In a recent survey to determine how many websites were online, the internet service company Netcraft got responses from 118,023,363 sites. This year alone 12.8 million new websites have already been added. With those numbers it is easy to see why so many sites disappear into the blackhole of obscurity, let alone get anything resembling internet traffic.

Article marketing can raise your visibility and bring you tons of site traffic. It is important to get your articles out there but it is equally important to make sure they are seen by the people you are actually writing for: your target market.

Keep that in mind. Businesses online and off have failed because they tried to be too many things to too many people. Instead of concentrating on one market at a time, they attempted to capture the mythical general public. I say mythical because one size does not fit all. Many companies have learned that the hard way.

It is no different with marketing articles to your target audience. Many owners of niche article directories have become quite flustered to the point of issuing warnings in big red letters, telling would be writers that if the article does not match the directory it will be rejected.

Do some research and share your articles in the proper forums. Find blogs related to your niche and post a comment with a link back to your article. Getting targeted backlinks is an excellent way to boost your visibility and increase your site traffic.

What other steps should you take? .

1. Are you part of a social network? Places like My Space and Facebook are at the forefront of online networking. Posting your articles to these websites can attract a massive audience and still bring you targeted traffic. .

2. Submit to a handful of the top article directories. I do not recommend submitting to every directory out there. You want to increase your visibility and site traffic but promoting one article to thousands of directories is the wrong way to go about it. That is an unnecessarily time consuming chore which can really take the steam out of your web internet marketing campaign. Instead put together a list of the top 10 or 20 directories and submit your articles to them. It is also okay to add the smaller article sites of webmasters you trust.

3. If you do not have a blog get one and start posting your articles on a regular basis. Search engines love blogs because of constantly updating content. Since the majority of your web traffic will come from search engines, the best thing to do is keep giving them what they want.

When you post your article you can tag them with the proper keywords and ping them to the various blog directories. Pinging just means you are telling these directories that you have added new content on your blog and they can check it out.

4. Collect some of your articles and put them together in a free ebook. You can find software online that will put your articles in pdf or exe format. Brand the book with your name and website address then give it away. Advertise it in ezines, give it away in forums, and send it to your customers and regular web site visitors. Do some offline word of mouth so folks will come online and grab a copy. Marketing viral is one of the most powerful ways to increase your visibility and get a lot more web site traffic.

5. Submit your article to various ezine sites. You can really do some serious targeting with this one. There are thousands of ezines on different niches. Or if you choose create your own ezine to feature your articles.