Whenever I meet anyone for the first time and I tell them that I do Internet Marketing, inevitably one of the very first questions I get is “What’s the real secret to internet marketing?“. It doesn’t matter if I’m speaking at a group or if I’m meeting someone at a social event. They always get to that question.

What’s my answer? My answer is that there really is no secret, it’s just hard work. But if there were a trick that I could (and do) recommend to everyone, it would be ARTICLES!!!!

You don’t believe me? Why not conduct an experiment and test it for yourself. Write one article a month for 6 months. Submit that article to online press release programs, online article submission sites, your blog and if appropriate on your website. Make sure the article is optimized for the keyword phrase you are marketing. After 6 months, check your website logs. If your articles are optimized correctly, you’ll see people coming in to your website via those articles. You’ll also see people coming to your website via those keyword phrases.

How do I know it works? Because I do it for my own websites. I admit that it does take time. It takes at least 3 months for the articles to begin showing up on the top 50 and about 6 months for them to begin bringing in traffic. But, I also admit that I don’t pay for press releases or article submission sites. I use all the free versions.

There’s a good book called “Turn Words Into Traffic” by Jim and Dallas Edwards. The subtitle of the book is “Finally! The Secret To Non-Stop Free Targeted Traffic”. What’s the “Secret”? Writing articles!

Well, go ahead, give it a try. You’ve got nothing to lose but a little bit of time.