Article marketing and PPC (pay per click) advertising are two of the more well known marketing methods used on internet today. Although these two techniques can be very effective, they lack similarity in most every other way.

To help determine what choice may be best for you, let's have a look at both the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.

Article Marketing Strengths:

• An obvious strength of this form of advertising is that it is free. You are able to write and publish to literally thousands of article directories on the internet for a cost of nothing more then the effort it took to write the article.

• Articles, if well written, can stay in circulation on the internet for a long period of time affording the writer continuous exposure and advertising during that duration of time.

• Many article directories have very high rankings with the search engines. By having your website link inside the resource box of your article, which is now posted on these high ranking article directory sites, your own website ranking gets a boost.

• When you are composing the content for your article it is usually comprised of helpful and interesting information for the readers. As people read your articles, your credibility increases since you are now viewed as a source of useful information due to the content you've published. You are now building a sound reputation amongst these readers.

• Readers of articles also get a better insight of the author thru the tone and style in which the article was composed. As a result there is a greater feeling of familiarity fostered between the writer and reader.

PPC Strengths:

• The strength of this method is the speed with which you get the results from your advertising efforts. Literally within minutes you can have customers responding to your ad which certainly bodes well in this age of instant gratification.

• Another strength of pay per click is the more targeted traffic you capture is more likely to make a purchase.

Article Marketing Weaknesses:

• Unlike PPC this form of promoting takes longer to develop and produce results. It could take as long as 3 to 4 weeks for a published article to generate traffic for you.

• Another issue with writing articles is just that: you have to write the article and this task can seem very intimidating and labor intensified for many.

PPC Weaknesses:

• This approach is not free and could prove very costly if you're not familiar with what you're doing. You are limited by space to write your ad therefore your ability to compose good sales copy is a requirement.

• Another point to consider here is that although results can be very quick as far as generating traffic for your site, this traffic stops immediately once your ad is pulled.

Both article marketing and PPC present very compelling strengths and weaknesses as your choice to advertise online. What ever technique you choose (if not both) ultimately will be up to you and your particular circumstances and comfort zone. Here's to your success with whatever technique(s) you may utilize!