The benefits of article submissions are often neglected by many webmasters who would rather pay for expensive online advertising (with short to mid-term results) rather than develop a long term marketing campaign. And article submission is one of the most effective long term strategies.

There are few other marketing tools that have such a wide range of benefits as article submissions:

* Article submission is free – this is one of the few Internet marketing strategies that can have better results than expensive pay per click campaigns or other similar forms of paid advertising. Submitting articles to directories is free, because the webmasters of the directories are always looking for fresh and original content.

As long as it meets their quality standards, reputable article directories will gladly publish your article. Some great resources you may want to try are:

o www.MyContentBuilder.com
o www.GoArticles.com

* Submissions are fast – creating an account with an article directory may take around 2-3 minutes, but you only have to do it once. You should create at least 20-30 accounts with different directories to give your submitted articles more exposure.

With the account already created, it may take another 2-3 minutes to input all the required fields for the article (title, summary, keywords, body text, and resource box).

You can submit your article to at least a dozen directories an hour – and it would probably take around 3 or 4 good hours for a very effective submission campaign to a large number of directories.

* There is also the bulk submit option some directories offer – that is also an excellent way to submit your articles, but most directories will charge a small fee for it. In many cases, the fee is so small that it is really effective to submit your articles this way.

Article submission can be tedious, which is why you may want to consider an automatic article submitter. It will submit one article to over 30 directories in half an hour. To watch a video on how to accomplish this, go to:

o www.1trac.com/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video.php

* They promote your website – when a reader goes through your article and deems it valuable and informative, chances are he or she will want to visit your website for even more resources. They can easily access your URL from the resource box you provided.

Of course, your article has to actually impress the reader and make him want to find out more – so high quality is a necessity here.

* They have the viral power – the nice thing about article submissions is that they have a huge viral marketing effect. Webmasters and blog owners are often readers of the directories and many of them will publish your article on their own websites and blogs, keeping the credentials and resource box intact.

This means that although you may only submit your article to 50 directories, chances are that in a couple of weeks or months, hundreds of other websites and blogs will have the article published, granting you more exposure and, thus, higher traffic numbers.

* Article submissions are great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – since most search engines place a high value on one-way links going towards your website, submitted articles are a real “gold mine” from a SEO point of view.

Combine the power of one way links with the viral effect of high quality articles, and you will soon get the big picture on why article submissions are rated among the most effective online marketing tools.

Karianne Kline is a Graphic Design student currently attaining her Associate's Degree. She is also learning the other end of the spectrum in Marketing and SEO. She strives to learn as much about these topics as she can as it will help her become a better designer and marketer. You can learn more about what she does by visiting www.LazyLinking.com .

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