A lot of have been written about the Importance of submitting articles to Article Directories. Article Directory is a useful source for information on the Internet today. Many people including journalist, analysts, and writers among others surf different article directories in search of useful information. So if you want to share useful information or for that matter promote your website then submitting articles to such directories is the best solution. Now the question one need to ask here is how can this help in promoting your website in the Search Engines.

Article directory is an important technique as far as Search Engine Optimization is concerned. As a web promoter you write the articles and submit them to article directories for approval. The key factor is that you can add a link back to your website in the resource box of these article directories. So basically if some one on the Internet comes across your article they will have a chance of actually visiting your website through the resource box.

There are thousands of Article directories on the Internet. While submitting your articles to such directories you have to understand different features that will help you in distributing the article in the right way. Every article directory has a title, article summary, article body whereby you post in the entire article, keywords and most importantly the resource box. Let me show you the resource box I have used for this particular article.

” Thomas R is the author of this article on “Your website keyword” (Link back the keyword with the URL of your website). Find more information about the subject at (URL of your website)

If you just check at the bottom of this article you will find my resource box. I have highlighted my primary keyword with the link back to my website. Likewise you too can write interesting articles that will enhance the readers interest so much so that they will be forced to check out your website link as well.

How many article directories should I submit my article to?

Now this is a very interesting question. I am sure you to must me haunted by this question regularly as to how many article directories you need to submit your article to. To be frank let me tell you that there is no limit to the number of article directories on the Internet. It will be good for your website and your business if you could submit your article to as many directories as you can. For quick results you can start submitting your articles to quality article directories that have a high Pr in the Search Engines. However this does not mean that an Article directory with Pr 0 has no value. One of the important points that you have to consider here is that these directories too will get a Page Rank on their next google Update. So basically it’s a matter of time that your article will be indexed here as well.

However in doing so you have to make sure to avoid submitting your articles to directories that are plagiarized and banned by the Search Engines.

The most targeted website traffic will come from article marketing, which means submitting articles to article directories-Banks. Although it is a timeworn expression, it has been confirmed countless times since many internet marketers rely their website promotion on article marketing.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as it may seem. Only few false actions could lead the internet marketer’s article marketing campaign to failure or at least to ineffectiveness. That happens because that relatively new online marketing method do has some rules. If the marketer does not comply with them, poor results will be the outcome.

- Follow the directory rules.

Although it is tempting to buy a script that submits automatically to article directories, that solution should be avoided. Every article directory publisher has some guidelines and rules that following them to the point is a requirement for accepting the submission.

- Choose the right category.

It seems simple but many people pass it over. The right thematic category where the article should be included has to be chosen carefully not only because of the danger of rejection but also because of the marketing potential, the article will have. The right category means targeted people reading the article, which leads to the conclusion that the information might be interesting and consequently search for more by visiting the writer’s website.

- Be careful with PLR (Private Label Articles).

That’s another one temptation. Why bother writing, since thousands of PLR articles are out there and some of them free? If only it was so simple. Someone else has already submitted the PLR articles before. Therefore, the publisher will reject the resubmitted article. After all, with the advanced anti-copy software that exists in the market it is only a few seconds task to locate the duplicate article.

- Avoid Affiliate Links

Article marketing is a profitable internet marketing technique but not in such way. The “quick buck” tactic is so unprofessional that it is certain it will lead to opposite results. Displaying affiliate links in the article’s text means that writer is a novice and does not know the internet-marketing trend and the reader will be discouraged about reading more. Moreover, many authoritative article banks do not allow affiliate links in the articles and some not even in the resource box. A great example is ezinearticles.com

- Keyword Density is important but proceed with caution.

Keyword Density is the procedure of selecting the right keywords included in the article, aiming to better search engine ranking according to the article’s primary keyword, which eventually leads to more website traffic and sales. The safe ratio for keyword density of the submitted article is the percentage 10%. That means the keywords the writer will use should not overcome the 10% of the overall text. If there is over optimizing search engines will trace it and don’t rank it well (or even at all) and so the whole article marketing strategy will go in vain.

- Submit to all of them? No way.

You have a marketing article and you submit it to a self-improvement directory hoping that they will list it? I t will not happen. The reason is simple. The readers are not targeted and they are not interested in the specific niece. The publisher already knows that and won’t even deal with the article at all. All this is a time consuming process leading to nowhere. The submissions should only take place to relevant article directories-Banks.

