You have finished writing your article, the title is catchy, the word count is between four and six hundred words and you are happy with the story. You have run a spell check, done some editing and reread the article several times. It is a good idea, at this stage to run the piece through copyscape.com which, is an online service that will pull up any copies or part copies of the submitted page. Once everything is in order you will publish the article and ping your chosen list of contacts.

Then what?

In order to give your article wider exposure and ultimately, drive more traffic to your web site, it is prudent to submit your article to several established article directories. By Googling “article directory”, you will be presented with a large selection of directories. EzineArticles seems to shine above the others.

You will be required to sign-up to the directories that you choose, the more professional ones don’t hassle you with a follow up e-mail campaign. Then, just select a category that fits your article, paste it in together with a resource box that contains your pen name, as well as a link to your home page.

Article directories regularly submit their works to the search engines where, your story can be picked up by publishers who are looking for keyword related articles. Therefore, your story may be republished many times by a variety of authors who are members of certain article directories. The popularity of the article’s subject, the keywords chosen and the compulsive intrigue of the title will, collectively, determine your article’s viral value.

There is some conjecture here over how Google applies their duplicate content rule, even though the original document is unique, and is the work of the author. The general train of thought is that should your article be picked up first by Google in say, Smith’s Monthly Ezine, and a link is followed from the article to your site where, Google finds the same article, then your site is deemed to have duplicate content.

This may or may not be the case, but to be on the safe side, it might be wise to slightly alter the content of the article before submitting it to the directories. By doing this the story remains the same, however it is not identical to any article published on your web site.

Writing good quality, unique articles to publish on your web site will establish your site as a content rich source of information that will attract a stream of visitors. By blogging and pinging you will have your articles spidered and your site quickly indexed. Maybe it’s best to wait before submitting your marketing article to your chosen directories.

Niche Hunter

Technorati Tag: Niche Articles