Article Writing: Free Advertising for Your Business

You've probably come across websites that have articles on everything under the sun. While you may not have considered this, these sites are great resources for you as a business owner.

By writing and publishing content on sites like this, you can effectively boost your credibility as an expert in your field and get some free advertising for your business!

Some article publishing sites cater to ezine publishers that are looking for good content for their e-newsletters. If a publisher is interested in your article and puts it in her newsletter, you've reached her audience without doing any extra work. The more eyes that see your article, the more mice will click on the link to your website.

What to Write About
What do you sell? Sports equipment? Write about the safety of protective sports gear. Are you a lawyer? Write articles on issues you are frequently asked about. The idea is not to write a 400-word advertisement (in fact, this is a good way to get booted off these article sites). It's to offer information to an audience, who hopefully will be so interested they'll visit your website to learn more about what you do.

No matter what you sell, I guarantee there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of other websites selling similar products for competitive prices. It's a hard decision for people to trust a website with so much internet retail fraud going on. Reading articles by you, the company representative, makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside, which translates to them opening their wallets to you.

You've probably heard this phrase with regards to marketing online: search engine optimization. This basically refers to the ability of your website to appear within the first few results in a search online. It's hard to do on your own, but by posting your articles on established websites, you can get to the top of the search results lists faster and easier.

Where Do I Start?
There are a lot of content-driven sites where you can publish your articles. AssociatedContent.com, as you know, is a great site that even pays a small pittance for your articles. Another (one ezine publishers visit frequently) is Ezinearticles.com. I posted an article on IdeaMarketers.com, and had an interested publisher contacting me the same day.

You can search for other websites. Keep in mind, if the site isn't well designed and turns you off, it will probably turn off other people. Don't waste your time on these sites. Submit to as many different sites as you like. Soon you'll get more traffic on your website as a result of your article writing, which will translate into sales!