- Use short paragraphs.

Do not get beyond the 5-6 lines in every paragraph. It becomes too tiring for the reader the long passages and it will be discouraging for them to continue reading. Short paragraphs will maximize the readership of the article and eventually more clicks to the recourse’s box links.

- Sub headings are necessary.

Sub headings create a more appealing structure for the article. Actually, they take the readers by the head and help them to scan the article on its entirety. If the subheadings are interesting, the readers will stay and keep reading, if not they will leave.

Twice today I received invitations from article directory owners to join their new sites. In many ways I am flattered, but in other ways I almost want to mention that they have their work cut out for them. I have some recommendations for article directory managers. If you are interested in learning what they are, please read on.

Benchmark Ezine Articles

- My primary site for submitting articles is with EzineArticles.com. Why? Volume, service, article penetration, search engine optimization, blog, forum, email updates, site navigation, cutting edge technology, to name some features. This site is one that is highly active where authors know the manager, Christopher Knight, and hear from him regularly. You get the feeling that Ezine Articles is going places…and fast!

Ask Permission First

- Some of my articles have appeared elsewhere, without my permission. I guess having over 400 articles online gives me extra special attention, perhaps more than someone who has 40 articles. Still, I must say that one web director who took my articles has apparently given up the practice and without notification to his authors. Let’s just say I won’t waste my time with someone who doesn’t at least care enough to respond to my emails!

Distinguish Yourself From The Pack

- Thanks to a new article software program that hit the market over the summer, lots of folks are snapping up this easy to use program and starting their own directories. Competition is a good thing, but

A shake out will occur

- If you want someone like me to take interest in your site, to direct my clients to you (I have plenty), and keep me interested, your site shouldn’t even look like any of the rest of them. I am not saying you shouldn’t use the new software, but please take it to the next level and make it work to the max.

Build Up Page Rank

- Heck, my own site pulls down a page rank of 6. I want you to match my site’s strength or at least come close. Some of the newer sites are not yet ranked and little or nothing has been indexed by Google. BTW, Google is “it” for me. MSN and Yahoo are alright, but Google rocks. After these three…nada!

Details, Details

- The big picture of getting articles out there is great, but I like to see some attention paid to the fine details too. Ezine Articles has not one, but three resource boxes for authors to select from each of which contains information already keyed in by the authors. I know not of one other directory that has even one. Hmmm…

Where Are You Going?

- Where is your article directory going? Do you have RSS feeds, submission agreements with other sites, unique features that are regularly being rolled out, etc. A blog where we hear from YOU, the manager, is highly useful.

There are other areas I am sure that I haven’t covered. I am not singling any directory out and I do wish you the best in your endeavor. Perhaps as your site grows I’ll sign up, but for now I am very busy writing articles and submitting to just a few select sites, like Ezine Articles. Thank you for allowing me to vent!

There are a lot of benefits of submitting your own articles to article directories but before we go into the benefits, what actually are article directories?

Article directories are simply database websites that collect, compile, sort the articles to their own categories and make these articles available to the public. The public can then read these articles for free or reprint them based on certain guidelines.

There is countless number of article directories nowadays. Most of them are offering free membership to authors to submit their quality articles.

In short, this should be good news to webmasters too, who are looking for content to share with their mailing lists, as these article directories provide a great one-stop resource to deposit and find articles.

Now, if you are an author, you shouldn’t just write articles and keep them to yourself if you want to get tons of readers to read them.

You want to get your articles distributed across the net. One great way to do it is by submitting your articles to various article directories.

Let’s see why you should submit your articles to these article directories:

1. You will establish yourself as an expert in your area.

For example, if you are a doctor specializing in cancer treatment, you could write 500-word articles about mesothelioma or breast cancer and how to prevent them. The more you write, the more exposure you’ll get and people will look at you as a knowledgeable person in your area.

Some article directories list top contributing authors and when people see your name among the top, indirectly and subconsciously, they’ll have a perception that you know what you talk about.

2. You don’t have to pay for advertising anymore.

Web publishers and ezine owners are hungry for fresh, quality contents. Simply give them what they want.

Where do these publishers look for articles? Many will find them from article directories.

