By now, everyone has heard of article marketing, and there are so many different definitions that it's hard for newcomers to article marketing to understand. For starters, most SEO gurus have discovered article marketing late in the game and then created their own definitions at the last minute so it doesn't look like they weren't aware of the power of article marketing.

In general, article marketing is about writing an article on a topic related to the theme of your website. This is not a promotional article for your website, but an article about something that is informative for the reader. In the article, use keywords and phrases that also relate to your topic, similar to how you would optimise a website. When your article is printed, it will be the text of one or more web pages.

In the author bio at the end of the article you will find some information about you and links to your website. It is recommended to include a link to your main page and one to an inner page that matches your article. If your article is submitted to websites that accept article submissions and offer free content to webmasters, and the webmasters decide to republish your article on their websites, the links in the "Author bio" section will become links from their websites to your website.

Now let's move on to the myths and facts about article marketing.

MYTH: Article marketing doesn't really help you.

FACT: Article marketing can help you increase your link popularity and be a source of targeted traffic that you can get.

MYTH: Reprinted articles are only indexed as supplementary pages, so it doesn't help enough to make it worthwhile.

FACT: Depending on where the article is submitted, the article itself can appear in the top 10 of the most important search engines and not just as an additional page.

MYTH: If you publish your article everywhere, you will create duplicate content and the search engines will penalise or devalue these pages.

FACT: If search engines penalised duplicate content as the myth suggests, then all RSS feeds that result in a post being duplicated on a blog would have to be discounted or published, and they are not. The New York Times and CNN articles are shared all over the internet and are not penalised or discounted. Duplicate content is two web pages that are similar to about 70%, not two web pages that contain similar text.

MYTH: Article marketing only works if you write an article and send it to thousands of websites that publish articles.

FACT: There is more than one way to make article marketing work for you. The method mentioned above works well if you want to get lots of links to your website, whether they are related to your website or not, and it can be effective even if you currently have little or no link popularity.

Another option is to submit your article by hand to sites that only accept articles related to your topic. Whilst this is more difficult, the links will help you more through submissions alone and it's more likely that the websites that pick up and republish your article will also be related to your topic, which can help you get better links and targeted traffic.

Another option is to write a very high quality article that you really take the time to research. Then choose a website with high traffic on your topic. One that has a lot of PR and a lot of visitors. Email them your article and offer them an exclusive price if they print your article with your links in the bio. If your article is of good quality and they get an exclusive price, chances are they will publish your article there.

This one-off publication of your article can be more effective than the bulk article submission method if you choose the website you publish it on carefully. Last but not least, publishing your article exclusively on your own website is a great way to add fresh content, and if the article is good, people will link directly to the article, increasing both traffic and PR for the website you published the article on. For this to work, however, you must already have a certain level of traffic to work with.

MYTH: You should always publish your article on your website first and then wait until it is crawled by the search engines before publishing it elsewhere.

FACT: Adding articles to your own website is called adding content. Submitting these articles to other websites is called article marketing. With article marketing, you don't want the article to be indexed on your website first. Yes, you read that right. You don't want the article to be indexed on your website first. You are already doing search engine optimisation (SEO) on your website and adding new content to your website so that the search engines can access it.

Posting articles on other websites and having the search engines find them there first is another gateway for visitors to find your website. If the websites you have submitted your articles to are crawled frequently, then your website will also be crawled if your article appears there with intact links.

If the websites you have submitted your article to are well indexed by the search engines, your article could appear in the top 10 results when it is first found on their website. If you place the article on your own website with no or low PR, it may not be indexed at all.

I hope this article has dispelled some of the myths about article marketing and helped you understand how and why it works.

By now, everyone has heard of article marketing, and there are so many different definitions that it's hard for newcomers to article marketing to understand. For starters, most SEO gurus have discovered article marketing late in the game and then created their own definitions at the last minute so it doesn't look like they weren't aware of the power of article marketing.

In general, article marketing is about writing an article on a topic related to the theme of your website. This is not a promotional article for your website, but an article about something that is informative for the reader. In the article, use keywords and phrases that also relate to your topic, similar to how you would optimise a website. When your article is printed, it will be the text of one or more web pages.

In the author bio at the end of the article you will find some information about you and links to your website. It is recommended to include a link to your main page and one to an inner page that matches your article. If your article is submitted to websites that accept article submissions and offer free content to webmasters, and the webmasters decide to republish your article on their websites, the links in the "Author bio" section will become links from their websites to your website.

Now let's move on to the myths and facts about article marketing.

MYTH: Article marketing doesn't really help you.

FACT: Article marketing can help you increase your link popularity and be a source of targeted traffic that you can get.

MYTH: Reprinted articles are only indexed as supplementary pages, so it doesn't help enough to make it worthwhile.

FACT: Depending on where the article is submitted, the article itself can appear in the top 10 of the most important search engines and not just as an additional page.

MYTH: If you publish your article everywhere, you will create duplicate content and the search engines will penalise or devalue these pages.

FACT: If search engines penalised duplicate content as the myth suggests, then all RSS feeds that result in a post being duplicated on a blog would have to be discounted or published, and they are not. The New York Times and CNN articles are shared all over the internet and are not penalised or discounted. Duplicate content is two web pages that are similar to about 70%, not two web pages that contain similar text.

MYTH: Article marketing only works if you write an article and send it to thousands of websites that publish articles.

FACT: There is more than one way to make article marketing work for you. The method mentioned above works well if you want to get lots of links to your website, whether they are related to your website or not, and it can be effective even if you currently have little or no link popularity.

Another option is to submit your article by hand to sites that only accept articles related to your topic. Whilst this is more difficult, the links will help you more through submissions alone and it's more likely that the websites that pick up and republish your article will also be related to your topic, which can help you get better links and targeted traffic.

Another option is to write a very high quality article that you really take the time to research. Then choose a website with high traffic on your topic. One that has a lot of PR and a lot of visitors. Email them your article and offer them an exclusive price if they print your article with your links in the bio. If your article is of good quality and they get an exclusive price, chances are they will publish your article there.

This one-off publication of your article can be more effective than the bulk article submission method if you choose the website you publish it on carefully. Last but not least, publishing your article exclusively on your own website is a great way to add fresh content, and if the article is good, people will link directly to the article, increasing both traffic and PR for the website you published the article on. For this to work, however, you must already have a certain level of traffic to work with.

MYTH: You should always publish your article on your website first and then wait until it is crawled by the search engines before publishing it elsewhere.

FACT: Adding articles to your own website is called adding content. Submitting these articles to other websites is called article marketing. With article marketing, you don't want the article to be indexed on your website first. Yes, you read that right. You don't want the article to be indexed on your website first. You are already doing search engine optimisation (SEO) on your website and adding new content to your website so that the search engines can access it.

Posting articles on other websites and having the search engines find them there first is another gateway for visitors to find your website. If the websites you have submitted your articles to are crawled frequently, then your website will also be crawled if your article appears there with intact links.

If the websites you have submitted your article to are well indexed by the search engines, your article could appear in the top 10 results when it is first found on their website. If you place the article on your own website with no or low PR, it may not be indexed at all.

I hope this article has dispelled some of the myths about article marketing and helped you understand how and why it works.