Article Directories to Promote Your Website

Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Why You Should Use Article Directories to Promote Your Website
By Jay Gaulard © 2009

If you are online and are not already using article
directories to promote your website, you are missing out
on a free and highly effective marketing option. Article
directories are great ways to draw traffic to your site
without paying for advertising. However, to get real
traffic to your site using an article directory, you must
know how to use them correctly.

What Are Article Directories?

Before you can use an article directory, you have to know
what one is. Article directories are websites where
thousands upon thousands of articles on just about any
subject are posted. They are generally categorized to make
it easier for readers to find information they want. They
are also linked together, so a reader reading about "Hawaii
travel" will naturally go from article to article on that
topic. People can use the articles they find in the
directories on their own websites, either for free or for a
small fee. Authors pay nothing to submit to article
directories.

How Article Directories Benefit Online Businesses

You are probably thinking, "Sure, that's great. But how
does an article directory help me promote my business?
Doesn't giving away free content defeat my purpose as an
online business?"

These are great questions. When you submit an article to an
article directory, it will contain a bio with a link to
your website. Since you are the author of the article, you
are allowed to include this information.

This means that anyone who is searching online and comes
across the article directory will see a link to your site.
Not only that, but the people who use the content on their
own websites are required to keep it exactly as it appears
in the directory. This means that your link could show up
on hundreds of websites.

Article directories are generally large websites. This
means that the web spiders are attracted to them. Having
your link in these articles is a crucial part of an online
linking campaign.

How to Make Your Submissions Effective

If you are going to submit to article directories, you need
to do two things. First, you need to learn about proper
keyword usage. You need the right percentage of keywords in
your article, and they need to appear naturally within the
content. This will draw the search engine spiders to the
article, thus exposing people to your link at the bottom.

You also need to make your content unique and helpful. If
your article is the same as thousands that are already
online, other website owners will not want to use it. Also,
if the information is not helpful, people will not read the
entire article. Your goal is to have them read the entire
article so that they will click at the link on the bottom.

Having helpful information in the article also helps the
reader view you as an "expert" in the field. This is
important, because you want them to have a reason to click
on the link. If they are reading useless information, they
will have no desire to visit your site. Also, proving that
you are knowledgeable about a particular topic will show
that whatever product or service you are marketing is worth
buying.

What to Do if You Can't Write

At this point you are probably wondering what you can do
because you can't write. You are an entrepreneur and
business owner, not a writer. The good news is that you
have options.

You can hire a freelance writer to "ghostwrite" the article
for you. Ghostwriting means writing the article in your
name. Instead of placing his or her name on the article,
the freelancer uses your name and your business link. You
will need to pay for this service, but the amount you will
pay for a quality article is far less than the amount you
would pay for an advertising campaign, and a well-written
article placed in the right article directories will draw
more traffic to your site than just about any other form of
advertising.

Where can you find ghostwriters? There are a variety of
online classifieds where you can post your job requirements
or search for available writers. You can ask for quotes to
help you learn what the going rate for a writer is. Keep in
mind that you will pay more if you have detailed
information that needs to be researched or if you are
working on a tight deadline. You can also hire a content
creation company to help you if you require numerous
articles that would be too much for one individual writer.

If you do use a ghostwriter, be sure that you proofread the
article before submitting it. You may find that the writer
did not approach a particular topic as you would have
wanted. You can ask the writer to rewrite the material, but
posting something that is inaccurate or does not sound well
written will detract from your goal of drawing traffic to
your site.

Risks of Using an Article Directory

There is only one main risk to using an article directory,
and that is that someone will download your content and use
it on their site without including the link. You can do
some work on your own to check for this, but it is hard to
police. However, the occasional unscrupulous website owner
who uses your content incorrectly is a risk worth taking
for the many users who will give you a link on their site.

Post Much and Often

Once you get the hang of using an article directory, post
many articles, and post them often. The more fresh,
relevant content that links to your page, the more traffic
you will receive. Be sure to continually research your
keywords, because the keywords that people search for
constantly change.

Also, submit your articles to a variety of sites. The most
popular article directories may not draw a certain
demographic of people. The more places that have your
article and your link, the better your traffic results will
be. Since these sites are free to use, you might as well
submit to as many as you can.

Editor's Note: You can find the Top 50 Article directories
ranked by Alexa rating and Google Pagerank at:

http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php
http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/
website-promotion/top-21-the-best-article-directory-list/
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Jay Gaulard writes for a wide selection of websites on
various topics. He is a veteran of the internet and has
come to be respected in his many areas of expertise. This
article was written on behalf of http://www.articleleeg.com/,
a popular article directory website.
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