Article marketing is touted as the most effective link building strategy and traffic building tactic in existence. It is and it isn’t depending on how you employ it. There are many different points of view but there are mainly 5 strategies that most experts agree upon and use.

Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you submit. Inside this resource box, you include a link to your website. If you submit just one article to 100 article directories and it is approved for publication, you will immediately receive 100 back links to your website. There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web which can mean thousands of back links and huge traffic!

Now, if you submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you may get 500 back links easily! How? Again, by including the link to your website or blog in the Author Box at the end of your articles like I have done below. The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks (PR). We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your search engine standing! This means your site will be noticed by more people.

Here are the top 5 questions that experts get about Article Marketing and the answers to those questions.

1. If I submit the same article to many article directories, will it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?

The simple answer is – No – but see #2 (below) for a loophole. Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines will assume that the submitted content is your original work. This is the reason why most article directory editors are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they try to avoid, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services. They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR (private label rights) articles as well as articles loaded with Affiliate links.

PLR articles are those you buy that were written by someone other than you. These are not a good way to go because the authors are selling the same articles to hundreds of other people. Using PLR articles will create a “duplicate content” problem for you with both the search engines and with the Directory editors.

2. Should I submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

If the article was posted on your website or blog first, the answer is “Yes, absolutely!”. If you submit your articles to directories first, the search engines may assume that where the articles first appeared, in the Article Directory, is the originator of the content. In that case, your articles could be distinguished as “duplicate content”. This could lead to the de-indexing of your articles. It will not, however, get your website de-indexed. The key is, you want your articles to appear on your website or blog first and be indexed first as originating with you. Wait a few days and then submit them to directories.

3. Can I submit as many articles as I want to as many article directories as possible?

Absolutely, that’s what I do and I do it often! This is very much advised as a fast way to build up your link popularity and secure a great page rank for your website or blog. I have only found one directory so far that only allows one submission per day. I have not found any others that have any limits whatsoever.

Bear in mind that search engines are quite wary of any website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that when you submit articles to the article directories, wait a few days between each submission. There is one exception to this. When I began submitting articles I had 10 that I submitted on the same day to get established, so to speak. After that I limited my submissions to one a day to each directory.

4. Why are my page views still quite low even after submitting my articles?

If your page views remain at low levels after submitting many articles, ask yourself, or someone you trust, the following:

a) Is the subject of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?

b) Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?

c) Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation to others?

d) Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you are sharing?

I almost always ask my wife or my best friend for their advice on my writing. I have no ego to bruise. I want my articles to be readable and helpful. So ASK! If you get – “No” – to any of these, you have found the factors that contribute to your low page views. Doing some editing to correct the problems you have identified can dramatically increase the number of times your article is viewed and your Author Box link to your site clicked.

I have some articles that were viewed more than 130 times in just a few days through just one Article Directory! Multiply that by about 300 and you can see the impact. Many of the readers clicked my Author Box link and visited my blogs for more Free Resources on a particular topic. I pride myself on providing lots of Free stuff on my blogs and you should too.

Remember, some article directories attract only a few visitors so viewing will also be low. If you are writing on a highly specialized topic, low page views would not be unusual.

The key is, your articles are published and your back link in your Author Box is pointing to your website or blog and that helps your page rank even on a low viewed directory.

5. Can I be sure that my articles will be kept intact by people who would use them in their own websites or eZines?

You can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster published your Author Box links. If he did not, you could ask him to include them. If you get no response, contact the article directory editors so that they themselves can act on the matter. Vigilance is the key. It is rare but it does happen.

A positive side of directories is the editors will recognize “duplicate content” when the thief tries to submit your article under their name. The article will be rejected. This leaves them with placing it on their own blog or wesbite and you can find that out by doing the search as described.

Do these 5 things and watch your traffic increase.

Lastly, finding Article Directories to submit to is simple – Google “Article Directories” and you will get a huge list. Or, do what I do. I use software that submits the articles with a few button clicks. This has saved me hours upon hours of tedious hand-submission because the software has over 350 of the best directories built in so you do not have to search for them.

Keep in mind, submitting articles takes work, tons of work when submitting to one directory at a time. Check out various software like I did. The best software does cost a few bucks so do not expect to get off cheap. There is free or low cost software but “you get what you pay for”.

