One of the greatest things that the Internet offers us as professionals is free advertising and marketing methods. Of these, surely one of the greatest is the use of articles. Using articles to advance and grow your business is highly effective (and it can be a lot of fun). What’s more, it’s free; or it can be. It’s definitely low-cost compared to other marketing methods.

If you write the articles yourself, it’s free and costs you nothing but time. If you feel you aren’t a good writer or don’t have time enough to write all you want to, you can hire ghostwriters to write for you. These professional writers can do an excellent job and make you look very good for a relatively low cost. You pay them a fee to write articles that you then put your own name on and have all of the publishing rights to.

If you’re sold on the use of article marketing, but wonder how exactly it can grow your business, you’re in luck. Here are five of the many ways that marketing your writing with articles can promote your business.

1) Establishing you as an authority in your business niche. When you offer your expertise through writing others will come to believe that you are a great source for the products or services within your business niche.

People can read your incredible wisdom for free because you so fluidly express and share your knowledge. If potential customers need the types of products or services you offer and you’ve positioned yourself as the one to go to, they will think of you right away.

2) Getting you noticed. You might offer the best of the best of something, but if nobody knows you exist or can’t find you, you may as well not offer it at all. By writing articles and getting your name, profile, business, and knowledge out there on the Internet, you make it possible for people to find you.

People like finding you in this way. They don’t feel they are being sold to, inundated with advertising, or disrupted. If you give them well written, informative and helpful articles, they’ll even feel smarter and entertained when they read them. This will make them remember you.

3) Ranking higher in the search engines. These days if you aren’t strong on the web you are really getting your pants whipped off you by your competitors. You need to show up on the first page or two of the results of a keyword search by potential customers on the Internet. Google, WhoNu?, Webcrawler, Yahoo, and everyone else has got to be able to find you to get the exposure you need. With your articles this becomes more likely to happen.

4) Getting you targeted traffic. You don’t need or even desire lots of people coming to your website who really aren’t interested in your offerings. You want qualified prospects and targeted traffic. These are people who already have some kind of interest in your offerings. It might be urgent, it might be pondering, it might be curiosity–but it’s there.

Now, your articles either inspire them to become interested, or they touch that interest that was already there and fire it up. If they just aren’t one of your prospects, they will not read your articles very much. That’s ok. These type of people are not who you want to attract. You want someone who is truly in need of what you have to offer.

5) Getting the word out. Articles are an incredible source of referrals. They get people talking about you to each other, sending your links to one another, placing them at their own websites and even socially book marking your words. Word of mouth marketing at it’s best.

Article marketing is a great way to grow your online business. No matter what you are selling or promoting, let your expertise show with quality information that will bring your readers, and potential customers, right to you time after time.

posted by Chris Simpson