Article marketing is such an effective free marketing opportunity and one that you don’t want to squander by making mistakes that are completely avoidable.

There are mistakes that will make your submitted articles useless and they will never be downloaded and reproduced. You will have wasted valuable time, effort and energy that you didn’t have to waste.

Mistake #1: The first mistake that many first time article marketers make is not realizing just how important the headline or title of the article is.

The title is the first thing a web surfer sees and what will determine whether he stops to read the article or not. Titles must be attention getting and they MUST contain relative key words.

If these criteria aren’t met, the article is of no use no matter how great the content of the article is.

Mistake #2: The first line of the first paragraph must continue to hold the reader’s interest in order for him to continue reading the article. Web site owners and ezine publishers know this rule and you need to understand and abide by it.

Start with a sentence that will continue to hold the reader’s interest after the title has done its part.

Mistake #3: Writers write. Writers just love seeing their thoughts in print even if it’s only in a word document on their own computers.

Remember that less is more when it comes to marketable articles. Write all you want to about a subject, then cut those thousand words into pieces and make three articles out of them.

Articles of 300 to 400 words are best for article marketing purposes.

Mistake #4: Not putting all of the allowed links into your resource box is a big one in the mistake department. If you are allowed three links, use three links.

Four of the many methods used in Internet marketing are:

1.Search Engine Marketing: This is done by paying search engines (like Google) for each time your advertisement is clicked on by a web surfer. This is called Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing sometimes.

You are allowed to write your own advertisement for the search engine to use when providing results of searches made using your relevant key words.

2.Affiliate Marketing: An affiliate marketing program is set up by the owner or producer of a product or service whereby other marketers are paid to sell that product or service for a percentage of the sale or a flat fee for each sale.

This is one of the more popular forms of Internet marketing. Many times savvy marketers can set up website businesses without owning or producing any product of service of their own and those who do own products are services are happy to have others selling for them.

3.E-mail Marketing: This is a form of Internet marketing that has fallen on hard times of late with the being enacted prohibiting spamming.

Opt-in lists are now required to avoid being penalized for sending out spam e-mails. It is still, however, a very effective method of Internet marketing because the opt-in lists are people who are most interested in the product or service being offered.

4.Article Marketing: Owners of products or service operations write articles using key words and attention getting titles.

They then list them in article directories, repositories or article banks to be downloaded and reproduced by other website owners and ezine publishers free of charge as long as the articles remain unaltered and the resource box is included in the reproduction.

Search engines are a business just like everything else. Some are even listed on the stock exchanges and their stock is bought and sold. The object of search engines is to make money by helping people find the products, information and services they are looking for.

They SELL advertising to businesses that want to sell these products, information and services to people who are looking for them to buy.

The key word here is "sell". Now when a person types key words into the search box of a search engine and hits search, the search results that are displayed on the first page are mostly paid or sponsored advertisements.

Look carefully next time you do a search. At the top of the page and on the right side of the page you will see what are apparently bought advertisements.

They say "sponsored links". The top of the page ads are the ones that cost the most….the ones on the right side cost slightly less.

The top few results are most often directly related to those paid advertisements on the top and right side of the page. Of course, search results are bought and paid for.

That really shouldn’t come as a big surprise. What is that saying? "It’s a material world!" and just like always, money does talk.

Website owners buy AdWord advertisements and then the search engine spiders determine at what number those advertisements are seen in the results.

That’s why SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is so important and why it is the battle cry of all Internet entrepreneurs.

Writing articles that are designed to attract website owners and ezine publishers are written much the same way that other articles are written but with a few very significant differences. Website owners and ezine publishers look for articles that:

1.Have attention getting headlines that also have key words in them. Website owners and ezine publishers are well aware of the notoriously short attention span of the average Internet surfer.

They know they have about 30 seconds to convince a surfer to actually read an article. If the headline isn’t attention getting and if it doesn’t have key words, the surfer will…well….surf away.

2.Have an attention holding first line. This same notoriously impatient surfer reads the headline and then his eyes automatically go to the first line of the first paragraph of an article.

If the surfer is attracted by the headline and his attention can be held through the first sentence, there is an excellent chance that he will read the remainder of the article.

3. Are short. Articles submitted to article directories must never be more than 300-400 words. Remember that notoriously short attention span? If you want readers to get to the all important resource box, hold those articles down to 300 to 400 words.

