Article marketing was one of the first traffic generation strategies I learned when I got into internet marketing. It was 2008, and everyone in the online business world was talking about submitting articles to directories like EzineArticles to drive traffic and build backlinks. A related concept called “bum marketing” promised that the strategy was so easy, anyone could do it — even someone with no money and no website.
I spent a lot of time on article marketing in those early days. Here is what I learned, what actually worked, and what has replaced it in 2026.
What Article Marketing Actually Was
The strategy was straightforward. You wrote an informative article on a topic related to your website, submitted it to article directories, and included a resource box at the bottom with links back to your site. The article directories had strong search engine authority, so your content would often rank well in Google. Readers who found your article could click through to your site.
The beauty of the system was the dual traffic source. Initially, you got direct click-through traffic from people reading your articles in the directories. Over time, as your articles spread across the web (article directories allowed republication), the backlinks in your resource box helped your own site rank better in search engines. So direct traffic would decline, but organic search traffic to your main site would increase.
What Bum Marketing Added
Bum marketing took article marketing a step further. The idea was to find low-competition keywords, write articles targeting those keywords, submit them to article directories, and monetize the traffic with affiliate links — all without even owning a website. The article itself, hosted on the directory, would rank in Google and earn affiliate commissions directly.
It was called “bum marketing” because the barrier to entry was zero. You needed nothing but time and the ability to write. No hosting costs, no domain registration, no technical skills.
Why It Stopped Working
Google's Panda update in 2011 was the beginning of the end for article marketing as a traffic strategy. Panda targeted low-quality content farms and thin content sites — which is exactly what many article directories had become. EzineArticles and similar sites saw their search visibility crater overnight. The backlinks from these directories went from being valuable to being worthless or even harmful.
By 2013, most serious internet marketers had moved on from article marketing entirely.
What Replaced Article Marketing in 2026
The core principles behind article marketing — creating valuable content to attract an audience and build authority — are still sound. The tactics have evolved completely.
Guest Posting
Writing high-quality articles for established blogs and publications in your niche is the modern equivalent of article directory submissions. The key difference is quality over quantity. One well-placed guest post on a respected site is worth more than 100 article directory submissions ever were.
Content Marketing on Your Own Site
Instead of publishing content on third-party directories, the modern approach is to build a library of excellent content on your own website. This gives you full control over the content, the user experience, and the monetization. Pair it with solid SEO practices and you get the same organic search traffic that article marketing once provided — but on your own property.
Podcast Guesting
Appearing as a guest on podcasts in your niche is another evolution of the article marketing concept. You provide value to someone else's audience, and in return you get exposure and a link back to your site. The trust transfer from audio is significantly stronger than from a written article.
Social Media Content
Platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, and even Twitter/X allow you to publish content that reaches new audiences and drives traffic back to your main site. The principle is identical to article marketing — provide value on a platform with an existing audience, include a path back to your own property.
The Lasting Lesson
Article marketing taught a generation of internet marketers something important: if you create genuinely helpful content and put it where people can find it, traffic and revenue will follow. The specific platforms and tactics change every few years, but that fundamental principle has not changed and probably never will.
I’ve used article directories before and there are some good and bad points to the whole process.
For the writer, you have the potential to have your articles seen by hundreds of people. The down side is that you’ve got very few rights to your own work. Of course it depends on which directory you work with.
For someone who runs a newsletter or website, it’s a great way of finding articles to fill in blank spots. Most of these articles are free to use, as long as you keep the author’s information with it.
They are a very valuable tool, but you’ve got to read the fine print before you jump in.
Depends on the directory. Some sites are a hundred percent free on both ends of the deal. Writer doesn’t get any money, but the publisher has to keep the author’s name on the work. In some instances, an author is paid a bit of money (nothing to scream about), and then anyone who pays the directory for the article has the right to remove the authors name and information.
That’s why I say you’ve got to do your homework on these sites before submitting anything. Mark mentioned a site called EzineArticles.com. That is probably one of the top sites online. However, there are a lot of them out there, and like anything else, there are a lot of scams. Read the fine print in the TOS before you commit to anything.
Another thing I should mention, though this is probably one of those “duh” comments, is that you need to make sure that whatever directory you’re using has a good reputation. Just because a site “claims” to know what their doing, that doesn’t mean they do.
I had submitted a couple articles to an article directory some years back, and it was doing very well. Then the site closed down for some unknown reason and took my work with it. There was no warning, no explaination, nothing. It was just gone.
Great article. I run 2 article directories so of course I’m a big fan of article marketing. It works on large scale and long term projects is my experience.
