Writing articles for publication on the Internet is every top Internet marketer's favorite way to get free publicity for his website. If you are an Internet marketer and haven't heard the all of the buzz about writing articles, where have you been? There can't be a single Internet marketer out there who hasn't heard that writing articles is an essential part of website promotion.

Article marketing is a long distance race, not a sprint. By writing articles and submitting them daily, you will improve the quality of targeted website traffic and see improved profits... as your unique visitor count increases. The more articles you submit, the greater your benefit. But, even if you submit ten articles this week, don’t expect to retire any time soon. As I said, it is a long distance race.

Marketing strategies on the internet are not much different from promotions in newspapers. If you want attention to your articles, you need to understand the importance of basic editing. Checking for spelling errors isn't too much to ask for, but you'd be amazed at how many articles are submitted or published with horrific spelling. Regardless of your ability to spell words properly, I always recommend double checking your work by using the spell-checker that comes pre-installed with most word processing software. Article publishers and your readers will value your opinions and product recommendations, because you have demonstrated that product quality is an important trait of yours. Additionally, readers are able to comprehend your messages with greater ease.

More importantly, authors use several article writing techniques to earn easy cash. From time to time, certain niches will capture the public’s attention and there will be a flurry of interest in that sector. Spotting these trends, will help you make some quick money with your articles too. Following are several ways to profit from article submissions:

1. Look for niches or products that everyone is talking about. Recent media reports, forums, and magazines are great places to find this type of information. Visit these forums and look for postings that have a large number of responses. Read through a number of these items. When you find a hot topic that people are asking to find or are looking for a solution... chances are that you've found a fantastic topic to write about and promote.

2. Search for popular products that have sold well during the past 2 weeks on eBay or Amazon. When you find several products that are selling really well and are related to a common theme, exploit this market with your articles.

3. Check your bulk and spam emails. When you see an explosion of emails on one subject, it is a pretty good bet that the niche is hot. Spammers are smart, because they usually promote products that the public craves.

After you've discovered a topic that you have decided to promote, you need to research the topic so you seem knowledgeable about the subject. And, you also need to develop effective article titles using keyword research. Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of article writing success, because you want readers to find your articles easily when they search Google, Yahoo and MSN. Make sure you include two or more keywords in each title, and utilize these keywords within the body of the article. But do not overdo this! Your keywords should only appear 20-30 times throughout a 500-word article, for an average of 4-6% keyword density. This ratio is optimal for search engine inclusion, without being considered as keyword spam by the top search engine directories. Write five to fifteen articles on the subject. Submit one to two articles per day to the largest article directory sites, because articles published by the larger article directory sites are usually found on the first page of search engine results.

After writing the body of your articles, the most important feature is your author biography. Write a brief biography about yourself, and pretend that someone else is writing the biography about you. You should always include a link or links to your newsletter (if you have one) and to any affiliate products you choose to promote. This will give the appearance of you being an authority on the subject matter, making people want to get more information and causing them to click the links in your biography.

The single greatest secret for writing effective articles is to utlize a "keep your curtains open & leave the door unlocked" approach, making people want to read your article when they peek at the first paragraph or article summary. Then you want to leave the door cracked unlocked with a "cliffhanger", so they can't resist clicking the links in your biography... baiting them to get more information about the topic.

Writing and submitting articles can generate huge amounts of traffic and create a very nice income for you, but to become successful online you must write at least one article a day. The process can be slow at first, with most authors seeing beginning to see results withing a one to three month time frame. However, you will definitely start to notice an increase in traffic within days or weeks after you first begin.

To speed the process along, gaining huge increases of traffic within days (instead of weeks or months), most top authors utilize article submission software to submit each article to hundreds of article directories each day (instead of submitting to a handful of article directories). Many authors dominate the search engine rankings with 3-5 articles on the first page of search engine results. Some of my most most popular articles have dominated Google search results with as many as the top 17 of 20 search engine results showing my article. With a little bit of practice and the right piece of software, I'm sure you can see the same results too.