Although article marketing has to compete with blogging, social networking and a host of other newcomers to the world of internet marketing it is still one of the most effective methods of building links to your website.

Taking into account the thousands of article directories available to publish your articles and the number of times an article can be picked up for re-publication in someone else’s website or blog, it is obvious that your advertising campaign is limited only by the number of articles you are able to produce or have produced for you.

Arguments against:

The above statement, naturally, will not find unanimous acceptance by everyone who has tried their hand at article marketing. Many have tried and failed to achieve any worthwhile response for their efforts. However, most of those who claim that they have had no return on their attempts to use this system as a promotion technique have only published a handful of articles.

In fact, a strong argument against article marketing would be the amount of effort which has to be invested in order to make the strategy work. Very few writers will achieve significant results from a handful of articles. This is a long term commitment not a get-rich-quick technique.

Antagonists of article marketing also claim that although search engines base the ranking of a site on the number of backlinks it has, these have to be quality links which is often not the case with links originating from article directories. The solution here is to use high ranking websites and well established directories to post your articles.

Finally, there is the argument that the content you produce is too valuable to give away and that it is more profitable placed on your own website. This is true if you only mean to turn out a few good articles a month. In this case, although the articles will not drive traffic to your website, and therefore cannot be considered a marketing technique, they certainly can be effective in building a loyal visitor base.

Arguments for:

One of the strongest arguments for article marketing is that, as it is essentially free (unless you hire someone else to write your articles) it is suitable for any advertising budget, no matter how small.

Another argument in support of this form of marketing is its ability to multiply backlinks to your website. These, in turn, improve your ranking on the search engines. Despite the argument that this is not a strong form of search engine optimization, if you are just starting out the quickest way to get your website indexed by Google is to publish an article in a high ranking site which is closely related to your own field.

In addition to the potential for increased website traffic, article marketing can also be used to situate you, as the writer, as an expert in your field. While this might not be as immediately gratifying as a sudden influx of visitors to your site, over time this will result in building credibility and customer loyalty.

The bottom line is that, if you are interested in building a business rather than just looking for a quick fix and if you are willing to work at it, there is no doubt that article marketing will work for you.