Posted by Ray White on December 10, 2009 Comments (1)

Submitting articles to article directories is an important part of article marketing. Article directories are a direct portal to your target audience. Visitors browsing the directory will find your articles in their areas of interest. Webmasters in your niche will publish your articles, with your resource box, on their sites. Your well-written articles can easily reach hundreds of thousands of interested consumers with just a single directory submission.

Whether you write the articles yourself, strong-arm a friend into writing them for you, or you pay someone else to do it, you need to be sure that the following 3 masters will be satisfied with the end product.

1. Your target audience

Writing articles will brand you as an expert, generate potential leads, and promote your business, but don’t forget the main purpose of writing: to inform your target audience.

There will be lots of articles to choose from, so yours needs to stand out. The article topic must be something your target audience wants more information on. Formatting also goes a long way. Articles should be easy to read with short paragraphs. If you have specific points to get across, put them in outline format or bold them. Correct spelling and grammar looks professional. Being entertaining wouldn’t hurt either.

2. Search engine spiders

Your informative, well-written articles will be published on other websites, along with your resource box, of course. You want the search engines to find the articles when people search for information related to your website.

Before submitting your articles, review them for keyword density. You want your website’s keywords to show up in the articles so that search engine spiders can find them. Wherever it will sound natural, substitute your keywords in your articles. No need to overdo it because the search engine spiders will then ignore your article. Just make sure your keywords are in there somewhere.

3. The Article Directory Site

Just because you write an article doesn’t mean someone else has to publish it. Not all article directories are going to accept your content automatically. Each article directory has its own guidelines and specifications for article submissions.

Check that your article content is appropriate for the directory. An article on how to change the oil in your car is not going to draw much interest on a dog training article directory. If they have a word length requirement, meet it. Style your resource box they way they want it done. It won’t take much time to customize your articles to the specifications of the directory. Following the guidelines of the directory will maximize your chances of getting the articles accepted, which is the whole point of submitting, right?

Article marketing is a cost-effective means of promoting yourself and your website. You will get the most bang for your buck, er article, if you please the 3 masters discussed above. It will be well worth the effort.