I get this question or one of its variants, a lot.

Why doesn't article marketing work fast? How fast can I get traffic from article marketing? How many articles do I have to write?

Maybe a little primer first.

How does article marketing work?

Article marketing is the process of writing articles, putting links to your web site within them, and submitting them online to the various article directories.

When the article directories publish your article, the search engines spider your article, and then they rank it according to the keywords which are prominent in the article.

When people search for the keyword around which you have written the article, then they find your article. They read your article and if they like what you have written, they might click the link in your article and follow it through to your web site.

Do you see all the things that can go wrong here?

You have to write what people want to read. You have to write an exciting title. Nobody wants to click on a boring title, do they?

Then you have to write an exciting, accurate article.

You have to write articles that give people good information.

You see, if someone reads your article and they think you don't know what you are talking about, what is going to happen? They are not going to click your link?

Does that make sense! The articles are not going to magically create traffic. You have to write an article that someone likes.

You have to write an exciting bio.

And then there is the fact that it takes some time for the search engines to get to your article page.

And if you submit to 300 article directories you will get more traffic than if you submit to 3 or 4. And if you write 100 articles per month, you will get more traffic than if you write 10 articles per month.