It’s true what they say about article marketing: few off-page search engine optimisation (SEO) tools are as flexible. Article marketing provides great content. And yes, it keeps bouncing back with those all-important inbound links.

So why don’t more people use article marketing? In some ways, the answer is obvious. Not everyone can write articles - and not everyone can afford to pay a copywriter to write optimised articles on a regular basis.

On the other hand, you’d think that within most companies there would be someone who could write a 500-word article once or twice a month. After all, the subject matter is what provides their livelihood!

The affordability aspect is also a little puzzling when you consider how much is spent on other forms of SEO which aren’t nearly as effective. SEO consultants don’t come cheap and, it has to be said, not all are the saviours they purport to be.

SEO done well is priceless of course. To overlook direct and relatively inexpensive SEO tools such as article marketing does, however, seem like negligence on a grand scale!

Article marketing - also known as article PR or article submission - is a sub-set of SEO copywriting. As with writing fluent and effective website pages, free-flowing articles are exactly what today’s Google algorithms expect - and reward.

There has to be some awareness of keywords and how to use them, of course. Like all other forms of online copywriting, article marketing comes with its own set of rules.

To go back to content being king: article marketing gives the copywriter huge scope for writing about generalities which can then be related back in some way to the business in question.

All that’s needed is a little imagination. If, for example, your company manufactures things, a lead-in to your article could be on environmental or politically sensitive issues. It could relate to the scarcity of world resources or the labour skills needed in the modern world.

Whatever keywords have been identified will be less of an albatross than a beacon to keep you ‘on message’. Keywords equals links equals focused website landing pages. The message that online marketing shouts loud and clear is that all disciplines should be integrated through a uniform set of keywords.

That is in fact less alien than it seems. Any business of any type will be defined by a limited range of keywords. That’s life. Every human has eyes, brains and other organs. Keywords are the thread running through the language we use to describe everything.

Keywords are the links, the great identifiers that just happen to be business accelerators too. What better vehicle is there than a 500-word article that is themed with ideas and summed up in keywords that browsers can find online?