Article marketing seems to be the buzz word in web site marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) lately. I've had a lot of people ask me-- what exactly is article marketing? Why is it so popular? And how is it done?

Well, the whole point of Internet marketing is to get people to notice your site out of the thousands and thousands of sites out there. There is little point in taking the time and going to the expense of having a business website if no one ever sees it.

So, how do you get people to visit your site? That is where web marketing comes in. Internet web site marketing is a specialization in the marketing industry, who's whole point is to bring in those "hits" on a website, and with those hits comes profit for the business.

There are a lot of ways that web marketing is done. One of the biggest is search engine optimization or SEO. This is the art of getting the big search engines to notice you, and put your site higher on the list of sites that come up when a person searches for something you sell. SEO can include site design, careful writing and keyword research, and pay-per-click advertising.

There are other ways to market a website. You can put an ad in your local newspaper or put your web address on all your business cards and correspondence. This is more of a traditional type of marketing, and there is nothing wrong with that. It has been around a long time because it works.

But my personal favorite is article marketing. This is where you write an article about a subject that you are an expert on, and that relates to your website business or hobby. You put a short ad with a link at the bottom of the article that goes to your website. Then you publish your article for free, to anyone who wants to use it in their newsletter, website, or blog.

You find people who want to publish your article by placing it in article directories, where web publishers go to find good content. The web publishers are happy to get new content, and you get people who read your article and follow the link to your site. Your article can get picked up by hundreds (or thousands) of people looking for something to put on their website, blog or ezine.

Now you end up with links to your site all over the Internet, and this in turn helps with SEO. Now the search engines start noticing you. And you don't have to worry about reciprocal links.

Article marketing is becoming more popular right now because websites are looking for lots of content on their website topic. That is another way to get search engines to find and pay attention to a website. So your article is helping them get noticed, and when they publish your article, they are helping you get noticed. It is a win-win situation.

By Alexis Dey