Article marketing which is basically submitting your article to article directories, is one of the most powerful tools for promotion and driving highly targeted traffic to your website or blog. It is one of the oldest yet still most effective techniques in driving highly targeted traffic to your site, and converting them into buyers. It seems like an easy task, just write articles and submit to article directories. However, although article marketing is one of the easiest ways for getting exposure, there are some common mistakes that many people make, before submitting their articles to directories, which prevent them from enjoying the full benefits of article marketing. To get the most benefit out of article marketing, you have to avoid these common mistakes. Lets take a look out the top 3 most common mistakes people make when submitting articled to article directories.

Failing To Inform The Audience About The Main Subject
Article written for article marketing should be different from your average articles. In article writing for article marketing, branding, lead generation and promotion are the main benefits, But, you need to keep in mind that informing your audience about a specific subject is the reason you write these articles. Whether that subject is a product your promoting, or your own blog or website, It is very important to base your article upon this fact. Other wise you will not get the promotional benefits that you wrote the article for at the first place.

Not Realizing and maximizing the promotional opportunities of article marketing
You know that the article you submit to article directories, will generate back links for your site, both from the article directories themselves, and also from other sites who may publish your article from these directories. But, you may not know that the same article can help you attract more visitors and a achieve a better search engine result. The first and most important factor for achieving that, is the use of relevant keywords, strategically placed in the article. But, at the same time you do not want to over do it. A balanced keyword density is crucial.

A good rule of thumb would be to use your main keyword in 3 different places. In the title of your article, in the middle of your article and in the last sentence of your article (preferably the last 5 words. Of course you can use the keywords in other places in your article as well, but this 3 places are crucial, because search engines tend to pay a lot more attention to these 3 places when trying to produce result for the searcher. You can then use your other related keywords like long tail keywords through out the article

Writing Uninformative Articles That Doesn't Help Your Readers
Many people think the only thing that matters is just to write articles and submit it. They think as long as they have an article and a link in it, people will read and click on the link. There are a couple of problems with this approach. First of all, many article directories simply don't accept articles that are not up to standard. Secondly, even if such a poorly written, uninformative article does get accepted, there is a very small chance of being picked up by other webmasters and bloggers seeking quality and informative content. The benefits of your article being picked by other webmasters should be enough to encourage you to write useful articles.

Another important reason that just any article wont work, is the simple fact that readers will not find it useful, therefore they have no reason to believe if they click on your links, they may find better information. By writing compelling articles that are useful and problem solving, you are giving a taste of what's about to come. Readers will be engorged to click on your links to get more of this useful information, which is your goal, getting them to click on your links and come to your site.

The choice is yours, you can do article marketing just to gain a few back links from article directories, or with a little more effort and providing quality and useful content, that can actually help the readers solve their problems, you can enjoy massive amount of exposure and drive quality targeted traffic to your site, for years to come. And that is the best way to maximize the benefits of article marketing.

Satrap is the founder and author of controversial blog, blogstash.com. A blog of full great how-tos and information about making money online. Visit blogstash today to get your share of this valuble information and learn different ways to make money online.
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