If you write good articles, these publishers will be more than happy to forward your articles to their mailing lists. With a single article blast, you could potentially reach tens or hundreds of thousands of readers for free.

Article directory owners, at the same time, are also actively marketing their article directories. This means your articles go along with their marketing campaign as well.

3. Your articles can be your viral marketing tools.

There are article directory owners who partner with other webmasters to distribute articles to many other websites. You submit one article to a directory and that same article appears on many other websites at the same time. This technology is called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). If you didn’t know yet, the power of RSS is simply amazing. Big websites will potentially pick up and post your articles on their sites.

Some webmasters will pick up your articles and forward them to others, who forward them to others again. Soon, you’ll discover your same article has been published on hundreds of websites within days. It’s that possible.

4. You can generate massive traffic to your website.

Search Engines love article directories due to their contents and, often, established directories receive massive hits from Google and Yahoo. You could piggyback the traffic received by these directories by depositing your articles on their databases. Those who visit these article directory websites will potentially read your submitted articles.

Just make sure you have a website to promote and you’ve already placed a link back to your website in your signature file at the end of all your articles.

5. You can generate sales even if you don’t have a website.

If you are an expert in your area, people will read your articles and listen to you. Now, if you refer your readers to any product you recommend, your recommendation won’t look like a sales pitch to them anymore. It simply is a solution to their problems, but be very careful with the way you recommend products in your articles. Most article directory owners don’t like blatant advertisements in the articles.

Here’s the best part. If you don’t have a website, guess what? The article directories will be your websites. Your articles will be hosted on these article directory webservers for free.

To get website visitors to contact you, leave your phone number, email address or any special instructions to contact you in your signature file.

To sum up, the 5 reasons above are a few good ideas on why you should submit your articles to various article directories. You will discover more benefits once you get involved in article submission actively.

In case you are looking for websites to publish your articles, below are a few Online Article Directories you can visit.

www.BigArticleDirectory.com
ZapContent.com
www.EzineArticles.com
www.GoArticles.com
www.iSnare.com

Happy Writing to Smart Marketing!

In marketing, friends will never be enough. There will be plenty of people willing to offer you help and guide you to increase your site’s link popularity. One of these folks are article directories website. In particular, niche article directories will give you plenty of advantages. What is a niche article directory? This is a web directory that allows you to publish your content of similar field at their site. In exchange, it will let you promote your website at the end of the article. Niche article directory benefits from you getting your content while you get the chance to promote your website.

In particular, niche article directories can give you several benefits:

Link Popularity. Niche article directories will help you gain link popularity. At the end of each article, writers are allowed to place a link to their website on the resource box. The more you write, the more backward links pointing to your site. This eventually increases your link popularity.

Exposures. Niche article directories will give you plenty of exposure. Website owners who would want additional content, will visit these niche article directories to get their content. This constant flow of visitors will give your content extra exposure that you won’t get from your website. Furthermore, if they decide to publish your articles at their sites, they are not allowed to change the content of the article. Therefore, the link that you placed will remain and you have one more webmaster linking to your website.

Higher Sales Conversion. If readers like your writing, it is easier to convince them to buy a product or service from your site. By sharing your knowledge, they are grateful that they have come across to this piece of wonderful article. You are deemed to be the expert on your field who like to help your audience, instead of pushy marketers trying to offer your inferior products.

More Interested Visitors. Niche directories are offering content of similar fields. This will attract like-minded visitors. For example if a niche article directory is offering content in the field of finance, web surfers seeking to lose weight will not be looking around at this niche directory. This results in a more interested visitors viewing your finance article. These visitors are looking for something and that is why they arrive at this niche directory. A lot of business value this kind of visitors more than general web surfers.

Less Competition. Niche article directory has a lot less categories than a general article directory. This attracts visitors as they do not have to find hard for something they are looking for. For publishers, this will enable your article to stand out. You have less competition to attract the visitors’ attention. More and more visitors will be able to locate your article in a niche article directory. This is precious. After all, the reasons you publish your content is to let others read your masterpiece.

Faster Approval. Niche article directories will have to approve limited number of articles since they specialize in one field. This enables them to publish your article faster and with less errors. On the other hand, big general article directories will have to approve hundreds if not thousands of articles daily.

Free Advertising. On top of it all, submitting your content to niche article directories is free. You can promote your site, derive extra visitors to your site, regarded as experts in your field and increase your link popularity all for the cost of … zero. How sweet is that?

