One question we get constantly around here is whether or not it’s wise to submit to as many article directories as you can find, or pick out a select few that seem to give the best results and concentrate your efforts there. On the surface it would appear an easy answer: more is better, right? I mean who wouldn’t want more backlinks? And the extra traffic as well! However, the reality is a bit different. Lets look at why our preference, submitting to a select few, makes the most sense.

So just how many article directories are out there anyway? The answer is thousands. You can find software out there that will submit your articles to hundreds of them at a time, and concievably reap the benefit (eventually), of an enormous amount of backlinks and hopefully traffic. Sit yourself down (or an unfortunate staff member) and prepare your articles for submission, entering unique titles,  tags, and descriptions and then hit the button and poof! You’re done. Now where’s my traffic?

If it were only that easy. The reality is that 90-95% of these directories won’t get you a thing. The link might be counted, but you can be sure it will be on a page that will have many other outbound links on it, probably be no-follow, and won’t have any pagerank or authority to pass around anyway. Not only that, most of these lower tier directories get little to no real people traffic, so the chances of your article resource box getting a clickthrough are miniscule. Not only this, but the time, effort, and expense used in submtting to these directories can be much better employed elsewhere, where you can get a real return on your investment.

The better way would include choosing the top 10-15 directories and making sure you cover them well, with your best material. Among the attributes these directories share are high Alexa rank, (indicating traffic of their own, which will view your work), good Google PageRank, do-follow tags so you can get some PR benefit, (small though it may be), and their articles rank highly in the search engine results. You should also consider some of them who use no-follow tags if they get a ton of traffic — ArticlesBase is a good example of one of these.

Here are the article directories I consider as my top ten:

1. EzineArticles
2. Articlesbase
3. Buzzle
4. GoArticles
5. ArticlesDashboard
6. IdeaMarketers
7. HubPages
8. iSnare
9. Sooper Articles
10. Amazines

Here you can find a very nice list of article directories, updated monthly. Make your choices wisely and reap the benefits!

Many writers don’t give their titles either enough thought or importance when creating articles or blog posts. This is a big mistake, one that is far more important online than it is offline. A good title can do many things for you, and in my opinion, there are three essential elements you’ll want in your title to get the most from it. Let’s look at them!

• Your Keyword – If you are smart, you are optimizing your articles, blog posts, or anything else you write for publication online with the primary keyword you would like this piece to be found for. When you know this, make sure it’s in the title, as well as the first paragraph and perhaps a couple of more times throughout your content. This will give you the best chance to have it found and indexed correctly by the search engines!
• An Accurate Portrayal – How many times have you started reading something, only to be totally put off when you found that it had nothing to do with what the title portrayed? Make sure you deliver on your title’s promise! This goes a long way toward helping develop trust with your readers. If can give them what you say you can, they are far more likely to read on, and possibly take further action!
• Create A Buzz or Anticipation! – Creating excitement with a title will probably do more to get people reading than anything else you can do. Just make sure that it is relevant, is something you can deliver on, and contains your primary keyword. Outside of that, strive to create intrigue, anticipation, and suspense with your titles. Don’t flat out lie, but be creative and come up with ways to think about your title that are surprising!

Making sure you do these things will give your work a far greater chance at being seen by someone other than the person staring at your screen right now! You presumably are writing for an audience; give them a reason to come around!

Whether you are looking for informative content linked to your website or just want to boost your squeeze page with some backlinks, you need to pay close attention to the beginning and the end. What we mean by that is that you need to have both a killer headline and a resource box that is dying to be clicked.

We’ll get to the headlines in another post, but first let’s start with the happy ending.

Resource Boxes…

Sometimes they are called the bio box or the author bio box. Whatever you call them, remember this: The resource box is what makes people decide to visit your website or not. It is your time to really make an impression.

On almost any article directory, you will be able to monitor the click-through rate (CTR) of your resource box. Keep in mind that there is no general benchmark for CTR. A lot depends on your niche. It’s a good idea to test one resource box against the other to see which one pulls in the most click-throughs.

Also, just because some people call them a “bio box” doesn’t mean that you put your life story in there. It’s not all about you. Instead, it is all about your client. Try to identify with your client.

• What is their problem that you can solve?
• What keeps them pacing the floor at night?
• What are the emotional hot buttons for your product or service?

It’s really that simple. Now address it in your resource box.

Keyword Anchored Text in Your Resource Box

You’d be surprised how many times this key factor gets passed over. The Big G likes it when you anchor a keyword with relevant text to your website.

We’re not trying to say that nothing else matters but the resource box. But if you pick only one thing to spend extra time on, make sure that your resource box shines!

