You'll hear it repeatedly, making money with article marketing is the way to start out online if you are short on money and long on time. I'm here to tell you that is true. However, what is not often mentioned is that if you don't do it the right way, it can be a very short path to futility, and often giving up. However, I'm not ever going to let that happen so let's begin with some very basic guidelines you need to follow. 

1.)Keywords- In case you didn't know, article marketing is really about writing a keyword targeted article as it is about anything else. You can have the best article in the world, but it doesn't matter if nobody ever reads it. No article directory in the world will let you know whether your article is correctly keyword optimized or not, you need to decipher that for yourself. Do not skip this step. Ever. Why? Because you may as well not bother without it....article marketing won't work. So the first thing you need to do is figure out a specific market niche, find out the low competition (read "long tail") keywords for that niche, and then write one article per keyword. Yep. Not multiple keywords per article, just a single keyword for each article. That keyword targeted article should point to the same keyword targeted page on your website. This establishes relevance, which is what search engines are built around. 

2.)Write- For any article marketing campaign, it is best to have a long list of keywords so you can try as many articles as possible. Cast a wide net, observe the results, and then focus on those articles that did well. Write one article between 300-500 words per keyword, focusing on a 1% density for each keyword article. I like to go with the keyword once in the title, once in the body, and once in the concluding sentence. No more. 

Then you need to write. The more competitive the niche, the more you need to write. The key is to write original content on a consistent basis over time. Article marketing is an ongoing process, like putting gas in your car, not a single event that begins and ends. Look at completing 3 to 5 articles per week for a year. At the end of that year, your financial situation online should look pretty good unless you really made some big mistakes or had horrendous luck. Article marketing will ONLY succeed if you are consistent, and accumulate your keyword targeted content to a 'critical mass' over time. 

3.)Submit- You may hear that submit to this directory or that is the key to traffic Valhalla or whatever. What I would recommend is that you find article directories that have decent Google Page Rank, and submit to those sites only. Ezine is the obvious first choice, but by far not the only one. To find out the page rank of any site, go to SEO Quake and download their free toolbar. Remember, not all article directories are created equal. Those with Page Rank are the only ones you should worry at the start of your article campaign.