Article submission works better than links exchange

Why use article marketing and not some other kind of marketing? To answer this questions we need to list first the types of online marketing that are popular today, then we will be able to compare results and will find out in what case article marketing works better than any other kind of marketing.
Let's start with article marketing itself. First, what kind of investment you need to do? You will need to write an article for submission purpose and you will need to submit it to 100+ web-sites or just to few major ones. The costs for copywriting service start at 10$ per 500 words and depend a lot on quality of the article. As for submission you can do it yourself or find really cheap options, for instance you can submit to bulk sites for just 10$. What about results? You will have an article listed on hundred of sites, that tells about your niche, and you will have a link which points to your site. There are good chances that Google will treat this page and the link as useful. As link comes from article which is related to your web-site topic.
What about other methods. What about directory submission? There are a number of directories available, and it is quite easy to submit your site to 100+ directories with high PR. You will be able to specify submission title (e.g. anchor text for you link), your description and your link. Good news is that it will not cost much to submit your web-site to directories starting with PR4 Google rating. But let's think about content where your link will be listed. If you are submitting business management related web-site, then you should carefully choose a category to place your link, the perfect would be "Business > Management", but there will be also a lot of other links. There is no guaranty that Google will treat these links and their description as related to your niche. But directories submission works now fine, it's a cheaper option (or addition) to article marketing.
There are also a number of methods. For instance, it is talked widely, that you should participate in forums for your topic. This is a great idea, but it will cost you much more time to find and answer questions in forums. Also, if you would like to hire someone to answer posts in forum you will have to pay much more than in the case of article marketing or directory submission.
Any other options? Actually, yes. You can run a free link exchange with sites and get inbound links, but in this case you will need to invest your time in finding sites, that are willing to exchange links with you, also, you will have to put a link back to this site. An option might be buying inbound links, it is easier to find sites that will place your link for some fee, but typically you will need to pay for a link each month, that is not a good investment I think, unless you have found a very good sites related to your product's niche.
The best idea about article marketing is that is is measurable, you will easily find out what works and what doesn't work. It is a good long-term investment in your online visibility.

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