Bum marketing is a way of using articles, either your own or those you have purchased, as platforms into which you will embed affiliate links. The best article sites to submit articles on to use for this purpose are Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles.com and Searchwarp.com, which are all include massive article directory sites and are at the top of the Google search engine rankings.

One of the goals of doing this is to get your affiliate links on Google’s first page. This is done by choosing keywords that are not popular so that you do not attract window shoppers and untargeted traffic. These do not have to be great articles. They just have to be accurate and have the right search engine tools.

These ezine and article directories also prefer submitted articles that are more specialized than usual. For instance an article entitled “How to teach your budgie to talk” would probably have more sales than one entitled “Caring for a budget.” This is because there is too much competition for general words like budgie and care (words that will get you buried deep in the search engine.) So before you submit an article take the time to find that “niche that will make you rich!”

One of the most popular places to submit SEO articles is GoArticles.com. This site is perfect for a new person to Internet marketing that does not have a website because GoArticles allows you to link directly to the merchant website and make your commission that way.

Yet another lucrative place to submit your SEO material is EzineArticles. This is a very popular and powerful site. EzineArticles will get you listed on the first page of search engines with up to 10,000 (ten thousand) competing results. The drawbacks are you need to write a half decent article as a real person reviews them before they published.

Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually put there by whoever owns the copyright to them as a promotion method. Each article has the owners byline placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it (or at least who owns it) and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for further information.

Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they will make you money. By using this method, people who are interested in your product or service will see your article, view you as an expert in the subject, and will visit your website. Even if you cannot write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting (for example for you run an affiliate website), you can always hire a writer to do the work for you. Getting quality articles written will be expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit.

Let’s take a real life example. Imagine that you are an accountant working from home. You write an article on an accounting topic and place it on various article directories. Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e-mail. Your article just gained you a new client who may use your services regularly, but will definitely give you a nice profit at least once.

Furthermore, since you have posted it on a free article directory, others who have affiliate websites about accounting will inevitably use your article for their website. Since they must attach your byline to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website that re-posts your article. This because you will be benefiting of off the traffic that they get to their website.

There are numerous article directories out there for you to utilize. Your bet best is to put a copy of each of your articles on every one for maximum exposure. It will eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit.

If you have spent any time at all researching internet marketing strategies then you know that writing articles can help position you as an expert in your field, gain valuable targeted traffic for your web site, drive leads to your products, grow your email list, and quickly multiple your site’s text links.

Once you are ready to dive into article marketing — and you have a few articles all lined up and ready to submit — you can quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of article directories available. Sure you could simply use a search engine to locate article directories but a recent search netted me 17,800,000 results. That’s enough to make anyone give up before they even begin! Plus that is really not a very effective way to determine the quality of a directory and doing your own quality check can be extremely time-consuming.

Why should you care about the quality of the directory? Just think about it. On the internet you are very much judged (by search engines and visitors alike) by the company you keep. Another important reason to carefully select your article directories is that your time is finite. It is better to regularly submit to a core group of high-quality directories than to throw the same handful of articles at every directory site you can find.

Finding the best high-quality article directories that meet your specific needs and match your specific goals can greatly increase the power of your article marketing campaign. You need to become a savvy article marketer to maximize your article marketing campaign.

Great, but how do you find those high-quality directories?

When I first embarked on article marketing I went straight to people who had been article marketing for a while and asked them for their top recommendations. I posted the question in a couple forums that I regularly check. I quickly assembled a list of hundreds of sites. Now obviously this list is much more manageable than the 17+ million I got from Google but still rather large. First I culled through and found the sites that were mentioned by more than one person and that list became my starting point. I then gathered as much information as possible to determine if they were right for me. I will share my criteria and priorities but you need to work out your own.

Here are the 10 essential questions I ask when reviewing a site:

1. How old is the directory? Is it well established and ranked or is it new and growing? If not then I cross it off the list.

2. Can you easily identify who owns and/or operates the directory? Is there a way to contact that person?

3. How fast do they respond to your email contacts and/or article posts?

4. How many authors does the site have listed? A lot of authors and articles mean a well established site but there may be room on a growing site for more exposure.

