I just read Reed Floren’s blog post titled “3 Things You Must Do When Submitting To Article Directories” and was inspired to be more strategic in my article marketing for 2009. Here are some pearls of wisdom I gleaned from his post.

“However, there is just one reason why you write articles, which is to pass on information to your readers. When an article does not focus on this important and primary purpose, it will fail in achieving the 3 promotional benefits above, since no one will find them interesting enough to read.”

All articles you post to article directories need to be able to stand alone and offer value. The way you make this help your business is to write articles that showcase your expertise while furthering your brand. For example, to help me promote Turbo-Charge Your Marketing, I write articles that are based on my free report, “5 Steps to Turbo-Charge Your Marketing.” Each article delves into one of the five steps and the author box refers readers to this website to get their copy of the full report. I don’t tease. I don’t share a bunch of marketing hype. I write solid articles that impart valuable information that, I hope, entices readers to come to my website for more.

“It is not all about linking back to your website, since part of succeeding in article marketing is being picked up by publishers who have large audiences and gaining the ability leverage other brands, because your work is so good.”

Yes, your author box provides backlinks to your website. And, yes, if publishers pick up your article, you’ll get more backlinks. But you won’t get those “bonus” backlinks if your articles aren’t worthwhile to read! Say the online mantra with me now, “Content is King! Content is King! Content is King!” Without good content, the only backlinks you’ll get will be from the article directories.

“Did you know that an article submitted in directories is not intended to have the same level of exposure as highly targeted content, geared towards a much narrow group of individuals?”

To be truly effective, your article marketing needs to have the intention of being picked up by publishers — not just being posted in the article directory. The only way to do that is to write good articles. Write articles that are good enough to be paid for by trade magazines in your industry and they will be picked up by ezine publishers.

Bottom line: the quality of the articles you submit is directly related to the results you will achieve with your article marketing.

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If you’d like to start planning for 2009, you might want to check out the series of blog posts that will begin on Dec. 1 on my other blog, the Women’s Business Gallery.