Businesses used to submit articles to local or regional publications so as to spread the word about their business. Their only profit from writing content was the exposure they achieved for their business, since every article also carried the contact details of the company. This model, which remains in use, has been taken over by online advertisers and marketers that need a viable pattern to use for their business promotion. Lots of article directories now give the opportunity to businesses to submit articles and improve the number of visitors to their websites as well as the page rank.

You can submit articles manually or automatically. You need to follow several steps before you have your materials ready for approval and publication. First of all, you should write the articles using the same top-notch keywords that you rely on for the search engine optimization of your website. Then, you have to create interesting, original content that you organize in four or five paragraphs. The average length of the articles is somewhere between 400 and 600 words. You should not use a keyword density higher than 4%.

One other thing you should check before you submit articles is the number of links you can include in the text body or in the author resource box. Some directories accept anchor text links while others allow only simple URLs. Check all the rules concerning publication before you submit articles to directories. Furthermore, it is essential for the success of your business to provide quality content. Readers will not be interested in a poorly written material, and they certainly won’t click on the links that you provide.

Then, there is always the possibility to submit articles automatically using a software tool that does all the work for you. The automatic article submitter can only be used for article directories where you have a valid account, for the only reason that the program records your login info and uses it to sign in and submit articles. There are good bits and bad bits about using automatic programs, and most web marketers prefer to perform the submission task both automatically and manually, depending on the situation and the context.

What you also need to be aware of that article marketing requires consistency, meaning that you have to submit articles on a continuous basis in order to maintain the increasing trend in the traffic that reaches your website. Keep on writing good stuff and distribute it across the web. The more you insist on article marketing, the better your results.