4.Follow the rules: Each article directory has its own rules and regulations regarding submissions. Some limit the number of links that may be included in the resource box; others have stringent requirements for other aspects of the articles they accept. Be sure that you always follow the rules to the letter.

Article marketing is an effective marketing tool and can provide excellent results if the articles are well-written and follow the rules.

Using keywords and phrases effectively on a website might be considered a mix of art and science. The HTML of a website should use key words in the title tag and each page of the website should contain sentences using the key words or phrases.

The highest ranking key words should be used in the home page title and as many times as possible but the title needs to make sense.

Meta tags are important as well. Put all of the relevant key words into your Meta tags. Meta tags should never be longer than twenty-five words long.

They should contain key words and phrases repeated two or three times. Don’t forget that they still need to make sense.

Single key words are usually very competitive so key phrases are often more effective than single words. Over use of key words and phrases can actually hurt you.

Always use either a comma or a space to separate key words and phrases…one OR the other, though….not both. It is important to include common misspellings of key words, as well.

This is important! It is well known that search engines consider the first 250 words on a website to be the most important.

They consider relevancy and density of key words and phrases. Anything more than a five to seven percent density, however, is considered spamming by search engines.

There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to the question. It depends upon the subject of the article, the length of the article and the purpose of the links in question.

Links can be placed beside an article…usually to the left.

These links usually are for the purpose of directing the reader to related information contained within the article and sometimes leading to sponsored advertisements for products and services that are discussed in the article.

It has been determined that the worst place to put links is at the bottom of an article. They are the least effective and generally overlooked by readers.

Links within an article are considered the most effective placement. Links within an article can be given as an http://www.whatever.com link or embedded within relevant words or phrases and appear as keyword.

It is important that links open in new windows, however, to avoid distracting the reader and also to keep them from surfing away from the site.

Articles that are used for marketing should always contain at least one link in the http:// format because the articles are sometimes used by ezines that are published in plain text and links that are embedded in key words or phrases will not be available to readers to click on.

Writers of articles always want at least one link that can be copied and pasted into an address bar to cover this circumstance of the reproduction of an article.

Links beside or within an article can be helpful to the reader but they should be used with care so as not ever to distract the reader from the article itself.

Every single one of the millions of people who are surfing the Internet as we speak are using the search engines to find the "stuff" they want or need.

If they don’t find our business in their search results, we don’t have a prayer of making them into our customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) is key to our very survival.

The key to search engine optimization is the use of key words and phrases in the content on our websites. If we use them wisely and to our best advantage we get listed in the results when people use our key words in their searches. If we use them poorly, we won’t be found.

Key words and phrases need to be in the title of our home page….more than one time. They need to be included in our Meta tags, as well.

The density key words in the first 250 words on the home page needs to be between five and seven percent. If we use less, we won’t be listed and if we use more, we will be seen by the search engines as spamming.

It’s a fine line. This means that out of the first 250 words on a home page and including the title, the key words and phrases should be used between 12 and 17 times. No less than 12 and no more than 17 is about right and don’t forget this includes the title.

It is important that key words are used on every page of a website. They should not be as dense as they are in the first 250 words but they do need to be used.

Blatant and unrelated use of key words is not a good idea. That will be seen by the search engine as spamming.

Four of the many methods used in Internet marketing are:

1. Search Engine Marketing: This is done by paying search engines (like Google) for each time your advertisement is clicked on by a web surfer.

This is called Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing sometimes. You are allowed to write your own advertisement for the search engine to use when providing results of searches made using your relevant key words.

2. Affiliate Marketing: An affiliate marketing program is set up by the owner or producer of a product or service whereby other marketers are paid to sell that product or service for a percentage of the sale or a flat fee for each sale.

This is one of the more popular forms of Internet marketing. Many times savvy marketers can set up website businesses without owning or producing any product of service of their own and those who do own products are services are happy to have others selling for them.

3. E-mail Marketing: This is a form of Internet marketing that has fallen on hard times of late with the being enacted prohibiting spamming.

Opt-in lists are now required to avoid being penalized for sending out spam e-mails. It is still, however, a very effective method of Internet marketing because the opt-in lists are people who are most interested in the product or service being offered.

4. Article Marketing: Owners of products or service operations write articles using key words and attention getting titles.

They then list them in article directories, repositories or article banks to be downloaded and reproduced by other website owners and ezine publishers free of charge as long as the articles remain unaltered and the resource box is included in the reproduction.