What are the benefits of article marketing, especially for real estate agents? There are several benefits, such as:



* Articles can drive traffic to your website each time someone clicks on the link in the author's box.

* Generating traffic can be completely free if you write your own articles. Even if you hire someone to write the articles for you or buy articles with private label rights, it is still inexpensive. Original articles can cost anywhere from $5 to $25 each, and prewritten PLR (Private Label Rights) articles can be just a few dollars each. Membership sites focused on prewritten PLR articles for real estate, like Agent Success Club, can make them even more affordable.

* You will get free incoming links to your website if you submit your articles to article directories. All of the directories allow you to put your website URL in the author's box. If people like your article they may decide to visit your website to see what else you have to offer.

* Since internet marketing is all about building trust with your customer, writing articles will set you up as an expert in your area which, in turn, will increase your creditability with people who read your articles. The end result will be increased conversions of website visitors to clients.

Submitting your articles to an article directory means that other people can use your articles on their sites. If they do, you get free incoming links to your website. Some of the giant article directories are EzineArticles and ArticleCity.

The way it works is you write your article (or modify your prewritten PLR article), making sure you include your name and a link to your web site (even your photo if you want), and submit it to the e-zine of your choosing (or use a service like Article Marketer to submit your articles to lots of sites at the same time). Then publishers (web site owners) who are looking for free content to use in their newsletters, on their websites and blogs go to the e-zine article directories. If they choose your article, they will put it on their website giving you full credit by including your byline as a requirement for its use.

The advantage of having all of those one-way incoming links from all of the articles you've written is that your website will get a much higher ranking in the search engines. If you make certain that you include your local information in the web page meta tags, you may even get the number one spot for local searches. There are meta tags for "city", "state" and "zip code". You need to include this information on every page on your website. Why?

Let's say you live in Nashville, Tennessee. An individual in Pennsylvania who is being transferred to Nashville goes to Google and types in "real estate agent +Nashville +tn". If you included your local information and have been doing article marketing, your site could be listed on the first page of the search results. I'm sure you can see how this will be an advantage for you. It works for local customers as well as out-of-towners.