Bottom line is: Articles, written by you, are still the fastest and cheapest (Free!) way to get more traffic and higher search engine rankings.

Become a better writer, today! Jim DeSantis is an Internet Publisher and former TV News Editor. Jim provides more information about writing on his blog, AnswersPlus.info, where you’ll find – “The Writer’s Guide to Internet Marketing” and “Instant Essay” software. Click “Writers’ Guide” and “Essay Creator” in the sidebar. Also available here – http://www.answersplus.info

Article Source: http://bb-articles.com

EzineArticles is a matching service — bringing real-world experts and ezine publishers together. Expert Authors & Writers are able to post their articles to be featured within the site. The searchable database of hundreds of thousands of quality original articles allows publishers hungry for fresh content to find articles that they can use for inclusion within their next publication.

EzineArticles are managed by a proprietary management software designed to give you maximum exposure to a loyal audience of hundreds of thousands of daily visitors and an email newsletter publisher audience who EACH have thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of email list members of their own. That means your original articles and expertise may be exposed to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people rather than waiting passively for someone to syndicate it on yet another website with no traffic.

Amazines.com offers free articles, free web content, and free article feeds which are submitted by their network of quality registered authors. Once registered, their authors are free to submit articles for distribution to Ezines, affiliated websites and anyone else who wishes to use our article database.

They are building the most comprehensive article database that is free and easy to use for the Author to submit and manage articles. And free and easy for the Publisher to use articles on their webpages and include them in Ezines and our publishing mediums.

Articlealley.com is a free article directory, built in 2004 to help authors promote and syndicate their content and has grown hugely. They now have a loyal author base of over 60,000 active authors and more than half a million pages of content.

Webmasters all around the World use article alley every day to find free content they can include on their own site. Content is free to use if a working hyperlink is retained to the source page on Article Alley and the author has selected their articles to be free to republish.

They have a network of informational sites; content submitted to any of these sites may get used elsewhere on the network. They are a general Internet article site covering a wide range of topics from Automotive through to Webmaster issues. An A1 article has a press release section which is ideal to promote corporate announcements.

ArticleCity.com is a one-stop source for free articles. Do you need contents to add to your web site? Or articles for use on your opt-in newsletters and e-zines? ArticleCity has scoured the web and indexed a huge collection of articles on various subjects. Just click on the appropriate category to read the articles.

Articledashboard.com does not give any informative information about their site however they do provide you with a free version of the software they use to create their site which you can download and start your own publishing site with.

Articlegold.com-Give them a look

Buzzle.com has many authors who create interesting and thought-provoking content for enjoyment. With categories covering everything from animals to tourism, http://Buzzle.com is a complete source for news, articles and information. Get the latest buzz, interact with authors and other readers on our message boards, or add to the buzz by becoming and author. They promote themselves as a source of intelligent life on the web.

Goarticles.com claims to be the world’s largest free content directory. They have free javascript and RSS feeds which most of these sites have.

Ideamarketers.com provides content not only in written form but also the author has the choice to provide the content in audio and video. You can also ad your photo to your articles. It is organized more so around the authors then on topics of writing.

Freecoachingarticles.com is a site for life coaches to share articles and information. It also has information for training and certification programs. They receive over 1 million visitors each week.

If you would like a service to submit an article to all of these publishers and many more at one time then your choice would be http://isnare.com. It is not a free service but it’s rates are very reasonable and your article is submitted to thousands of sites at one time.

Author Bio: Did you find this article helpful? If you did then take a look at the step by step video tutorials here! http://www.MaverickMoneyFriend.com

Article Source: http://hot-resell-rights.com

Last night I added some more plug ins to this blog which are:

All in one SEO pack

This should help with the search engines and this is what the plug in is supposed to do:

* Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
* Generates META tags automatically
* Avoids the typical duplicate content found on Wordpress blogs
* For Wordpress 2.7 you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
* You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
* You can fine-tune everything
* Backward-Compatibility with many other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others.

Followsite

Thats a ‘keep me updated’ button at the bottom of every post. Hopefully visitors will like the content enough to want to know when something else is posted and return to read it.