Read the resource boxes below and tell me which one you would like to use.

1. For more information, visit http://www.contentdivas.com/.

2. Content Divas has been writing online content for article marketing purposes for years. If you aren’t completely satisfied, neither are we. To find out more about the packages that we offer, visit our website at www.ContentDivas.com.

3. Are you tired of slaving over content that has substance? For native English written content, have the Divas help you optimize your article marketing content. We offer everything from straight content to fully optimized packages with bookmarking, pinging, RSS feeds, blog commenting, and more at www.ContentDivas.com.

So which one do you like? Number 2 is a standard kind of resource box and it certainly won’t get you in trouble. But number 3 is customer-focused and therefore much more likely to have a high click-through rate. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ever put up a bio box that remotely resembles number 1!

Some General Resource Box Guidelines to Keep in Mind

There are a few tips to keep in mind for resource boxes. Currently, EzineArticles tends to set the bar for most anything to do with article directory content. If you can get it past Ezines, you can probably submit just about anywhere else online. Here are a few Ezine standards to keep in mind when you write your resource box:

• Anything over 400 words may have five words anchored to your self-serving link
• Anything under 400 words may have three words anchored to your link
• If you are using a geographically modified keyword, you want to make sure that the geo modifier is linked in the resource box back to your landing page. In some cases at Ezines, it may be your only chance to get the geo modifier in there.
• Make your hard URL link look pretty. For example: www.ContentDivas.com is much more memorable than http://www.contentdivas.com/. If your website is not a “www,” consider anchoring the hard link URL so it looks something like this: ContentDivas.com.

Now, these rules of thumb aren’t consistent across the board, but they are a good place to start. There are some places that prefer only one link in the resource box while others will only allow one link in the resource box but unlimited links in the body of the article. Just make sure to check the guidelines and do some research before you post and you should only have to do minor modifications.

If you outsource your content, you may want to provide a couple of samples of a resource box that you find effective for your product. If you keep these simple but effective tips in mind, you should be good to go anywhere you post your next resource box.

An integral part of your article marketing strategy needs to be a clear plan on just what to do with your articles once you’ve written them. It’s terrific to actually complete them, but if you want to put them to work for you, you need to have a system for not only getting them out there, but also for getting them to bring you the massive traffic you’re seeking. Let’s go over several things you’ll want to incorporate into your plan going forward.

*  Submit it to the best sites you can. Not only EzineArticles and the other top directories, but also any top blogs that accept content. Getting you article on a highly ranked, high traffic site can bring many benefits. When submitting the same original article to different sites, make sure to rewrite it to a degree where it is substantially different. Change your titles as well, but keep the primary keyword in them.

*  Create some Web 2.0 sites around this content. Some of the best to use would be sites like Squidoo, HUbPages, ZImbio and others. Again, be sure to change it up enough to be unique, and to use anchor text links (with your keywords as the link text) to link back to your site.

*  Create slideshow videos of your articles. These are very easy to do and are very effective. Simply create a slideshow in PowerPoint and narrate the article over them.

*  Once you have the article, Web 2.0, and video URLs in hand, you can go about promoting them. The reason some succeed and others fail at article marketing is that the pros will promote their promoters. This may be as simple as social bookmarking the article URL, blog URL, pinging those pages, Tweeting, and using other social platforms to get the word out about your new content.

*  Link to your high profile articles. If you have articles on site that rank well all by themselves, like EzineArticles, Buzzle and others, you can supercharge your results by linking to these articles. This is something most won’t make the effort to do, and will leap you over them. Very smart to do in competitive markets.

Your article marketing strategy is about more than getting the articles written. Remember to promote your promoters, and you’ll find that your articles will rank higher and will ultimately get you more of that traffic you wrote them for in the first place!

SEO article marketing may strike fear into the hearts of those unclear as to the nature of search engine optimization. Indeed, with an ever-shifting target, it’s natural to be a bit uncertain as to exactly how to go about writing your content in such a way that garners both readers and rankings. However, there are a few solid precepts that if incorporated into our article marketing strategy, will allow us to do precisely that, and reap the benefits of a well-written piece that ranks very highly. Here’s a few points to remember.

* Keywords – Using not only your primary keyword but secondary keywords as well in your article, post, or other content for the Web is a fatal error. The primary keyword needs to be in the title, preferably the first sentence or paragraph, and sprinkled strategically throughout the rest of the piece. Don’t go overboard: while you don’t want to get hung up on percentages, shoot for no more than once per 100 words, or thereabouts. Use related keywords and other niche verbiage to accompany your keywords.

