Article Posting

Utilizing article directories is a proven way to attract more visitors to your website, give you a higher search engine ranking and, ultimately, make you more money. Yeah! However, search engines and article directories are getting tougher on the articles you submit and how you submit them. On this page we give you some tips on where and how to submit articles to directories successfully.

Changes in the way search engines and article directories work in recent times mean that article marketers need to be a bit more savvy about how they go about submitting their articles. There was a time when you could write a good article, submit it to hundreds, if not thousands, of directories and watch your profits grow. These days it is not quite so simple.

The easiest way to get your article published on a lot of directories quickly is to use an article submission service. There are also several software programs that can assist you in creating AND submitting your articles. It is possible to submit by hand but this is a laborious and tedious task, unless you submit to just a small number of directories.

There are many article submission services available online, both free and paid, or you can invest in software that will do the job for you. You will have to decide for yourself if this is an appropriate tool to invest in!

These programs and services can be effective but there is a danger that the directories will reject your content if they suspect you are using an automated submission method. In a worst case scenario you could be banned from submitting to the directory again. We also believe that the search engines will be monitoring this as well. BUMMER.

So, if you are using an article submission service, check that their methods will not cause you problems with the directories. Look for or ask the directory itself regarding this. If you are submitting articles yourself, do not submit too many articles to any one directory at the same time. This could send up a red flag due to the fact that many people also "steal" articles and post them. Multiple postings in a day should be avoided. Our team also recommends submitting one article per day that you have changed approximately 20% for each directory that you are submitting to. This ensures the rules for the directories, satisfies the search engines AND you can spread the wealth!

Duplicate content is the number one problem for article submitters and the major engines now penalize duplicate content. In the past you could submit an article to 100 article directories and the likes of Google and Yahoo! would award you for having 100 backlinks to your website. You would also be awarded when the article was picked up and used by other websites. However, this has changed.

The search engines can now recognize duplicate content. So, even if your article appears on 1,000 different websites you will still only be awarded for one backlink. You will of course gain traffic that accesses your website directly through the link provided with your article. However, this makes it much more difficult to use article submissions as a search engine optimization tool.

The only way to get around this is to submit a unique version to each article directory. Again, if you only submit articles to a small number of directories you could tweak each yourself so you have a number of different versions. However, if you are submitting to hundreds of directories this is out of the question.

Once you find several directories that are easy to submit to, have a fairly large member/customer base, begin by submitting an article! Most new submitters post articles once a month, unless they are using article marketing for a business(not recommended). If you can, try posting several times a month until you get used to what you are doing. Remember to have fun and keep it simple!