It’s common for new business owners to wonder how to use article marketing to their advantage. For a startup, articles are a great way to demonstrate company expertise and announce some of the great products or services the company has to offer. There is a certain credibility and familiarity about reading several articles from a published author. For established businesses, a press release promotional article can attract a journalist’s eye who is nosing for a story and can add even more credibility. Best of all, web users who read these articles can check out the info box at the bottom of the text, which directs them to the business owner’s homepage, where they can comfortably act after having learned all this new data.

The first step in knowing how to use article marketing is avoiding common rookie mistakes. One thing Google hates is repeat articles that have been cut and pasted in multiple locations. Google doesn’t know that you were the author and doesn’t have the patience to inquire. In fact, this heinous crime is often punishable by decreased ranking. If you plan to write articles that can be used on your website and on a third party article directory, then you will need two slightly different pieces to pass the test. Another method that has lost favor is the “quantity over quality” strategy, where you submit an article to more than 50 websites. Unless you have thousands of high-quality links already, these cheap links won’t help your page ranking or traffic.

If you’re curious how to use article marketing, then consider other popular sites that thrive on article promotions. You can submit articles to Digg, Netscape, Squidoo, Stumble and social networking sites. Over time, you may begin to develop a relationship with bloggers or website owners looking for unique content. They may agree to publish a link to your site free of charge. A site like Digg, with 1.7 million visitors each day, is a mighty giant you’ll certainly want to tap into. If enough people find your article and “digg” it, you’ll receive better link popularity and gain more avid readers.

Now that you’ve learned how to use article marketing on article submission sites, you may also be interested in using these articles offline too. You can include these articles in company newsletters, for instance. You can hand out informative packets with products to up-sell. You can align your online content with your offline promotions. For example, Starbucks recently began promoting a Youtube contest, where employees had a chance to design the next ad and the public could vote for the winner. They also ran a contest awarding prizes to the first person to take a picture of the Starbucks holiday decorations. You could then write marketing articles to let people know about these new contests, which would keep a steady flow of traffic coming in.