You know mark, I have honestly never done this before. So, I am wondering if I really committed myself to a little experiment, how well it would do. I can totally see a huge potential for a massive amount of exposure. But like you said too, you have to play your cards right and there is a balancing act in the process.
Christine,
I am glad to see that you are following Mark Mason’s publishing… What are some fine print items that people should be aware of?
@Christine — Totally agree. That is one of the reasons that I recommend Josh’s eBook. You are correct to point out that there are a lot of things to consider when using article marketing as a traffic strategy.
One thing that works really well in my opinion is to avoid competing directly with your website when doing article marketing. This is what I was referring to above when I talked about keyword selection strategies. Obviously it’s hard to explain all this in a short blog post.
Like Garry I’d really love to hear what you say about this. Your opinion is welcome here always.
Matt,
I can see how things work very well on your end as your site is monetized. I’d like to see if you’d provide some input on how you shaped and molded your site into being a site to where people feel compelled to invest the time into submitting their articles into you directory. How did you get the ball rolling? No one is going to invest time into submitted into a ghost town, so how did you go about marketing your site and getting say the first 100 articles added?
@Christine — Excellent point about TOS, and one that I am personally not very careful about. I need to pay more attention to that. Thanks for that tip.
@Garry — I have always wondered about that myself. Not sure if Matt would be willing to reveal the secret sauce. Josh Spaulding knows something about Article Directories. I will ask him.
To me it would see that that would be the tricky part… getting started. After you got a few hundred or so in the directory and it doesn’t look like a ghost town, then I am sure people then start freely submitting content in. It’s a great business and something I actually have some interest in. Any additional insider info that Matt and or Josh would be willing to reveal would be most excellent. 🙂
Thanks for recommending “AMD” and myself, Mark. This is a very good general article on article marketing, great job with it…probably the most accurate and informative for the length.
@ Christine – I’m not sure what article directories you’re talking about, but all of those which are worth submitting to are absolutely free and you ALWAYS retain all rights to your work! The only site that MAY be worth submitting to that pays for content is AssociatedContent.com and I don’t recommend submitting there. They don’t allow a realy resource box and although articles there normally get a decent amount of traffic they don’t convert, as they don’t allow you to place your resource box at the bottom.
As far as an article directory shutting it’s doors…it’s not going to hurt you. You have full rights to your articles, so just submit elsewhere. The only way that would be an issue would be if you only submitted to that one article directory and didn’t save your copy, which wouldn’t be smart 🙂
@ Garry – You’d be surprised. I’ve created several article directories in my time. You’d be surprised how many people out there will submit to a new article directory. I normally just start a small, cheap adwords campaign and they take off. I’ve started and later sold articlesalley.com everyonesarticles.com and a few others. I’ve had several up to $100+/day before selling.
The downside to running article directories is that they’re EXTREMELY time consuming. The real secret to running a successful article directory is loads of deep linking. The content piles up so fast and so deep that you need to get to spiders deep into it not only to get the content indexed, but to get some authority down into those deep pages.
P.S. Article Marketing and Bum Marketing are two different things 🙂 Most people don’t realize that though. 🙂 http://ez-onlinemoney.com/
@Josh — thanks for the helpful comments (and the praise). Like I said, almost all of my article marketing info comes from you.
I really appreciate the clarification on Bum marketing, and I have updated the article accordingly.
Also, regarding time for an article directory — is it the article approval part? If so, what about that takes time, and why can’t that be completely automated?
Thanks!
Mark
Thanks for this comprehensive coverage of writing and submitting articles for marketing. I’ve neglected to get into this type of marketing, even though I know it’s been successful for many. Your post has encouraged me to get off the stick.
@Flora — You are quite welcome. Recommend you start with eZineArticles. Good luck.
Mark
Nicely done, Mark. Very informative.
I, too, like IAWP. I’ve only tested a handful of keywords to see how well it performs and the way it puts together its findings is quite impressive. I’m excited to see how much time it can cut down on article writing.
@Mark — Glad to hear you are having luck with IWAP. It is definitely one of my new favorites.
Hi Mark,
I just found your blog and you have some excellent content here, congratulations. We have friends in common – Jay & Sterling from IBM.
I use Micro Niche Finder and Article Wizard Pro, two very useful tools.
Regards
Andrew
@Andrew — thanks! Jay and Sterling are fantastic. They continue to crank out great content. As far as Micro Nice Finder and Article Wizard Pro and concerned, I am glad that you like them. I usually only recommend tools that I actually use, and those two are tools that I use every day.
