It has become increasingly difficult to get to the top of the leading search engines in recent years as the likes of Google and Bing have updated their considerations for how they rank websites. Many old practices such as metatags and reciprocal links have lost their efficiency. However, despite these changes, article submission remains one of the most effective ways to gain incoming links that will improve your website’s popularity among the major search engines.

While there are many other factors to search engine optimization (SEO), article submissions can be a cheap and successful way to help you get that coveted spot on the first page of the search engine results for keywords associated to your business.

First let’s take a look at how article marketing works in relation to improving SEO. Basically, every time a link to your website is posted on another website your popularity with the search engines boosts. These are known as backlinks. In every marketing article you submit to an article directory you can incorporate a resource box with important information about you or your product, and a backlink to your web site.

So, even just by publishing to article directories you are already growing the number of backlinks to your website. However, the real value from submitting these articles is that they can be collected and published anywhere on the web. Every time an article is circulated you get another backlink to your website. If your content are published enough times you could see your search engine page positioning rocket. Bear in mind though, that the effectiveness of your promotion will depend on where the articles appear. A backlink from a website that itself has a high search engine page ranking will possess more weight than a backlink from a site with a poor ranking.

Keyword phrases vs quality

Carefully picking out keywords is an important part of article marketing for a range of reasons. First, you want your articles to be conveniently found in article directories. If they remain buried under similar articles they will never be released on other websites and your initiatives will have been misused.

Also, you want your articles to get good results on the search engines by themselves. If your articles find their way onto the front pages of the search engines you will boost exposure to your website or product, and increase your profile as an article writer.

However, there is more to profitable article marketing than keywords. There has been an ongoing distinction of opinion among SEO experts as to whether the quality of content can be sacrificed for the sake of high keyword density within the text. While it is important to put keywords in the text to help with SEO, high quality content is king when it comes to article advertising and marketing.

The main aim of article advertising and marketing is to get your articles posted on as many websites as possible. Quality material is at a premium on the internet so if you can provide effective articles that people want to read you will be successful. If you stuff your posts with keywords websites will not publish them and readers will rarely read beyond the first paragraph. So, keep keywords to about 2 per every 100 words of text and do not let them disturb the flow and the meaning of the article

Recognize your neighbor

The most successful article internet marketers are the ones who gain a track record as experts in their chosen field, so try to find your niche and work to your talents. If you write authoratively and enthusiastically about a topic that you know about you are much more likely to attract readers.

If, for example, you have a website that sells Mac applications you could write about new releases and trends in this industry. However, you could also boost your profile by becoming included in the general online Mac community by posting on forums or even creating your own blog. These can incorporate extra opportunities for creating backlinks and driving traffic to your website, and as you grow to be better known in your field you will find your articles will be more used more commonly and more widely.

New Web 2.0 social bookmarking web sites are also giving article marketers new opportunities for boosting SEO and increasing traffic to their website. If you come up with an article you think could be very popular on the web you could publish it on your website and submit it to websites like Digg and Reddit. If it gains recognition on these sites it could go viral and bring thousands of hits to your site.

Article marketing offers excellent opportunities to promote your product while improving the SEO of your website. Even if you do not have the time or the will to write articles yourself, you should look into having a freelance writer doing the job for you.