Content is the currency fueling the Internet. Yet, article banks, repositories for authors to promote their content, are still the Internet’s best-kept secret.

I learned about article banks through a casual chat at a networking event. A few days later, I posted my first article, Five Secrets to Winning Book Proposals. What happened next made me a true believer in the marketing prowess of free content.

My website stats skyrocketed. In one day, I had 933 new visitors, 40 new newsletter subscribers and six client leads. The days and weeks that followed provided more encouraging results.

Previously, my cat Harvey was my only loyal visitor. His motivation for coming to the website was the heat generated from atop the computer’s monitor that displayed my homepage—cute—but not a business-building strategy. Articles provide a new level of expertise, consistency and ubiquitous Internet coverage for any business.

>From my experience, I found that placing an article in an article bank is like dropping a pebble in a pond. The energy expands the rings of influence. Five Secrets, now published in over 20 e-zines, still produces client leads and the occasional fan letter.

If I can do it, you can, too. Here are several tips for getting started with article banks.

With any marketing activity, you want to measure it effectiveness. Web statistics are important. Contact your host provider about receiving regular traffic reports. I suggest reviewing them on a monthly basis.

I also think it is important to track where articles appear. I suggest that your first step is to benchmark where you are today on the Internet by setting a Google Alert for your name or the name of your business. Every time your article is posted to a website by a third-party, Google will send you the link via email. This is a great way to track where you content appears on the web.

Step 1: Go to Google. On the search page, select MORE, this is located directly above the search box in the right-hand corner.

Step 2: Under Google services, the first service listed is ALERTS. It is marked by an alarm bell. Click ALERTS.

Step 3: You are now on the WELCOME TO GOOGLE ALERTS page. You can create an alert using the form given on this page. Alternatively, you can click the link MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT that will allow you to create a free account in order to set multiple alerts.

Step 4: Set-up a Google Alert for your name. Be sure to put your name in quotation marks. ("Melissa Rosati"). Quotation marks instruct Google to only pull references where these two words appear together. Without the quotation marks, I would receive every generic MELISSA listed on the Internet.

Step 5: Select NEWS AND WEB. This command specifies that Google will search the eight billion pages on the web and will retrieve for you all of the pages where your name appears. You may choose to have Google report to you every day or once each week. Depending on your current web presence, Google will send you your first alert within one to two weeks. As your articles expand on the web, the alerts will come more frequently.

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