Do you know what the number one way to promote any product or service online is? No, it's not creating big, splashy product launches or flooding blogs and forums with thinly disguised marketing ads that might get you banned for spamming.

Article writing has long been highly touted as the SIMPLEST and BEST way to promote your products on the Internet. It is an easy, proven method for driving targeted visitors to your pages or blogs. Sales are much easier to make when your visitors arrive on your sales pages already wanting your affiliate products or services.

Most tutorials and "How To Market Online" ebooks have the same, somewhat vague advice on how to market with articles submitted to directories and ezines. Sure, they all tell you to write an article of 300-500 words, stressing the benefits of using the latest widget or joining some membership community. They also tell you to include a tantalizing offer to capture the reader's curiosity and to submit your article to as many article directories as you can.

That's all accurate advice and pretty standard across the Web, but, since most people haven't got a clue about how to use their articles to generate REAL INTEREST in their affiliate products, it's pretty much incomplete or useless advice.

Think about it.. . why did you write your article in the first place? Regardless of how beautiful your actual prose is, your ONLY reason for writing articles is to send targeted traffic to your offers. That means you have to attract interest and create enough curiosity to make your readers click on your link that sends them to your landing page or sales page. If your article doesn't do that, your marketing efforts will not generate income for you.

To complete the article marketing process, here's five simple steps you can use to get the job done for you.

#1... Focus!

Select the product or service you want to promote and sign up as an affiliate. This will get you an affiliate ID that you will include in all links to the product you are promoting. That affiliate ID lets the company know who gets the commissions when customers you send through your efforts buy their product or services.

Don't complicate it. Before you can create a simple and powerful marketing plan, you have to know WHAT you are specifically marketing. Most successful marketers advise using the product or service before you start marketing it and that's very good advice.

How can you tell your readers all about the benefits of using your product if you've never used it yourself? Your short article has to reflect YOUR OWN PASSION about the product to stimulate clicks on your links.

#2... Plan Your Strategy!

This sounds more difficult than it really is. When you're writing your marketing article, you focus your content on creating and building up your desired response from the reader. That response would be clicking on your link to get MORE information or a better solution to a problem they might have. Initially, you give them enough good quality information to make them want more.

Your article would list several important benefits of just waxing your car like a gleaming finish that also protects from bird droppings, keeping your car paint from fading with sun exposure, keeping that brand new look or, it only needs to be applied once a month. Include a tip or two for each benefit you list. Your ONLY purpose here is to provide good content and tips to make the reader's task easier.

#3... Use Tips And Tutorials To Your Advantage!

Internet surfers are universally looking for the same two things:

* INFORMATION they need for their own knowledge or to complete a project, like "Why do I need renter's insurance?" or "How do I make a macrame plant hanger?" for example.

* SOLUTIONS to everyday problems they have, like "How do I get my teenager to clean up her room?" or "Why do my roses die before they actually bloom?"

It's not brain surgery. Your task is to uncover the need and provide information to ease that need or steps to solve the problem in your articles. Don't forget the strong statement that leads them to even more information or much better solutions.

Your article titles have a great influence on starting that curiosity twitch in your readers that leads to clicks on your links.

* eMail delivery is simple and can be set up with an autoresponder so each step is delivered on a specific schedule without your intervention. Each step is delivered on a different day, usually a few days or a week apart.

* Increased marketing possibilities for each step that will keep your message and products in front of your readers, increasing chances for purchases. If your tutorial is full of good content and easy-to-follow directions, you will create a credibility factor with your readers that will develop loyalty to your projects. Money can't buy that!

* List-building is much easier with a good tutorial. Encourage reader feedback; get them involved to build a sense of "belonging." With each email tutorial step, ask for opinions about the subject or questions or just comments. If that doesn't suit your style, send an occasional extra email to your list and ask for their input. You could get several good topics for more tutorials. If you don't create a responsive, loyal list, you do not have a market, which equals no sales.

All you have to do here, or with any of these three tried-and-true methods, is decide what result you want from your article, provide the content to accomplish that result and publish it.

It really is as simple as it sounds. Visit article directories and read some articles that interest you. Develop an outline of the strategies used by those authors and you have your own template.

#4... Light Their Fire!

A very simple process to determine both the content and the flow of your article, keeping in mind the result you want when someone reads it, is to use the old outline technique you hated in school.

Make a list of the main points you want to include in your article. Don't be too critical here, just list them as they pop into your head...just the two or three-word points. When you finish doing that, arrange the points in some logical order to accomplish your marketing purpose, which is creating a desire to want more information and to click on the link to your sales page.

Once your list of points is arranged to suit your purpose, start expanding on each one, writing one or two short paragraphs or several sentences for each one. Make sure you are providing outstanding, quality content and not just fluff or filler content.

If your points motivate your readers to want more from you or challenge their old ways of thinking, you just created a customer. The secret here is to give them enough to create curiosity, generate questions they want answered and jump start their passion for the subject you are writing about.

#5... Wrap It Up And Set It Free!

There are five critical finishing touches that, if not completed before you publish your article, will result in you shooting yourself in the foot and derailing your marketing efforts. If you remember, I mentioned this at the beginning of this post.

First, REREAD YOUR ARTICLE with a critical eye. Answer these questions while you read it:

1. Is the information provided really useful?

2. Is it easy to understand and not peppered with confusing "insider" jargon?

3. Does it deliver the message to your readers that you wanted to deliver?

4. Does it make your reader want to know more?

Before moving on to the next step, read your article out loud and listen for awkward phrasing and poor grammar. Fix any you find before moving on.

Next, CHECK OUT YOUR RESOURCE BOX and make sure the information there really promotes your offer. You wrote this article to promote your affiliate product and your final message to your readers, your resource box, has to put the icing on it and motivate a click on the link to your sales page. It's why you wrote the article in the first place.

If you are not sure what to put in there, visit the article directories once again and you will notice that most of the resources boxes are essentially the same. Don't be afraid to copy success!

The last task you need to finish before sending your article off to do the work it was designed to do is one last PROOFING FOR ERRORS of any sort. Don't do this yourself. You are no longer objective and your tendency will be to read what you want it to say, rather than what it actually does say.

Ask a friend or relative to do it for you and listen to what they tell you. They will be reading it like your potential readers will. You don't want to make a bad impression with something as easily corrected as misspelled words or bad grammar.

You ready? Let's get it published and working for you.

Send a copy to your favorite list of publishers. Don't have a list? Google for some and you will probably be overwhelmed. Submit it to article directories...the more the better. Just be sure you read their individual submission guidelines and take them seriously before you do it. You don't want your article declined because of something easy to fix, like not having Every Word In Your Title Start With A Capital Letter.

Finally, if you haven't skipped any of the tips and techniques listed above, your efforts should start producing sales for you when your article gets published. Take a deep breath and relax for a moment. You have researched, organized, written and published your first marketing article. You have a working template you can use over and over.

Know what comes next?

Do it again!