* Titles – Good SEO article writing means that your titles are not only compelling, but serve a purpose as well. Your primary keyword MUST be in your title. This is usually part of  the title of the web page and  in the URL, and thus vital for getting the search engines to rank your page for this keyword. This is not optional. Also, your titles need to  convey something more than merely keywords to the reader. Often, you will spend more time on the title than you do on the rest of the article.

* Use Tags – Another major piece of the puzzle. Using tags makes it a great deal easier for your content to be categorized and found, and in some cases, especially on some content management software like WordPress, show up on tag pages, which are pages dynamically generated to show only posts or content bearing those particular tags. An easy way to add content without toil.

* Make It Socially Available – Make it very easy for readers to bookmark, Tweet, or otherwise spread the word about your articles. Having a post or article go viral is some thing we all shoot for!

* Promote Your Content – Since presumably you are after as wide an audience as you can find, it only makes sense to promote your own content, whether that is an article, blog post, Web 2.0 site, video, or other.  This doesn’t mean only content on your  site. One of the best ways to get more traffic is to  promote your promoters. This means bookmarking and/or linking to your new article on EzineArticles, or wherever it happens to be. Pages from those sites rank well anyway, and a little promotion can help them do even better, helping your own site in the process. Some primary methods of promotion include social bookmarking, pinging, RSS feed submission, blogging, Tweeting, social networking,  and emailing news about your new content.

SEO article writing is definitely something of a craft, combining  technical elements of search engine optimization with a thoughtful, and hopefully very readable piece of content. Make it a part of your article marketing strategy today, and see if your traffic and rankings don’t improve!

Simply put, article marketing is the easiest, fastest, and often most economical way to get your content on the Web. You can write an article today, and it can be live online in minutes. You have control of how the article is written, what keywords and tags are used, and where it is distributed. Let’s start at the beginning.

A typical article used for marketing purposes will be anywhere from 250 to 1000 words in length. Most run around 400-500 words. With the typical web attention span averaging slightly longer than ten seconds, you need to be as concise as possible! Write as much as is needed to relate the information and not one word more!

Research keywords to use in your articles. You should use them in the title, and at least once or twice in the body of the article, as well as any keyword tags. Don’t try to stuff your article with oodles of keywords. You may get it rejected by the people who might publish it, and the search engines might view it as spam as well. Write naturally and everyone benefits.

Pack your articles with useful information, but leave them wanting more at the end. This is because you want them to click on links in your resource box to go to your site for more information. Getting people to really like your article enough and feel as though you have the answers they need and subsequently click through to your site is a big win!

Your resource box is usually the only place where you’re allowed to drop a link. Most allow two. One should be of the “anchor text” variety, and one naked URL to your site. Anchor text simply means that you’re linking your keyword to your pages, like article marketing. This is very useful for search engine optimization purposes and helps get you ranked for those particular keyword phrases.

Once you have your articles (or preferably many articles!) ready, you need to make a plan of submission. There are many, many places to submit articles on the Web. Let’s start with the article directories. There are literally hundreds, but only about 10 that matter. These are:

1: EzineArticles.com
2: Buzzle.com
3: ArticlesBase.com
4: Amazines.com
5: IdeaMarketers.com
6: ArticlesDashboard.com
7: ArticleAlley.com
8: EasyArticles.com
9: GoArticles.com
10: SearchWarp.com

There are also many other places to submit your articles, such as Web 2.0 sites where you can put up a page like Squidoo, Hubpages, Wetpaint, Blogger, Tripod, and many more. You can also write guest articles for powerful blogs in your market, a terrific way to get a LOT of traffic. You can also convert your articles to videos. The possibilities are many.

Once you’ve got them out there, don’t forget to promote your promoters. This means social bookmarking and otherwise promoting the pages your articles are on. This will help raise them in the search engine rankings and get more traffic, which of course we all love. Also, make sure you Tweet and let your social circles know you’ve got something new to read out there if appropriate. Create a Buzz!

The benefits of article marketing are near instant content with links pointing to your site, which aren’t going away anytime soon. And unlike other methods of traffic generation, they will be there a year from now, whereas that click from Google Adwords will be long spent. Articles also go a long way toward building your authority and helping to brand you as someone in your market who knows whereof they speak!

And what if you simply either don’t have the time or the skills necessary to craft a bunch of articles? Never fear, you can still use this strategy. You simply need to outsource it, which has many benefits all it’s own. You get a skilled writer who does this for a living to create your content and it frees you up to work on the other aspects of your business only you can do.

Article marketing is a terrific way to build long term content to your sites, as well as links and traffic. It’s flexible, diverse, fast, and available for anyone to do! Plan and implement your own article marketing campaign today!