Among the various trends in content creation that are developing on the Internet almost every other day, article marketing is one of the newest and the most popular. Writers are just opening up to the immense profits they can make by using article marketing, which is a method not only to get their articles read, but also to generate a large size of profitable traffic onto their own websites. It is no wonder then that article marketing is catching on like wildfire and more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon.

However, most writers are still unaware of what article marketing is. Due to their ignorance, they may be missing out on making a huge amount of profit through their website. The purpose of this article is to explain article marketing in layperson's terms and to explain how it can be used to make a pretty bundle of money.

Suppose you have a website of your own. You will naturally want more and more people to visit the website, so that you can generate traffic. Obviously more traffic means more business, and who doesn't want that? In addition, you will like if that traffic were a targeted traffic rather than just any Tom, Dick and Harry who has reached your website by accident. Such traffic would obviously mean nothing to you.

Article marketing is how to direct meaningful traffic to your website. First and foremost, you write an article. Write an article that is somewhat related with your own website. Of course you must know what you write, and you must write in a language simple enough for the common person to understand. Your article should be insightful and a good read on the whole. When this article is done, you go ahead and post it on an article directory which is still active. (Check the date of the last post on the directory to see if the directory is active or not). Ezinearticles.com and iSnare.com are good article directories to use.

When you have put your article on the article directory, include a backlink at the bottom. The backlink is nothing but the address of your own website. Some article directories would allow you to put your picture and a short biography. If your directory allows that, go ahead and put in the information. If permissible, post the article on some other directories also, each time including a backlink to your own website.

Now, if a reader reads your article on the directory and they really like the way you have written, then they would want to see some of your other work. This would make them click on your backlink and visit your website. Most of them would just check your website, but a good number would also end up buying the product you are selling through your website. Thus, by marketing your articles through directories, you are not only gaining traffic but also getting some business done.

But you must not stop there. Generally one article does nothing to increase your traffic or sales. You must put in more articles. Begin with 10 articles in the first month. Put them on various directories. In the next month, increase this number to 30. By then, you will get the hang of writing articles for your own business. You can keep increasing the number of articles you post successively, till you become a known face on the net. This is really very much possible by article marketing. If you have played your cards well, your articles will end up being among the first few searches on popular search engines.

Thus, article marketing provides you with the following benefits:

§ It builds traffic and business for your website.
§ It gives you popularity over the Internet.
§ It makes you rich and you can even earn money when you are not working.

Today, writers are seriously contemplating article marketing in order to boost their incomes. There are millions of dollars of businesses going on just selling information guides to people on how to go about doing business with their articles. At the same time, companies with big websites are hiring ghostwriters to write articles for them, which they can market, on websites. In short, article marketing is here to stay and it has already become a huge commercial force to reckon with.