A great way to get the word out about your business in a hurry is something so simple and effective yet few marketers online take advantage of it.

What if you can advertise for free and potentially get thousands of people to see your message? What if this same concept is viral and can potentially spread all over the internet?

What if you can have potentially hundreds of websites linking to you, and in the process, boost your search engine ranking? What if this same concept also builds trust and credibility and brands you online as an expert, which could quite possibly increase your sales?

What could this concept possibly be?

It's staring you right in the face and you didn't even know it! It's called Article Writing.

Publishers are always looking for content for their ezine. You can give them that content by writing an article about something you know about or by sharing your experiences and if they like your article they will then publish it.

Then at the end of your article, include a small bio or resource box about yourself with a link to what you are promoting. This is where you will get your free advertising.

You can submit your articles to individual ezine owners who accept articles. This can have your article potentially seen by however many people are on the ezine owners list... hundreds, or even thousands.

You can also submit them to article banks or directories which are web based. Web based article directories publish your article online. The plus is that these are links pointing to your website which may help your search engine rankings.

Many ezine owners visit article banks or directories to look for content for their ezine. In this way, publishers find you instead of you trying to find them.

You can also post your article in article announcement lists which is email based. Simply post your article and your article will then be sent out to everyone on the announcement list.

Include article writing as another weapon in your marketing arsenal. And best of all... it's free, it's viral, helps your search engine ranking, and it brands you. All of which can't help but increase your sales. And all it takes, is the time to write the article.

Don't think it works? Well... you just read this article didn't you?

Al Martinovic publishes a popular internet marketing newsletter at http://www.milleniummarketers.com and runs a successful home business at http://www.ineedsmokes.com