direct competition. A florist, greenhouse or organic gardening site might be good choices.

Your article marketing campaign's success is directly related to the amount of exposure you create through your effort. One indirect result of a good article marketing campaign is establishing yourself as an expert in your business.

Here's another great tip that many writers use: Read your work out loud. If your article doesn't flow off the tongue, rewrite it until it does. No one will give you a second chance, especially picky publishers. After you're sure your article is perfect, email it to a couple of friends and ask their opinion.

After all is said and done, you should have an article worthy of publication. Here's where the fun begins - getting published!

Don't forget to add your resource box.

Before you send your article out to the masses, you need to create a resource box at the end. This is a simple 4 or 5 line "mini-ad" ad the end of your article that says a little about you and has a link back to your website or autoresponder. If you need an example, glance at my resource box I have at the end of this article.

Create a list of publishers and tools to use to save time:

One of the absolute best, and even better... "easiest" ways to get these quality, one way links is by submitting your articles to article directories. By doing so, you can not only get one way links, pretty much instantly, but you can control the anchor text used in your link. AND even better, you can get "in text" links within the body of your article. These are the best types of links you can get!

Basically, this means that you can completely control which keywords you want to rank highly for! Up until now, there was still a problem, and that was...

1. Finding the article directories you can submit your article to, AND

2. Once you find those directories, it takes quite a bit of time to actually fill in all of your article submission details like first name, last name, keywords, short author bio, and many other required fields...

But, guess what? I've come across a brand new program created by Brad Callen and the Bryxen Software team, called "Article Submitter." It allows you to quickly submit your website to hundreds of article directories with a few mouse clicks! No kidding... I've been using it and it's saved me literally hours of time in both submitting AND in finding these directories. Here's the link to check out the software.

Services to use-

1. Automatically submit your articles to thousands of publishers.

2. If you need content and don't have time to write, be sure to look over the Article Underground Content & Traffic System created by Mike Leibner. Mike has opened up another membership with 400 articles called Phase Three for another 350 members! Phase 3 is definitely going to sell out so consider jumping in now as there are some great gifts and bonuses!
Free 37 Page PDF with Multimedia Library - Words= Money is FREE!.

3. Join EzineArticles.com and you are allowed free 10 initial articles submissions.

Articles -

1. Writing Articles-With or Without a Service or Product

2. Writing a News Release/Press Release

3. Online Copywriting - Tips To Drive Targeted Traffic to your site