One of the most effective tactics is to do an article along the lines of "Don't buy X unless it meets these criteria" in which you spell out all the features they should be looking for in a product - which just so happen to match exactly the features of the product you are selling. If your niche is golf shoes then you might, for example, write an article on "How to Find the Perfect Golf Shoe".Here are five tips on how to write an effective article:

1. It establishes you as the expert in your niche. People will read about you. They will see that you know what you are talking about, and that you offer sensible, sane, advice. Do it right, and they will test everything else to see if it measures up to the standards you have set. In short, they will learn to TRUST you. And when they are ready to buy, they will either buy from you (if you have a product or service to sell), or they will listen to your recommendations - and buy through your affiliate links. How will this happen? Simply because you will provide solid, valuable, helpful content. AND they will see your name all over the web. Whichever way they turn, they will come across your name and your content. Again and Again. Pretty soon it becomes obvious who is the leader, the expert, the authority on this particular topic. And so they will come to your site already pre-sold on whatever you have to tell them. Ah, the lovely "ka-ching" of cash registers receiving money! But that is not all!

2. All that content, that is all over the web, is pure honey for the search engines! Like bees they swarm to it - all the more so since it is all unique content. They lap it up, process it, and serve it up to the public through the search engine results. After all, that is what search engines do best - discover unique content and provide it to the searching public.

3. Not only is there all that unique content, but in it there are links, correctly formatted links, that point back to your website. Not one or two, but hundreds. And, over time, not hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands! Now the search engines love you even more! Thousands of targeted links on themed content pages tells the search engine that your site is THE authority on this particular niche. Especially when these links are coming from sites that the search engines have already rated as "authority" sites! So guess where they list you on their search results?

4. Submit that article to all the top article directories, announcement lists, and ezine publishers. They will grab it, and either publish it on the web, or send it out in their ezine to their thousands of subscribers. Then other webmasters and ezine publishers will see it, and they too will pick it up and publish it... And on it goes, first hundreds then thousands of copies of your article all over the web, driving hordes of qualified buyers right to your website.

5. Repeat. In fact, the best strategy is to do this once per week for every website you own. The results actually become exponential, as the more they see your name in print, the more credible you become, and the more likely it is that other publishers will pick up your articles and reprint them. In fact, quite frequently I have had people contact me asking for permission to print my articles offline in their magazine (a real paper and ink magazine)! How cool is that? Talk about free publicity! Of course I said "yes" each time.

Now, you can't actually put a link to your site inside the body of the article, as most article publishers will just remove it. But what you can do, indeed are expected to do, is to put a "resource box" at the end of the article with a link to your site. See how this grabs the visitor and drives him right to your site, already in the right frame of mind to listen to your advice?

Don't just write any old article. Write something that provides value. Answer a question that the reader has. And then suggest ways they can get more information, or point them in the direction of finding the products that will solve their problems.