Some people say article marketing doesn't work anymore. Which that might be true if you just write crap and expect people to love you for it. If you do it correctly it still works and could be one of your most powerful promotion strategies. Here are three common article marketing mistakes.

1. Not keeping the reason you write articles straight with the reason you use the articles you write to promote your business.

While a number of reasons exist for the promotion of your business using articles, there is just one reason to write those articles.

First lets talk about reasons for promoting your business with articles. Articles drive traffic to your website. They also position you as an expert in whatever field you are writing about. Now those are great and all but it should not be your focus for writing an article. Then why write articles?

Giving value to your readers is why you should be writing articles. Any other motives will stand out like a sore thumb. False motives will turn people away. If you write in this manner, it is best not to bother.

If readers find good value in the articles you write, they will trust you so provide it for them. The resource box is the place to let them know you have a website with additional information.

2. Using less than an article's full potential.

After you write an article, then what do you do? Your next step is to make certain your resource box is enticing. It will do you no good if you produce marvelous articles but no one clicks the links in you resource box. Provide a reason for readers to want to click the link to your site.

Using your keywords as hyperlinks in your resource box is a good technique that will increase your articles effectiveness. This will not only have the effect of getting visitors to your site from direct clicks on the links but will help the rank of your site in the search engines indirectly.

Then you submit your article to article to article directories. And then you're done, right? WRONG.

A lot of people stop here and this is where they go wrong. Individual web publishers is where you go next to submit your article. Article directories are mostly visited by others also submitting articles. You want your article to be read by actual people and this will happen when web publishers put your article on their sites and email it to their lists.

3. Writing articles that aren't helpful to the reader

If your articles are of little use to readers, one of two things will happen. And your online business won't be helped by either of them.

The first thing is that no one is going to trust you after reading your article. And that's assuming that they finished reading your article. Which they probably won't. More than likely they'll just leave.

The second problem is that you will have trouble finding anyone willing to post your article on their website. Their reputations are important to them so they will not risk it by posting your article. They know putting a bad article on their site will lose them the trust of their visitors. They won't give you many links for your article and that would be a waste of your time

Dead is not a good description of article marketing. It just takes a little more time and effort to do it right. But doing it right will mean great benefits for your business, so it is worth the effort.

About the Author, Aaron Ander:

Aaron Anderson runs his own successful online business. He gives you tips on how to do it. Make sure you check this out if you are running an online business. Web directory.