How to Increase Blog Traffic Through Article Marketing

Article marketing is one method you can use to increase blog traffic. It can be tricky because the last thing you want to do is create duplicate content, which will result in a lower rank in search engines.  However, you can drive more unique visitors to your blog if you understand the basics of article marketing.

Article Content

Article marketing can increase blog traffic if the content meets 3 criteria:

• It's the right length (between 500 and 1,000 words)
• It solves a problem
• The tone and writing style suits the intended audience

Submitting poorly written articles is not effective marketing. You'll risk more than a low conversion rate of readership to your blog. You may be branded as someone who is not an expert and lacks professionalism. Well written articles, on the other hand, will send readers hungry for more information to your blog. If you need help writing good articles, contract it out to freelance writers and other home based businesses that offer writing services.

Free Article Directory

When you first start your article marketing campaign, write at least 5 articles to submit to free directories. Once you've written 5 articles, submit them to a directory such as Best Syndication or Isnare. There's a better chance that people will find your articles on these sites than on your blog when you're first starting out, because they've existed longer and have more traffic than you. Some of their readers visit article sites specifically looking for articles to put on their web sites. If your article is well written and meets their content needs, they will put your article on their website. Other visitors will conduct a search using keywords from your article. If your article was useful, they may click the link to your blog in the resource box to read more information on your blog.

Resource Box

The incentive to you for submitting articles in the first place is the hope that it will increase blog traffic. A resource box at the close of your article sends readers to your blog. It includes your name, your blog's URL and a very short bio consisting of a sentence or two. How much of a bio you write depends on the article site. You may choose to skip your bio altogether and just offer a link to your blog and a special offer as an incentive for readers to click on the link. For example, you might offer them a free download of an ebook you wrote or a discount on a new product.

Duplicate Content

The articles you write to submit to free article directories must not appear on your blog, at least not in its original form. Search engines like Yahoo!, Google and Bing reward bloggers for providing original content and providing it frequently. They will punish you for posting articles on your blog that are found elsewhere online. This is duplicate content and it's not good for blogging. One way to solve this is to specifically write those articles for marketing purposes only. Another option is to rewrite those articles and add more information or updates to post on your blog.

You should frequently use article marketing if you want to increase blog traffic. Set a goal to reach 30, 50 or 100 articles in the next 6 months. Outsource the articles if you're overwhelmed by the writing or submission process. The increase in readership is worth