That promotional strategy for your site and products is article marketing.

Article marketing is a form of advertising in which you promote your site and products using informational articles. You post these articles to high-traffic sites online, and traffic flows to you.

Not only is article marketing a strategy which gives even a new site instant traffic, it also works to increase traffic flow to older, established sites.

I love article market not just because it provides instant traffic, but also because that traffic keeps flowing for months and years.

Here are just some of the benefits of article marketing:

1. It provides free traffic, which works better than traffic from advertising

Write an article, post it to one of the many article directories, and get traffic. Could it really be that easy?

If you've been spending up big on advertising, this may seem unbelievable, but it's true. Article marketing has been the secret of site owners for many years, now it's becoming mainstream.

Unlike advertising, which stops sending you traffic when you stop paying, article marketing sends you traffic forever. Your articles stay online, and your new clients find you via the search engines.

Not only do your articles stay online, they can even start working better for you as time goes on, because you build up a bank of trust and credibility with your articles as you distribute more articles.

2. It improves your search engine rankings

If you've got a new Web site, you know that it's a real hassle waiting for the major search engines to index your site, so that you get ranked by (and start getting traffic from) the search engines.

Google can take a year to index a new site, and to "trust" the site sufficiently to start sending organic traffic. That's a long time to wait - so speed up your traffic with article marketing.

Articles give you credibility and trust from the search engines, and this will pay in additional traffic for years.

3. It sells products - you get noticed

We're all surrounded by advertising every day, and most of us screen it out. It's just noise.

Article marketing sells products for you because people read your articles, rather than ignoring your advertising. Each article gives you a presentation in which you can show your expertise, and can advertise your products.

4. You develop credibility, and are seen as an expert in your field

The "credibility" aspect is one of the biggest benefits of article marketing. As you continue to write and distribute articles, you are seen as an expert in your field, whatever that field may be.

Your articles build a strong platform for you: your readers become buyers, and repeat buyers. You've built up their trust with your articles.

If you haven't started using article marketing to get instant traffic to your site, start today. You'll be glad you did.