A question often asked by those who are confident in promoting business is, “Is there a downside to article marketing?” And the answer is yes. There are always cons to pros and negatives to positives. There are never perfect systems to use. However, you can make it almost perfect for yourself if you know how to maximize the potential you have for article marketing.

Some of the drawbacks are that it is not instant like pay per click marketing. You won’t see results that fast. Sometimes you might post articles and wonder if anyone is paying attention.

More patience is needed to get the right content. Providing customers with relevant information takes time, and if you’re already in a time bind, you’ll feel the pressure in that area. If you’re sure you can write decent articles, then ‘|| You will have to hire a ghost writer, which will cost you.

Then, when the articles are finished, if you submit them to article directories, it’s up to the editors to decide if the article passes their line of acceptability. Also, you don’t want to submit an article and be done with it.

You need to submit regular entries, not only to directories, but also to other sites like Squidoo, Hub Pages, and Google Knol. All of that requires effort. While it will be worth it in the long run, it can sometimes test your patience having to wait for results.

To be effective using this method, you have to be consistent. You also need to practice the art of giving in order to receive. Give potential customers who read your article something worth reading.

Give them a reason to want to know more. But do it carefully. Readers know when they’re being pressured and can smell a ‘buy now’ setup. So make it worth your while.

When you get to the end of your article, tell them you’d like to give them more information (and maybe a free email tip, some tips, a report, or whatever), but because articles have a word limit, they can click on the link on their page for more information. If the article is written in a way that leaves them interested, hungry to learn, or offers a possible solution to a problem, they will click through to your website.

Does article marketing work for everyone? Yes it does, but it’s just a tool like anything else in business. It’s how you lift it, how you hammer it, how you nail it, and how you use the saw that gets the results.