If you market online, whether it be your own information products or services or someone else's products (as an affiliate marketer), you need people both to see and buy your offers.

But most people won't buy your product or service until they trust you. Trust comes only after you have built credibility with people. One way credibility comes is by establishing yourself in your market as an expert. You can become an expert in several ways:

- by publishing original and unique content on your website

- by creating and distributing an ecourse or ebook

- by publishing your own ezine or newsletter

- by publishing your articles in someone else's ezine

Here is the secret to establishing credibility: Publishing articles and content in other people's ezines or on their websites.

Search engines like good links anchored to solid content and searchers like to find solid content when they search for information. When you supply informative articles that meet the needs of both groups, search engines begin to rank your linked pages higher in their ratings, and searchers are happy because their questions were answered without a sales pitch.

Bonus tip: If a searcher finds your article informative and helpful, she will often click through the link in your resource box to learn more. Don't forget the value in having a strong resource box linked to both more content and your offers.

Writing articles for distribution should be the cornerstone of your online marketing efforts. Articles establish you as an expert in your market, and your expert status (and web presence) grows as others publish your content. Your articles serve both your need for exposure and others' need for good website and ezine content.

How can you start? Write a batch of five or ten short (300 word) articles geared to your market and submit them! It's that simple. You can find a list of article distribution sites by searching online, but begin by submitting to these two: www.ezinearticles.com and www.groups.yahoo.com/group/business_articles.

So get started!

Jeremy M. Hoover owns Hoover Marketing, where he teaches affiliate marketing. Contact him at jeremyhoover@gmail.com with any feedback.