Let's face it, it's getting harder and hard to get your site and pages into the search engines. There is so much 'junk' out there, that sometimes you get stopped in your tracks just trying to get your site listed at all.

You know what that means: If you are not in the Top 10 on Google....

That's right, the top 10 of Google is pretty much the holy grail of search engine results. About 99.9% of all people never get past the first page of results when looking for something online (unless they're doing research).

That means that you're pretty much out of business if your site is not on that first page of Google. So, you have to find a way to get there, or get left out of just about anything involving making money online, or earning a living. Selling online has become even more difficult, and much more dependant on the knowledge of the SEO expert that is helping you.

There are some things you can do, by yourself, to help you 'stack the deck'. In this article I'm going to explain how you can use Article Marketing to gain more backlinks, and to use those backlinks to help you achieve higher search engine rankings.

You see Google sees links back to your site and pages (backlinks) as 'authority markers' that they consider valuable. If there are other sites pointing to you, there must be something valuable on your site.  But, the trouble has always been, getting other people to link back to you, without having to offer them a recipricol link in return.

Thank the heavens for Article Marketing, as it quickly does away with that little problem. You can write articles all day long, about any topic, and throw in a nice keyword rich phrase in your resource (about me) box, that will give you another link back to your website which Google will prize. I will cover the details of doing it right in this article.

Sure, you can just start blasting away writing articles, that's fine too, but it may be better to save them and slowly release them over time, as the big G is also watching how fast your links show up - if you had 1 or 2 last week, and 357 this week, it's a bit suspicious. So, step one is to write your articles.  Step two is to find a way to get a backlink to your site that is keyword rich, and finally Step three is to get your articles published reliably so that the backlinks start showing up for you, increasingly over time - thereby boosting your website in the search engine results.

Let's go over those steps in details below:

1. Write Your Articles: this is fairly straight-forward, and even easy for some. Just pick any topic you are interested in, it does not matter if it is related to your website at all, just as long as you have something to say and you can write a nice 400-500 word article (try to shoot for over 500 if you can, such as in the 550-600 word range.  You can use any basic editor to write articles with, but it's often best to just keep it simple and use a text editor, that way you're not worried about Microsoft formatting getting in the way.  I recommend UltraEdit, it has been my editor of choice for almost 10 years now.
   
   Use your editor to write, and keep track of your Word Count from time to time. You will also want to write a nice catchy title for your article, and a brief summary that lets others know what the article is about. If you're looking to 'rewrite' or change articles that you already own, as I have found this to be a faster way to write an article, you can use tools such as:
   WordFlood, or Article Automator, or Article Spinner or Content Professor. 
   
   Keep in mind that I recommend fully re-writing articles if you ware planning on submitting multiple versions. You do not want to suffer from duplicate content penalties that Google, or other search engines may apply to you.
   
2. Include Your Keyword/Phrase Rich Resource (Bio) Box:  Every article has a nice little 3-5 line biography of the author. You are going to use this to create a keyword rich phrase that is related to the website you are looking to gain backlinks for. As an example I will pick Racoon Fur Comb. If your website was all about racoon fur combs, you would want to use this phrase as a linked keyword phrase to link back to your website, so for example, something simple like this:
   
   Brett has been writing for nearly 25 years. His latest interest is in animal care. Visit his newest website: http://www.Animal-Care-Combs.com for more info on a Racoon Fur Comb.
   
3. Get Your Articles Published Reliably: There are a lot of options when it comes to submitting your articles. You could do it by hand, and you should for some of the larger directories (such as eZineArticles), but then there are the other options of getting your articles published on some of the lesser known article directories - this still counts, because a link, is still a link. But, it won't quite have the clout of your important and valuate articles (on the big article directories).
   
   Lately I've been using Magic Article Submitter (MAS) for this. I watched in awe as it instantly created over 600 accounts for me, and then checked my Google email account to retrieve the activation links and activated over 500 accounts for me, in about 30 minutes! Wow, it's amazing. Your other options are to use MAS in conjunction with other article submitters, especially if they hti their own private article networks (such as Article Blueprint, or Article Marketing Automation - AMA). 
   
   If you need to create a random/Pen Name, use this great name generator: Random Name Generator 

That about covers it. After you've done these three steps, sit back and wait about 1-3 days (yes days - especially if you are using Magic Article Submitter - MAS), and then check back in to your Yahoo Webmaster account for a quick look at the number of backlinks you have now... it should have went up - considerably, as your search engine positions should have also done.

For more detailed information I highly recommend Josh Spaulding's Article Marketing Domination - it covers all the bases, and more on how to do article marketing the right way.

Stay tuned for more XSitePro Expert articles to follow...