Three Things to Do Before Submitting to Article Directories

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Now is the time to start dusting off those creative writing skills you acquired in high school and college.

With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to websites and converting them into buyers. This is why article writing, article submission and article publishing is becoming so popular.

There are already many tools people can use to make the process of distributing their articles easier. This is invaluable in getting your content more exposure, but that is only half of the story.

Let's take a look at the common mistakes that some people make before they ever submit their contents to article directories:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.

In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting your articles; branding, lead generation and promotion. These are all part of your optimization efforts.

But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading it.

You need to figure out first how to get people to read your article, then make them click on your resource box. You can achieve this by producing better content.

2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from that same articles?

Mention keywords at strategic places. Just be sure not to overdo it. Some people even use anchor texts, another effective marketing method. (The majority of the directories are not able to support this yet.)

Remember, it's not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of subscribers and gaining the ability to leverage other brands because of the quality of your work. Better search engine results are another great benefit.

These things don't put much money in your pocket, however. But there are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity to boost your earnings, and not just increase the number of visitors to your site. Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to serve.

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.

Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all you want are links back to your site. Any visitors your articles can generate are icing on the marketing cake.

Guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. Oftentimes, they have guidelines and specifications on the articles they will accept.

You can double your number of article submissions by writing articles that more directories and publishers want to share with their readers and site visitors. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight so the more publishers - whether website or ezine - that you reach, the better.

Write articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work most effectively for you. This also means you must obey standard guidelines, spell checks, basic grammar rules, as well as researching on a good topic, or even hiring a writer or editor to produce good content on your behalf.

In the end, it's all really a matter of choice on your part. You can use article marketing to start getting a little exposure from increased links back to your website, but on a very basic level. Or you can enjoy massive exposure from a little extra time creating quality content. Which would you rather have?

Darlene "Dee" Bishop is a writer and creative designer with decades on online experience and the owner of Bishop's Corner, an online/catalog shop offering hundreds of quality gifts, home decor items, toys, housewares, furniture and more with nearly 1,000 products under $20. Visit her online store today at http://BishopsTN.com.

NOTE: Feel free to use this article in your ezine or on your website provided you leave it entirely intact, including the resource box above. A courtesy copy to is appreciated.