For pretty obvious reasons, nearly everyone who wants to improve traffic to his/her website is heavily involved in article marketing.

There are two keys, and two keys only, to a successful website…content and traffic (visitors). And, while traffic can come from many sources, the best traffic comes from organic listings in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

To begin with, although it takes time and energy to build and optimize a site which ranks well in the search engines, the traffic your site receives from the search engines is free. If you advertise, it may cost you $5 or more to generate a visitor to your site. And, research has clearly revealed that visitors who reach you because they found your site in a Google or Yahoo search are far more likely to be buyers than those who come to you as a result of advertising. Four times as likely, in some studies.

In other words, because these visitors have gone to the trouble of searching for information related to the websites on which they wind up, they are more likely to buy, donate, request further information, add themselves to a newsletter mailing list, etc.

No wonder goal-oriented site owners dedicate so much time to ensuring good search engine rankings by conducting intensive link building campaigns. And, no wonder article writing is such a big part of those campaigns. There is no other method of obtaining as many good links as quickly. An article written and sent out in an hour or two today can result in hundreds of links…maybe more…in a few short weeks.

Almost always, for fairly obvious reasons, people write articles about the same subjects which are the themes of their websites. It just makes good sense.

The mistake they make all too often is that they do not write about anything else.

Website owners who choose to write only on one or a narrow range of topics will miss out on lots of potential links. By branching out a bit, their writing and their links can be far more widely published. I’m an education writer who already has thousands of links on education-related websites. But not everybody is interested in higher education, so my articles have reached a limited audience and my links appear primarily on specialized websites. By writing on unrelated but popular topics, like this one, I can reach whole new audiences and earn links on countless more websites.

Do write about the subject(s) of your website(s). That’s how you’ll get links which will do the most to boost your search engine rankings for the keywords that can bring you the most targeted traffic. But, don’t make mistake #1 of article writers…don’t limit your range of topics. Every few weeks, choose a popular topic…one with mass appeal…and write on it. The new audiences such articles can help you reach, and the increase in links you will gain will give your website a big boost.

Pay per click advertising, or PPC advertising, is one of the best ways to guide visitors to your site. Every day, many service providers and other businesses use PPC campaigns to reach their target audience effectively and inexpensively. Used correctly, PPC methods can be the key to more sales and improved business.

There is an ideal list of key words or phrases that relates to your product or service when starting with your PPC advertising campaigns. You just need to find it. A quality keyword strategy is what you need to make sure you get the right audience and gain a sale. So it is important to do more than optimizing these words and this is the most tricky part of PPC advertising. Reaching the customers who will buy from you needs proper targeting that will allow you to rule out people who are not interested in your products.

Keywords can trap you in a bidding war if you’re not careful and the most expensive words come with the promise of high rankings on the search page. High ranking ads get much of the traffic, particularly the highest ranked three on each page. But if the person clicking on your ad decides they don’t want your product, you’ve paid a high price for someone to look at your site. This is way targeting your keywords is the best tactic.

The amount you’ll pay for your ads will depend on the search engine and the popularity of the keyword. Ads can range anywhere from a cent per click to over a dollar. To get the most out of your investment, track how your keywords are doing. Use tools to help you understand which words lead to clicks, and how many of those clicks lead to sales. Remember that you can replace a word that’s not working properly, and that traffic which doesn’t end in sales is actually losing you money.

Constructing a good ad that is relevant to your site can help to give you a high ranking on some search engines, especially Google. Google has its own quality scoring system that aims to eliminate ads that are bogus or waste people’s time by promising something they can’t deliver. Other factors to consider include ad frequency, as some search engines allow you to run ads only on weekends or at times you specify.

The most common mistake people make when using PPC campaigns is not getting a high placement and failing to make the webpage attractive and enticing to guests. Create advertising that can be associated with the keywords and you will get the attention of a potential customer and Google. Make it easy for the guest to find what they are looking for.

Remember to test ads for effectiveness, too. Sometimes a change of only one word can have a big effect on the rate at which people click through and buy. Write ad variations for each keyword, so you can test them to see which copy works best. Google is willing to alternate ads for you, and you’ll easily be able to see which ones are the most effective.

PPC advertising is a great way to create awareness of your business and make money. Like anything else you do, a PPC campaign needs to be planned and monitored to achieve success and continue on that path.

The root of a quality pay per click campaign is the right keyword list. It’s important to search for and research high quality keywords. Make a long list, and make sure you check out every possible avenue for success.

You may be puzzled about how you can do this. Let us use a keyword like “loan” for our example. This is a well searched keyword. Because it is also very saturated it is hard to get a good placement with it. Extending your keyword research will earn you some better placements.

Think of a different way that your word might be interpreted. For instance, someone searching for the word “loan” might be looking for information on how to get a loan, what do do if their loan is in trouble, how to buy a house, or how to get a good loan with bad credit. Condense these concepts down into keywords that are related to your base keyword. For instance: “bad credit loan”, “house loan”, “getting loan” and “refinancing loan” are all possible options.

All these keywords are small variations on your original keyword. You can research them and find more niche keywords. In fact there are so many different loans to be had. Put these keywords together with your initial list and look at all the different keywords you have made from your original keyword.

You can also start a campaign made up of lenders names. Added to this you can put .com. a country extension or .net at the end of your keyword. It does not matter that there are no domains with that particular keyword; searchers will still use these domain style keywords and you will get some extra visitors.

Do not use saturated keywords that have a lot of competition bidding on them. Find specialized ones that are derived from the primary keyword. Also make different key phrases from one phrase; “loan bad credit” can be taken from “bad credit loan.” Doing this will attract more searchers.

Campaigns and keywords can be created around the different search keywords that your potential buyers will be looking for. It is wise to try all sorts of different keywords and phrases as searchers can use a wide variety of keywords and phrases.

Initially you can use; misspelled words, domain names, products, serial numbers and plurals. Sometimes searchers forget to put spaces in between words and when you use these types of key phrases you can find more traffic.

Use company names and domain names, as well as variations on them. Think about using superlatives like “best” or “cheapest”, and remember that there may be spelling variations in different countries.

You should also use keywords from your web logs. These are good as the stats will show which keywords visitors are using to find your site.

Your pay per click campaign’s success will be dependent on how good your list of keywords is. For this reason you will want to look into all your choices before using your keywords.