If you’ve already started writing articles and spreading them around the Internet for marketing purposes, you’re likely operating under the assumption that it’s very important to avoid being offensive in any way. If you let this principle steer you away from controversy, though, you may be missing out on a lot of potential attention. Here are some of the reasons taking a controversial point of view can really amplify the effectiveness of your articles.

Effective article marketing is all about linking your chosen topic to the most popular and trendy terms and concepts related to it. If you do your research, you’ll find that these terms and keywords often involve taking a biased stance towards the topic. Going along with the trend and choosing a side for your own articles can bring new currency to an under-exposed topic and help your work stand out on topics that are already heavily discussed. For some topics, being unbiased may even be more difficult than remaining detached.

The power of controversy can be demonstrated very easily: An article that says, “product X is better than product Y” will always generate more interest than one which says, “product X is good.” This phenomenon applies to many topics besides consumer merchandise; politics and sports are other obvious examples where strong opinions stand out over neutral tones. If you elect to take your article marketing campaign in this opinionated direction, you need to prepare to deal with the controversy along with the increased traffic.

When you take a stand on one side of an issue, many of the additional readers who start paying attention to you are going to disagree with you. Some of them may do so quite vehemently. If you can cultivate a thick skin, you can use these adversarial readers to increase your online visibility even further. Adding community participation to a controversial article marketing campaign is a great idea. Whether you allow debate and discussion to erupt in blog comments or create a whole forum for your readers to hash out their opinions, you will be drawing further attention from both agreeing and disagreeing readers.

Although controversy can provide great benefits to your article marketing efforts, it’s important to retain your perspective at all times. The common trap to fall into is to start chasing controversy for its own sake. Remember that the goal here is to foster debates, not to win them. This makes it important to stick with controversial topics where the different potential sides to argue from all have their merits. Good controversies are those that will never be resolved; they can provide a perpetual flow of attention to your articles.

Choosing to write controversial articles is not a marketing strategy that will suit every taste or every situation. If you feel you are prepared to weather the storms and the flames you might stir up, though, there are real advantages waiting for you. Keep this article’s suggestions in mind and try creating a few biased articles of your own. You may be surprised by how much more effective they are!