One of the most formidable marketing tools available today is your computer keyboard, and you can use it to generate an extremely comfortable livelihood through the writing of articles. The benefits you can gain include enormous exposure, credibility, influence and profits… all for next to nothing.

Ezine publishers and webmasters are constantly on the hunt for fresh information and ideas to educate their subscribers and visitors. Unfortunately, not all of them have the skill or desire to create relevant content themselves, so they look to other sources for a solution.

A recent discussion on the blog at EzineArticles concerned whether you could write an article of quality in under 500 words.

One of the ideas being tossed around was that it takes more 500 words to deliver a great quality article.

There are a couple of points with which I agree, though overall I disagree.

Points of agreement

=> Many writers are not able to write a useful, helpful and great article in 300 - 500 words. It is too difficult.

Are you having a difficult time writing your book proposal? Take a break and write articles instead. Learning to write quality articles teaches you the skills needed for writing book proposals.

W. Terry Whalin gives tips in his book, Book Proposals that $ell - 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success, to equip authors to write proposals that capture the attention and interest of editors. Terry should know what appeals to editors because he is an editor.

Let me start off by saying that writing is not a skill that you can acquire by enrolling in a university or by reading an e-book (God, what will they think of next?) or even an article that gives you tips. It is an art in itself. As thoughts are accumulated in the mind and are converted into words, the result can be seen on paper. That’s writing. But what we are talking about over here is a totally different subject. We are talking about writing for the web. The web or the virtual world is an extremely fast paced highway where patience is a virtue. Every average netizen (a citizen on the internet) has an extremely small attention span of 30 seconds to 60 seconds. If you are successful in holding the attention of the reader for this time duration, then you have won half the battle. The chances that he will read your complete article are increased manifold. Are you still reading this? Well, then I have managed to hold your attention for about 30 seconds now. See, it’s simple really.

Online readers love free information. They scour the internet daily looking for specific information to solve their problems, help them be successful, live longer or get healthy. You should join the information revolution too! Publish your free helpful solution-oriented articles to the web.

But wait! There are a few things to keep in mind when writing for the web. Long paragraphs are usually acceptable for print media; they are not for the web. If you want to write articles that web users will love to read and put to use follow these 7 simple tips:

Conversational articles share your heart. Academic articles share your knowledge.

When writing academically, I want to write my best so I use my dictionary, thesaurus, and other writing aids. It’s similar to when I have a formal function to attend. I dress up. To ensure that I have the jiggles under control, I wear a girdle. My girdle serves the same purpose as my writing aids–to keep things tight and right.

No girdles are necessary for daily living. Neither are dictionaries, thesauruses, or writing aid because you’re just being you. That’s the same as when you’re talking to others, you’re focused on sharing your thoughts. If you make a grammatical error and catch it, you correct it and keep going.

Have you discovered the power of article marketing? Do you write articles as a way of promoting your website? How many article directories do you submit each article to? Do you know which article marketing websites are the most popular? Despite what some so called seo experts might say, article marketing is here to stay. I have been writing articles for the last three years and I have to say that I am more than happy with the results. In this article I am going to write about the different article directories that I submit my articles to.

The number one challenge for a lot of internet marketers, or any kind of private practice professional or any kind of professional, is knowing what our customer wants to know. Because we do not ask, we create things we think our clients want and then try to sell it to them.

So knowing your market well is very important to your success. Now I want you to step back a minute, take a deep breath, and just think about your area of expertise. Just consider your area of expertise, what you’re an expert in.

When writing an article, it is the supreme objective of the writer to be able to receive and collect powerful praises and good comments on his product. Ultimately, any writer, either a novice or a pro, adheres to the idea that their writings are perfected crafts that they made because they are able to pacify the demands of the people in terms of information. Writing an article that is both profitable and fun is something that is so hard to do, however, not impossible! Below are some of the antique tips and techniques that a lot of world renowned article writers are still using:

The most effective way to grab a person’s attention (and get them to a web site) in todays “microsecond attention span” world is to offer them something that is completely free. So, for a webmaster, what is easy to get and even more easy to give away? Information!

You don’t have to offer people a free T.V to get them interested; all you have to do is offer them some free information and you will undoubtedly peek their interests. However, the problem is actually getting to them and letting them know you have that free information. After all, if they already knew about your site, you wouldn’t be worrying about generating web site traffic in the first place. This is precisely where article writing comes in handy, as it can improve web site traffic by giving you tons of free traffic hits at zero cost to you.