Tweet Me

Every time something is posted on this blog news of it will land on Twitter. I’ll explain more about using Twitter and social bookmarking sites to get traffic another day, but it’s all good.

Automagic Twitter Profile URI

I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. I think it’s something to do with Twitter members being able to add posts to their profiles.

The plug ins are really easy to add with this new version of Wordpress – I’m impressed!

Feeds

I also added the RSS feed to Bloglines and added an RSS feed from the Internet Marketing category of my article directory to this blog. That’s good because the feed updates every time an Internet Marketing article is accepted on my directory and automatically adds new content to this blog.

I might add more feeds from different relevant categories, it’s all good information and fresh content to keep the search engines happy.

I took a quick peek at traffic statistics and already there is an increase, but I’ll wait until tomorrow to let you know the full January figures.

I won’t be doing much else until Sunday evening because I’m going to stay at my daughters overnight. Catch up with you tomorrow.

I left things yesterday with looking for content for this blog and that’s where I hit problems. I visited my article directory and looked in the Free Tools and Resources category and had a bit of a wake up call.

You see when I started my article directory in July 2007 to get the ball rolling I added a script that would import articles from another company. The next day 47,000 appeared and brought massive problems with them.

Many articles had been submitted to the wrong categories, new categories had been formed which duplicated some of the categories already there, for instance Mortgage and Mortgages, links were stripped from author bios and there were many crap articles that I wouldn’t have accepted.

The script got fixed for link stripping but it didn’t solve the other problems so I stopped using it after a week and just took articles that were manually submitted. I spent a lot of time putting things right but you always miss something.

Last night when I visited the Free Tools and Resources section I found that most of the articles in there were out of category, even one about buying coffins for goodness sake. When I found a suitable article for this blog I discovered that the link was dead. I then checked that authors account and he has over 500 articles on the directory and of the 20 or so articles that I checked all of the links were dead.

Not a good sign for somebody who is offering advice about Internet marketing. Something could have happened in his personal life to end his business, or he just might not have made it as an Internet marketer.  Either is possible but if it’s the latter it indicates just how tough it is to make it in a home business internet or otherwise.

Dead links leave directory owners with a quandary. We know that a lot of dead links might affect a websites status in the search engines so we need to deal with them. Three choices:

1. Find an active link of that author and replace the dead links with it.

2. Delete all of the articles

3. Replace the links with your own active links or those of a charity.

Usually I go for option 1 and then option 2 if I can’t find an active link for that author. I would feel as if it was cheating to go for option 3, though a link to a charity might be a good idea.

Adding Content

Now that I’ve sorted out the article directory and added a few posts from there I’m going to add some of my own fresh content to this blog. The search engines like unique content so I always intersperse my own content amongst other peoples articles.

I make sure that there are some good keywords in the titles and articles but not so many that it doesn’t make sense. I also add my keywords as tags to give my articles a search engine boost.

Thoughts About This Theme

I really like this theme and although currently I haven’t made many of my own changes I can see that it’s easy to do. When I write a new page and publish it the page automatically gets a link at the top of the page. On my other blogs I have to add those links with html.

I did try to add categories for the recommended website links but so far I haven’t managed that, but I’ll figure it out sooner or later.

Hello World

After writing some content I then decided to sort out my Google sitemap. Sitemaps are cool in that they make it easier for the search engines to find and index your web pages. I made my sitemap by easily adding a plugin to the blog and once I had set it up the sitemap notified Google and some other search engines that the blog was up and running. I was then able to indicate how often that I wanted Google to crawl different aspects of this blog.

You might be wondering why I attach so much importance to content, keywords, tags, sitemaps and search engines so I’ll try to explain. If you think of a new website as a shop, but the shop has nothing in the window, no signs and no advertising has been done, then unless somebody stumbles upon it by accident then it won’t have any customers.

The same applies to a website or blog so you need to signal to the search engines that you are up and running and keep them happy enough to send traffic your way.

After submitting the sitemap I placed an advert on a free advertising blog and then checked my other websites and blogs to see if they were linking to this blog. If not I will place a link and instantly have some backlinks.

During the rest of the evening I will be checking free Wordpress widgets and plug ins to see if there is anything that might be useful to me.