When I first began article marketing, or bum marketing, I didn't know what I was doing. Learning and doing at the same time is a great way to learn, but for most beginning article marketers, what you put on the Internet can only be described as crap. Most people start Internet marketing with dreams of millions of dollars in a matter of days, and in combination with being a bit lost on a lot of new concepts, the best anyone can do is sub-par. That's ok. But as an article marketer you should never underestimate the power of knowing what you're marketing, and putting out valuable content.

When I started marketing, I chose a couple of random Clickbank products with low-competition, and wrote tons about them. For one site with just a couple of pages and posts, I had hundreds of articles. Many were original, some were spun, and I had more than a few web 2.0 sites. Along with forum and blog backlinks, it seemed like I had everything I needed to get the number one spot in Google, but it just wasn't happening. No matter how many links I threw at it, I just couldn't get that spot.

Fast forward one year later in my article marketing education.

I registered a new domain less than a week ago. After installing Wordpress and creating a home page/landing page, I wrote a blurb on my blog, and tweeted it. That was it. On day two it was in spot 23 for the main keyword. On day four it was in spot 5. In less than a week I made a sale.

What's the difference?

Sure there's a bit of knowing my way around the SEO game, and efficiency is part of getting everything set up so quickly, with the essentials in first, and the icing on the cake coming later. But I think more importantly is that this new site is something I know about. From my personal life, it's something I've experienced, so I know what people are looking for. I could research the topic for months. I could pay professionals and outsource the material. But the truth is that I am promoting a product I believe in, a product that solves a problem that I actually had.

When you do article marketing, no matter how hard you try, it's obvious when an article is written by someone who knows their stuff, and someone who just read someone else's article to regurgitate the information and get a backlink.

For the beginning article marketer, I strongly suggest promoting something you know about. It will make every step of the learning process so much easier.