Posted on February 01, 2012 by CJ Article Team

Article writing and marketing is one of the greatest forms of advertising online today. In fact, the importance of article marketing has grown in the past years to become arguably the number one method of web-site promotion. Much of the success of article marketing is due to the existence of numerous article directories. These directories are essentially online websites that display content and they have become great places for internet marketers to promote their sites, for bloggers to gain free content, for webmasters to gain free content, and for readers to learn from experts on virtually every single topic imaginable. Assuming that you do all of your article directory submissions manually, your out of pocket costs will likely be close to zero.

In no time flat you can establish yourself as an expert on any subject that you happen to be knowledgeable on. Because article directories are voracious carnivores for quality content, they are always looking for fresh NEW content to add to their databases for their readers, webmasters, newsletter, and e-Zine publishers. Additionally, because article directories are full of keyword-rich content, they tend to rank well in search engines such as Google. Therefore, they are not surprisingly lightening rods for traffic and are seen by millions of people each and every day. You can easily take advantage of this traffic by simply writing and submitting articles to these directories. Its an excellent, low cost way to build credibility and to drive traffic to your website or blog.

When you submit your article to the directories you are allowed to include your URL in your signature. This URL ultimately becomes a backlink to your website. Backlinks are an important part of search engine optimization and the more back links to your site, the higher your search engine ranking and page rank will be. These links should link readers directly to your website, whether it be an online store or a content site. The more articles that you have distributed across the internet, the more links you will have. Search engines are looking increasingly towards the bigger article directories for use in their ranking methods, so writing articles is definitely a productive way to promote your site provided you include working links back to your site. But the back links included in your articles submissions are really just the first stop for your article. A large part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large audience and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work.

Unfortunately, the article submission takes time and you don’t want to waste that time. Fortunately, article submission does not have to be done manually, site by site, which is particularly useful for people writing large numbers of articles and trying to get them onto a large number of sites. Belonging to ArticleMarketer or iSnare, for example, or other article submission services available online will greatly increase the number of articles you are able to submit as well the messages in your email box from the article directory owners. If you still want to maximize the number of directories you are able to submit your articles to but can not afford the fees of the article submission services you can always opt to purchase various article submission software programs. Unlike articles submission services, article submission software only entail a one time fee. Although articles submission software will certainly save you time, some article submission software is semi-automatic. This means that you will still have to click from one article directory to another to post while other, more expensive versions are fully automatic.

While article marketing provides you a simple and effective way to market your business, understand that the entire process involves an intricate web of individuals. The three main groups that make article marketing possible are the authors, the sites that are looking to publish, and the article directories themselves. Each relies on the other to uphold certain standards in order to maintain the credibility of the article marketing business. As everyone does their job and holds up their end of the bargain, the article marketing process will continue to function effectively.

Zachary R. Skinner,

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/625651