Thanks for stopping by.
Mark
I am going to just start now with Article Marketing. Hope to get lots of backlinks and traffic from it 🙂
Josh,
The article directories you have created are an interesting idea. Have you thought about doing a training program on building article directories?
How many months revenue were you able to get from selling your article directories? Did you put extra links to the websites you wanted while you ran them?
Thanks
Mark,
Great post! I’ve personally been working on following Josh’ strategy he outlines in his ebook for submission to article directories. I still get concerned with the issues of duplicate content but hope I’m creating a good balance when doing my submissions.
More recently I’ve been experimenting by submitting articles I feel are stronger more well written, to fewer yet stronger article directories(i.e. ezine) and then submitting weaker content to a larger number of directories to help create a larger number of backlinks… then back and forth depending on the content. I maybe just maybe just making things more complicated than it needs to be?
(This is essentially Josh’s method and maybe giving too much away from josh’s ebook – you would’nt hurt my feelings if you didnt publish this comment)
There are some articles you really want to call your own and want that content to ONLY be on your site.. but then at the same time you want to get the word out about those articles… its a catch 22 I suppose.
Also thanks to both you and Josh on clearing up the difference between bum marketing and article marketing. I was one who used both terms interchangeably.
I am article marketing newbie and I just came across the term “Bum Marketing”. What a great concept. I recently purchased the WordPress templates from your website and am going to use them soon. Have you thought about coming out with an expanded package to add more variety? Thanks Mark
@Joe — I have thought about it — stay tuned. Hopefully there will be a whole new version this summer.
What is a article resource box and how do you add it to your article? Or is something on the directory that adds your website link to the article?
Article marketing has always be an excellent source of traffic for me, plus it helped me achieve top rankings in the search engines as well.
With the web 2.0, article marketing is becoming even more effective.
Franck
I have been struggling for some time with my yahoo and google ranks. A friend of mine turned me on to your site and to article marketing. I think I have figured out why my site with a great PR is behind others in the order it appears in the search engines. Thanks for a great and informative site for all of us do it yourselfers.
Thank you very much. I am wonderring if I can share your article in the bookmarks of society,Then more friends can talk about this problem.
Good info Mark. I’ll be buying AAS soon, through your link :). One question. Why is it that bad to compete with your own website? Isnt having more than one ranking in google page one a good thing?
Jan
Hey Mark. THats a quick reply 🙂 I agree ezinearticles would likely beat me…hmm… you see I heard about this other strategy, where you put your article on your blog first, get it indexed, and then put it on ezinearticles and others. You are the author, so its ok (no duplicate content issues..). This way, maybe your site still gets the better of ezinearticels in google?
Anyway, about to buy AAS from ya.
Should be fun. Oh also, do you generally have good success using article marketing with CPA offers? email me if easier. Thanks
Jan
Hey Jan — there are 2 schools of thought on this. Some people say you should try to get all 10 slots on the 1st page. Others say that if you find a KW that you can win with your site, you should not compete there with EZA because EZA will beat you, and a lot of that traffic will leak to adsense instead of the link in the resource box.
What is needed to prove this is testing….which I have not done.
Thanks,
Mark
I am not a CPA guy — so no, not generally because I do not usually do it. No question you can send traffic, but it is not clear that it will convert.
I am trying this now as part of the AAS tutorial series (as you know) — and I will publish all of the results.
Hi Mark,
Which of the two products would you recommend?
Article Post Robot or AutomaticArticleSubmitter (recommended by Josh Spaulding)
Thanks in advance!
Karim
@Karim — before AAS existed, I recommended APR. APR is a good tool, but I believe AAS is better. I currently use AAS myself (but I own both tools).
Article Marketing is really a good way in promoting your products and also your website. i used to write health articles on a big pharmaceutical company for the purpose of article marketing.
I started using article marketing just last month. I’m definintely getting traffic from the links in the articles. Not only is this great, but it assures me that there are people interested in what I’m blogging about. This is always encouraging.
This article has been a true eye opener when it comes to improving your organic rank. I’ve struggled with my organic ranking for years and paid Google thousands of dollars for Sponsored placement. Thanks for the tips and I’ll begin my Article Marketing today!
Blake
Hi
Great post. I must admit article marketing is still a great way today to get traffic. Once I have had my articles written I submit them to ezinearticle and once they have been accepted by ezinearticle, I submit them to seolink vine and it slowly builds backlinks to my site and it works great for me.
Good old bum marketing after all these years it’s still going strong!