This is a guest post from Michael Chibuzor. He runs a blog providing traffic building tips. Read more of his articles at Blast4TrafficNow.net

While starting off with my internet business, one of the web traffic sources I discovered was article marketing. As a matter of fact, experts  recommend writing and publishing articles on top article directories. Honestly, when I tried this system for about 6 months, it brought in a decent amount of traffic that was somewhat targeted. My niche blogs where also able to rank pretty well on Google, sucking in traffic and generating sales ultimately. 

Article marketing worked for me because I utilized long tailed keywords, which were very much easier to rank with. But today, it's a different game entirely. 

So, is article marketing dead?

My simple answer is in two phases: YES and NO.

Desperate for explanations? Well, I think I have work to do in making this really clear, but I'm equal to the task and will reveal my experience with article distribution. If you're a wise marketer, you would agree with me that there are several profitable ways to profit from articles. The conventional way is getting them published on article directories and hoping that people click, read and follow through to your landing page. Doing business online has changed drastically, only those who could look outside their 5 senses and think with the 6th are going to trounce the severe competition on the internet. 

What Articles Marketing Does

The best traffic bait for your website and blog is a piece of original article that contains relevant keywords. With this piece of content, search engine spiders would be able to crawl, index and rank your web pages according to their algorithm. Using videos as a link bait is also good but articles are pretty easier to write. Also, when an article gets featured on Google for a particular keyword, this is a BIG plus for the owner, because it means more and more organic traffic would be coming your way everyday. 

Effective Article Marketing Strategy

I discovered that conventional article marketing is not very producitve since the Panda update. Visitor traffic to the top article directories is down by 60%, and by an even bigger percentage to many of the mid tier article directories. However, that piece of quality content you have  can still be utilized to build your personal brand, improve on your product goodwill and bring targeted traffic consistently. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but if you don't, the best way to market your articles is through "guest posting."

Guest Posting Strategy

Guest posting is now considered the most powerful traffic generation technique for blog owners. Even though, submitting articles and getting them published is still embraced by few people, a decent guest post on a top blog with a high page rank can make a BIG difference for you. Guest posting has so much benefits attached to it. To become known in the blogosphere, you need to build a reputation of helping people solve their problems, add value to their lives and air your opinion about a given topic. With guest posting, you have the opportunity to write with your own voice, utilizing all the emotional tenets that drives your message right into the heart of your reader. Conventional article marketing does not approve of this. 

All in all, writing an article can be a lot rewarding when you concentrate on the future benefits. Have you been guest blogging at all? Start today and watch how much success you would achieve.