5. How many articles does the site have listed? Again a big site won’t get knocked off my list for this but a small site that is growing steadily might be due for a good seo bump soon.

6. Think about the categories you are likely to need and see if they exist. Is there a place to submit all your articles? If this is a niche directory it may be very narrow but then might also be to your benefit in the long run — if at least some of your articles fit within the niche.

7. What special options does the site offer visitors and publishers? Do they provide RSS feeds, email alerts, forward to a friend function and other strategies to increase the distribution of your articles?

8. Are they responsible with the advertising clients they have on their site? ie: No popups, flashing, or offensive ads

9. Do they provide article reports to help you see which articles are getting viewed, rated, distributed or not?

10. How do the search engines view this site?

After visiting each directory and answering these questions it is easy to refine your list to a handful of top sites that you want to really concentrate your efforts upon. You can also maintain some a list of additional sites to submit to as time allows.

I also regularly re-evaluate my top article directory list. I check my backlinks and the directory stats to see how my articles are doing. Some sites move up and down my priority list (or even off the list entirely) when I investigate how they are performing for me.

There are ways around promoting your site. And it isn’t even going to cost you a cent (only a bit of your time). There are what we call web directories and article directories. Web directories, simply, are directories of various categories containing website listings. On the other hand, article directories are directories also containing various categories where you can publish your articles. Why mention the two? You’ll soon find out.

First off, are web directories. Did you know that there hundreds of web directories exist all across the net? What you do is you submit your site to these directories, and there you go – instant links to your site! Did you also know that most of those web directories are free? That’s right, they won’t charge you anything (maybe just some occasional link backs to their site – “reciprocal linking”). What matters is that a site is linking back to your site. If you do this with hundreds of other web directories (thousands, if you have the time and perseverance), you would have that many sites linking back to you. By doing so, your link popularity will increase. Link popularity is the number of links pointing back to your site (the more links, and the higher their PR, the better). It also the basis on how search engines would rank your site. If a search engine sees that you have high link popularity, they would see your site to be important, and rank you accordingly.

Next are article directories. I know what you’re thinking. How would articles help your site get traffic? First reason – by submitting to article directories, you will have the chance to promote your site through the resource box or author’s biography. Like web directories, several hundred article directories exist. And again, they are also free. What you want are directories that let you submit and use their other articles for free. Why use free articles? Second reason – if your site is lacking content and you want people to regularly visit you, use these free articles as your web content (always include the author and source). With your site having more content, more traffic will eventually come to you.

These are two ways of boosting your link popularity, page rank, and of course, traffic. Other than these, you can try getting inbound links through forum participation and link partnership with sites that are related to yours (but that’s another story). I hope you would find this useful, so enlist to web directories and write your articles now.

Bloggers are always on the lookout for ways to market their blog effectively. Throughout the internet, there are various article directories to submit to. Bloggers can benefit immensely from submitting their articles to article directories like http://searchwarp.com and http://isnare.com, which are just two of the popular directories out there.

* Increase your Reputation and Web Presence – Getting published in article directories will boost your credibility. The more informative articles you write, the better you are at positioning yourself as an expert in the field that you write about.

* Increase Your Traffic- Your articles will be viewed by millions of visitors who come to the directories and if your article is picked up by a webmaster who has a large opt in newsletter subscriber list your article will be mailed out to all the subscribers as well as being featured on the site.

* Increase Link Popularity- The better quality your article is the better chances that it will be republished on other sites, therefore increasing your exposure and link popularity.

* Free Advertisement- Nothing beats free advertisement and the resource box that you include in each of your articles delivers that. Your article also might also be placed on the publisher’s home page giving you even more exposure.

* Increase your Backlinks and Pr- Many of these sites reprinting your articles have a high Pr and Google spider bots tend to frequent the websites more often, therefore getting you indexed more quickly. Many of the article directories also have a high page rank.

* Increase your Income- You might gain extra income from people wanting to hire you to write for them.

* Build a Portfolio of your Writing- Article directories provide you with an ability to keep your articles in the directory for an extended period of time, therefore you are able to build a portfolio of your writing.

Submitting to article directories is a simple yet effective way of boosting the traffic to your blog and recognizing you as an expert in your field. Of course the more free article directories you submit to the better. Article directories are popping up all over the internet. For a list of the top ten article directories to submit to and their rating visit Blogger Talk Blog Community forums.