Article marketing, promoting your site by composing guest posts for other website owners, is becoming pretty common. While the dark side has given it an evil reputation it's an effective method for attracting traffic to CPA websites. If you're not familiar with Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) means, you may not be certain why that is. That's certainly not something to be ashamed of. The SEO business, like the tax business, is very dynamic.

The difference between article marketing and spam is article quality. Spammers use automated systems to create content that ranges from sheer nonsense to something that looks a lot like bad English. Spam is useless for driving traffic to CPA websites and it's use as an SEO tool is becoming increasingly ineffective.

We'll examine the clever ways that articles pull potential customers toward your website, but first let's look at why:

• Articles generate a buzz about your business. Lots of people all around the world are going to be able to access your content. Take the time to avoid publishing anything that might embarrass your practice. Anything that attracts positive attention to your company is a good tactic.

• Within the articles, you'll be placing hyperlinks back to your CPA site (or its sister sites), usually from strategically placed words within the text as well as a promotional paragraph at the end of the article. Why? Well, I'm not being arbitrary or dictatorial here. There are good reasons. Not only will good content inspire readers to actually click your links drawing prospects to your site, it will also get picked up by better websites drawing even more traffic and getting a lot more respect from the search engines. Backlinks, as these hyperlinks are known, are one of the criteria upon which your site will be judged!

With that said, how can you make sure that your articles are the very best they can be – "must read," if you will? Here are some pointers. Following these guidelines will make producing good content a lot easier:

1. Make sure you're giving your readers quality content. Articles need to be interesting and persuasive. Present relevant information and do it in a simple, creative or even fun way. Make the information genuinely useful. Nobody expects you to produce an opus every time, but you need to provide enough information in your articles that readers can actually work with it. Giving potential customers an interesting read will not only entice them to click on the links within the article, you'll also be making a good name for yourself as an expert in your niche.

2. Don't keyword stuff! Not only does it look absolutely awful (and often read out of context) if your article is packed full of unnecessary keywords and phrases, it will also potentially harm the reputation of your CPA website and also your company as a whole. If you use your keywords a few times scattered throughout your article that will be enough. Keyword placement can help, too, so try to use keywords in important places like article titles, introductions, and summary paragraphs.

3. Write to your audience. If you don't have time to write your own articles, well... welcome to the club. There's nothing wrong with hiring help, but make sure the share (and write to) your understanding of your clients needs. An article that identifies with the needs of the reader is much more likely to be added to the "favorites" along with the links it contains.

4. In a related light, make sure your writer can write well for the demographic they are addressing as well as the language they are communicating in. Nobody wants to read a badly written article. If your content quality isn't up to snuff it will likely as not drive traffic away instead of draw them in.

5. Don't overwhelm your reader with vast swaths of text. Break your article up into short paragraphs and where possible try to consolidate your information into bulleted or numbered lists and outlines. Data is considerably easier to stomach when served up in tiny portions, and because you need your readers to absorb as much as they can, this is a fantastic writing technique to use. Don't confront or lecture your readers, just inform and entertain them. Linked CPA websites are considerably more likely to get traffic if the post is easy to read.