I've had so many people approach me about how to boost traffic, increase sales and get more leads into their businesses. I always tell them there's a really low-cost way to make it happen for them.

Frankly, articles that I wrote three years ago are still bringing me strong and consistent traffic today.

That's why article marketing - the process of "giving away" your articles - is one of the best ways to get traffic today, tomorrow and several years from now.

Here's how the process works:

Write an amazing article on a subject your audience is very interested in.

Edit the article or hire someone else to edit it for you.

Distribute the article in article directories - a top directory is www.EzineArticles.com

Sit back and watch the flood of traffic, leads and sales overwhelm your merchant account.

What I've just outlined may seem simple, but there is a rather involved process behind the whole thing. For one, you have to write a clear, well-thought-out article. Some people hire others to do this for them.

Big mistake!

What I'm about to write may make a lot of people angry or even cringe at the thought of having to do this, but I wouldn't be leading you on the right path if I didn't share this one very important piece of advice with you.

** Always write your own articles.**

Hire someone to edit, but if you're just starting out in this article marketing thing, always write your own articles.

Put Your Personality On Display to Rake in Higher Sales

Bottom line: You have a unique voice and that's what your readers will fall in love with. If they don't feel your personality, they won't feel as if they know you. In my experience, if my readers don't feel like they know me, they'll won't buy from me.

No writer can capture your personality - no matter how good they are. I should know, I've been a professional writer for 16 years now and unless I have good previous writing samples to go by, quickly capturing a person's personality in print is nearly impossible.

I could always extensively interview someone to find out just what their personality is, but time is money and I charge handsomely for that kind of time - and so will any other copywriter worth his or her salt. When you're just starting out as an article marketer, paying such a hefty price may not be in your budget.

Good news: There's an alternative. You can follow a set formula to create your very own quality, content-rich articles.

It's good to write clear, easy-to-follow content-rich articles.

Why? If you write an article that has great content and that's infused with your unique voice many ezine publishers, Web designers and others with Web sites will publish your article on their Web site.

That's good for you because the bottom of your article will contain a resource box. This resource box lists why you're an expert and then gives a link back to your Web site. The more your article - with the resource box - gets published, the more traffic you'll get.

And traffic leads to more subscribers on your lists and more subscribers on your list leads to more sales when you launch new products and services - or when you re-launch existing products and services.