What is article writing all about? Before the Internet became popular, this topic was more to do with professional writers working for big publishing houses or research institutions. Now days we have a completely different picture, where this field has opened up to a wide variety of fields. We are currently in an information explosion as more are connecting to the Internet. We are now more knowledge based societies who are working with our minds instead of our hands.

Hundreds of different hobbies, niches, sub or micro niches, topics and activities are becoming popular. There a huge demand for information products, as articles, E-Books, Cd's, video. DVDs, value exchanges, forums and teleseminars. Writing and publishing articles on the Internet is simple, convenient and free to do. If you have a hobby, interest or passion and want to share what you know, writing for the Internet is the way to go.

Why would anyone want to do this? There is a feel good factor in sharing or helping others, plus you will be seen as an expert in your field or topic. You could brand yourself as someone who knows what they are talking about and is knowledgeable. This promotes your credibility in a faceless medium of the Internet allowing you free visibility and exposure, to a targeted audience of your choice. This is called crowd sourcing. The people who read your thought piece will be there because they are interested in your subject. This gives you a selected or targeted audience to communicate with, mass communication and leverage on a global scale. You could be touching all four corners of the earth.

Your write up can be submitted and published on sites called Ezines. A resource box at the end of your article allows you to explain a little about yourself and gives interested readers the opportunity to contact you for further information. This can either be through a phone number, e-mail address or a link to your websites. Free traffic coming to your website is a direct result of this.

This means links to your website, which helps in your page ranking determined by the important search engines. The more articles you submit, means more links. The more correct links equates to a better page rank. What this is, the search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN "favour sites" with lots of relevant incoming links.

When an online web surfer (your prospect) is searching for tips, they type in your niches key word or search phrase into their computer web browser. A long list of search sites will come up for them to select from. It stands to reason that those indexed on the first page will receive the most clicks.

In order to be on the first page of these search results your website needs lots of inbound or back links. This equates to free organic search engine traffic and then presto you are in business...

So in a nut shell, article writing is very beneficial to for you or your business the more you share. By free exposure, visibility, website traffic, gains you credibility and potential customers for you and your business.