The Difference Between an Article And An Advertisement

If you browse article directories you will generally see two types of articles. Informative or educational, and promotional. One is effective and helps you build your brand and sell more. One gets completely ignored. Can you guess which article gets which response?,
One of the issues with many novice business people is the fact that they are told to promote, sell, sell, sell, and so make money, but no one tells them how to do it. As such, much of the time they start with free and easy traffic sources and put up pages that advertise. Then they are told to make their pages keyword rich, so they saturate the page with keywords. Last they are told about article marketing and get into that. They take their most keyword filled ad, format it, and turn it into a keyword saturated article.
A complete and disaster is then spread across hundreds of article directories.
The Ads in the guise of Articles accomplish just one thing on a regular basis. They ruin the "writer's" reputation. Rather than demonstrating knowledge, a willingness to teach and assist others, or knowledge about their product that will encourage people to explore further, they bash them over the head with hype instead.
This is an example of an Ad as an Article: My notes are in parentheses ( )
Look good when you swim: Jack Cann Bikinis - (Notice the immediate pitch) Swimming when you look good will make you have fun in places lots of people will see you and see you wearing in style. (Makes almost no sense-indicating the writer just wanted an ad, not a quality article) To prevent not being seen as looking good, you want to have awesome bathing clothing to make you look fine? (A question mark, but not a question) The bathing suit that is looking good gets you fame and fortune and someday maybe you will cover on Sports Illustrated. (I can't recall ever hearing about a random lady swimmer being picked for Sports Illustrated, a famous model, yes.) These days, most women are getting dressed for swims (?) in Jack Cann Bikinis (Again the deliberate pitch) and are regret (poor grammar again) waiting so long to buy them,, (2 commas. Why?) and dress up in them. (finish with more bad grammar)
This exmple is poorly edited, not proofread, written solely to promote a product, and includes facts that simply are not facts.
When was the last time you purchased something from a salesperson who kept shouting benefits and reasons to buy at you? Probably never. I cannot even count the number of times I have walked off a car lot or out of a store because I abhor that type of sales tactic. And so does everyone else!