John Rhodes, a leading online trainer who has published over 100 Amazon books and created over 100 Internet products, uses a measured systems approach to article marketing. He believes that if you aren't using article marketing then you are throwing away money. Many niche markets exist that could be generating targeted traffic to your offers and are providing buyers exactly what they are seeking. The cost of paid traffic is already expensive and escalating as new competition arrives; whereas the cost of article marketing is on the decline. Many who have tried article marketing drop out early, not giving themselves adequate chance to succeed.

Misconceptions about the strength of article marketing abound, some basing their opinions on what they may have heard about Google's intent. This is false, in spite of damage to EzineArticles.com due to recent Google updates. The secret is that articles are a unique kind of content. Getting traffic is simply a matter of the right focus and setting up your articles in exactly the right way. John has used a very specific formula in order to get over 20,000 clicks from his articles.

Articles are nothing more than a "simple kind of content" put in a specific way. Although articles are actually extremely borning, they can result in floods of traffic to your website/offers. Missing the overall article framework for an article is a common mistake, as well as having less than effective bio box.. The bio box creates high value back-links to your website and needs to instruct what to do instead of furnishing the author biography.

John thinks of his articles as "zombies," that never die. If done corectly, or even just adequately, they result in never-ending traffic. Articles should be positioned right before action decisions, e.g., doing research about a particular product or service (think Amazon affiliate) or finding useful information online (squeeze page). People, in most cases, do Internet research just prior to purchasing products. Here are John's reader grease tips:

* Use bullets (otherwise * when not allowed)
* Use numbered lists
* Use blocks of content with subheaders
* Use a mix of short and long paragraph
* Use keyword in 1st 50 words
* Use keyword in last 50 words

One of John's best recommendations in his training is to include links to your strongest Ezine Articles, to "make the strong stronger." In some article directories, these links can be in the body of the article, but usually not in the first 50 words. On the live webinar, one participant remarked she'd actually noticed how certain celebrities' articles are all interlinked, e.g., Oprah!

Why is article marketing successful? First, it is an extremely low cost strategy. Additionally, you can use straightforward procedures to get the writing and submissions done quickly, e.g., outsourcing. Finally, readers get to know you and a sense of your personality through your style and you can exert control over their behavior using the bio box.