Article Marketing - The Quick And Easy Way To Make Money Writing Articles

Article Marketing. I'm sure you've heard the term, but do you really know what it is and why you should use it? In a nutshell, article marketing is making money from short 300-500 word essays or articles. It is popular because it is very effective and it is free. The only cost is the time it takes to research and write an article.

What do I need to write about you ask? Most of the time, the articles are written in the form of a review or guide. To be a money making venture, the article has to promote some product or service that you are involved in. This can be an item or service you sell personally through your website or an item or service you sell for someone else. The "someone else" is called an affiliate. An affiliate is a company that pays you money to sell their goods. The money you make is usually in the form a percentage of total sales you make for the company though sometimes it is a flat rate. There are a lot of good affiliate sites out there and probably the best one to start with is Clickbank. Clickbank.com represents many hundreds of companies and does a good job helping you to promote their products and services.

Because there are a LOT of companies and even more products, it is pretty easy to find a company selling something you are familiar with. You should always start with something you are familiar with as it makes the research and writing process easier and faster. How do the articles actually make me money you ask? All articles end with a link to your website or an affiliate's website. People who read and like the article will click on the link and purchase the product. Finished articles are submitted to an article distribution website like ezinearticles.com, articledashboard.com or goarticles.com. Once published, articles attract readers, some of whom will hopefully become customers. Later, due to the exposure on the websites, your article will start showing up as top results on Google and Yahoo! More people will click your links, buy the product or service, and make you money. To get more customers you can write more articles. Some people write many articles for one product, others write just a few. Your mileage will vary.

Once you've got your first campaign up and running you do the following:

1. Pick yourself a new item to promote

2. Write a few new articles

3. Submit them to a few article sites.

4. Wait for the money to start rolling in.

5. Go to #1

The more articles you write and products you promote, the more money you will make. Do some article research on one or more of the distribution sites. You'll find a ton of articles on article marketing and get a good idea of how a successful article should look.

"Wait!" you say. "This all sounds good but I'm a terrible writer. I can't write articles." Think again. It may seem intimidating, but if you can write a sentence or two, you can write good articles. It's really not that hard and there are some excellent article research and writing tools available to help. There is software that can greatly assist the article creation process. As a matter of fact, the software is so good that I cannot mention it here. Please click HERE to read a comprehensive review of one of those products and watch a movie demonstrating its use.