There are several key reasons for submitting to article directories. If you fail to utilize article directories properly, you’ll be wasting your time.
Using article directories is a great way to get traffic to your website and to establish you as an expert in your field, if you do it right.
Avoid these common mistakes:
1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.
In article writing, there are three key benefits for promoting your material; branding, lead generation and promotion.
You want to submit articles to directories as a way to brand yourself, to attract followers to your website (lead generation) and you want to promote your website.
Before you write an article to submit to a directory, remember you only write an article for one reason; to inform the reader. Do not try to mislead the reader simply to gain traffic. If the material is educational or informative, they will follow you to your website for more.
2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.
Articles can help you generate additional links back to your site, but to get more visitors and better search results, your material needs to be rich with keywords—but do not stuff your article with them. Nothing is more annoying to a reader (and many of us writers) than to read an article over-stuffed with the same keywords.
Article marketing can lead to making better contacts for guest blogging too and future work on bigger publications—if writing is your livelihood. Many people use article marketing simply to promote their website and products but aren’t interested in making a career of writing. Either way, you want your articles to be well written and informative, but not redundant.
3. Publishing content that does not help the reader.
Some people just want backlinks to their website and don’t bother to submit articles that are in line with their website or niche. This is a big mistake. You want targeted traffic to your site, not just traffic.
Make sure you submit some of your best work to article directories. You may feel you need your best material on your website, but this isn’t always true. Submitting quality material to article directories can only help you get better, targeted traffic.
You want to grab their attention so they click the link in your bio and visit your site. If the article is shabby, they’re going to look for something else; it’s as simple as that.
Try to keep these tips in mind before you write for article directories to ensure you achieve the desired results.
You have the passion to be a writer or a daily blogger. It’s there gnawing at you every moment of every day until you give in and start writing. If you’re not writing, you’re thinking about writing, you’re jotting down ideas, you’re thinking up great blog posts, new angles to share with your readers—this is your life; you are passionate about being a writer—you are a writer.
Larry Brooks is a bestselling author and writing instructor, and the creator of 
If you don’t know, how can you write compelling characters? All our characters, in a sense, wear a mask. Some wear many masks and until we can “see” behind those masks, we don’t know who they are. Sure, you can give them a past and all the other “typical” information that goes with creating a character, but you have to step into their shoes, slip into their skin and get inside their head—almost literally.
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