Please note: The information provided in the 58+ pages on this website was written in 2008 and contains old and out-dated information. I will be releasing new updated information soon that will show you how to get around the problems facing most of the web directories online today. So please sign up to the newsletter to get the soon-to-be released update!Another great way to get one-way backlinks is by writing and submitting your articles to article directories. There are quite a few great article sites out there that will accept your articles for distribution and allow you to place links either throughout your article or in the byline (resource box). Other webmasters who find your article can freely publish your works on their site as long as they include the byline containing information about you.
The first and most important few words of your article are in the title or the headline. The title MUST contain the key words that relate to the topic of your website and to the services that you offer. This is the first thing that other website owners or E-zine publishers will look at when they are deciding whether to reproduce your article on their websites or in the publications because they know that the key words are what search engines use to determine the results of searches.
* Note: The search engines are the method by which people find products or information that they are looking for on the Internet. To find those products or that information, they type key words into the search boxes of the search engines. For example; they might type in ‘fish bait’ or ‘fishing lures’. The results that the search engines provide are based on the key words that the searcher uses.
The other thing about the title or headline of your article is that it must be attention getting. You can’t just title your article ‘Fish Bait’. You have to make your title interesting enough to entice the reader to keep reading. ‘Fish Bait that Works’…that isn’t very good either. How about, ‘Fish Bait from Heaven’ or The Fish Bait the Fish Can’t Resist’? Either of those titles would entice the person who was looking for information about fish bait to keep reading.
The second most important few words in your article are in the first line of the first paragraph. Internet surfers have a notoriously short attention span and rarely actually read anything word for word unless it is information that they believe will serve their needs, solve a problem or make life better in general for them. So…the title…and the first line are the bait and the hook that you use to entice a reader to actually read the article. The first line needs to contain the keywords, as well, and it also need to be attention getting. ‘The fish were begging for more of this fish bait after my first cast!’ If you were a fisherman, you would keep reading.
Another thing about writing articles that you plan to submit to article directories is that they should be short. Very short! They should be a maximum of 400 words and closer to 300 would be better. It’s easy to get carried away and suddenly have an article that is 1000 words are more when you are discussing a subject that you know a lot about and are interested in. If you start writing and forget to stop, break long wordy articles down and make three or four articles out of the one long one.
Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Remember that short attention span that we talked about? Don’t use big words and don’t use run-on sentences. Make you article easy to read.
Your resource box at the end of the article is the part that is most important to you. Other website owners or E-zine publishers who download and reproduce your article are required to include your resource box. This box needs to contain your full name, your contact information and, most importantly, a link to your website directory. That link is the little thing that is going to help increase traffic for you and will boost your backlinks which is very important to SEO.
Warning! Do NOT word-wrap your links! Type it out in full, http://www.whatever.com. All email programs that E-zine editors use to send out in their newsletters and E-zines do not support word-wrapped links so you can defeat your own purpose by word-wrapping the link to your website.
Submitting Articles:
You can find article directories on the Internet by simple doing a search for them using your favorite search engine. When you have located them, you must submit your articles according to the guidelines that each site sets forth.
You will likely be told that there is software available that you can use to automatically submit your articles…and there is, in fact, such software. The problem with the automated submission software is that most of the larger (and more effective) directories don’t accept automated submissions. So, while this software can in fact save you time by submitted to the smaller sites, it isn’t going to help you much with the bigger sites.
Yes, submitting articles is time consuming and tedious (not to mention boring) work but it is work that can provide your site with a lot of targeted traffic. Each person who reads an article that you have written will also be exposed to the link to your site. If the article is good and if it provides good information, these people will visit your site. They may pay to submit their site or they may opt-in to your mailing list… or maybe they will do both. Even if they don’t visit your site you’ll still be receiving a link back to your site from other sites and this is super important for boosting your search engine rankings.
Article sites to submit too:
List of 80 Article Sites – or search Google for “list of article directories”
For article submission services search Google for “Article submission services”
If you don’t want to write your own articles here are some services you can use.
You can use copywriters and article writing services not only for writing articles for you to submit to article directories you can use them to create unique content for your directories and for the blog on your directory if you have one. The more unique content your website has the better.
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