A recent craze in the internet marketing arena has been that of article marketing. Most recently known by its new name “bum marketing”, it is a very viable long term approach to quickly and easily generate hundreds of one-way quality back links to your sales site, content site or blog.

But knowing how to go about it correctly is what makes the difference between a winning article marketing campaign and a losing one. Here are five tips to help you get the most out of it.

1. Make it Simple and Concise: There is no need for you to write bulky articles with the intent of impressing your readers. Most people searching for information online are looking for simple guides to doing something, getting something done, etc. Make your points and put your message through without unneeded fluff and fillers.

2. Create a Catchy Bio Box: Whether you are writing articles to upload to your site or submit else where to get traffic, don’t underestimate the magic that a simple but catchy message with a relevant URL can do to your click through traffic and ultimately your sales and/or Adsense income. Don’t claim to be an expert (unless you are), just identify with your readers as “an enthusiast” of the subject matter you are writing about. That makes them trust you somehow.

3. Submit to Article Directories: The best article that did not get submitted to article directories to get you traffic is worth nothing but digital dust.

4. Submit to Article Distribution Services: While it is good to submit to free article directories, it is 100x better when you use article distribution services. These get your article picked up by thousands of marketers looking for high quality content. Can you imagine the potential traffic and backlinks that you will be getting from this? One caveat, though, is that these are paid services. But they are worth the price.

5. Bookmark them on Social Bookmarking Sites: Submitting the URL of your article to sites like StumbleUpon.com, technorati and others will almost guarantee that the submitted page gets indexed with 24-48 hours, which means it may start showing up in the search engines sooner than expected. Plus, you may get a lot of clickthroughs from the social bookmarking sites themselves.

If you follow the above steps religiously, you should start getting a good amount of one-way links pointing to your site and a flood of traffic that you can tap to build your lists, sell your products or promote your affiliate programs. What you do with it is up to you. Just don’t waste it.

Gary Fritts has been a fulltime internet business owner and online marketing trainer for 10 years and is the Senior Trainer at the Wealth Magnet System.