Believe me. This is what some of the pros have been keeping it to themselves. Now that I’m letting the gems out, you can steal their secrets and take advantage of this opportunity.

As of today, there are probably more than 500 article directories on the Internet and the number is still counting.

This is good news.

This is also bad news.

The good news is that you can have your articles deposited into hundreds of article directories and build a lot of backlinks to your website easily. Your website hit counter will spin. Your revenue will increase.

The bad news is that it can take a few days just to finish submitting one article to those directories. What if you have 10 more articles to be submitted?

Remember that we’re not talking about submitting to only 10 or 20 directories. We’re talking about submitting to hundreds of them.

By the time you’re done submitting your articles, you’d swear not to do article marketing anymore. The huge amount of time it takes to submit your articles to those numerous directories is killing you.

If I were you, I’d give up too.

Fortunately, for every problem there’s a brilliant solution.

Quietly, a few net entrepreneurs are creating tools and services to automatically submit articles to hundreds of article directories. With a few simple cut-and-pastes and a click of a button, you can have your articles submitted to hundreds of article directories and thousands of online publishers.

All these article directory submissions can be done even while you sleep. Isn’t it nice?

All right, I hear you loud. Where can I find these tools and services?

Before I tell you more, let me say that most of these resources are not free. They can cost you from ten to over one hundred dollars, but if you’re serious about marketing your articles, in the long run, you’ll definitely get back your investments many folds.

Of course, there are other free tools and services too. I will let you know them as well.

Here they are.

Free and Free with Paid Options

Search Warp – publish your articles on Search Warp directory and, at the same time, submit them to search engines, such as Google, ExactSeek and Alexa. Search Warp is a directory and also a search engine. It is a free service.

Article Marketer – An article submission service from FREE to $119.95, depending on the Low, Medium and High Volume Plans.

Paid Services and Tools

Article Announcer – An article submission software for the price of $379 plus shipping. It comes with a complete set of Article Marketing audio CDs. Lots of information from this package.

Article Submitter Pro – An article submission software for the price of $167, with bonus ebooks on article writing, press release and more.

The Phantom Writers – An article submission service with the price range of $35 to $200, depending on the number of articles submitted. They also provide ghostwriting service.

iSnare – An article submission service with the price range of $10 to $719.40, depending on the number of articles submitted. Current distribution is over 20,000 publishers.

Submit Your Article – You can submit up to 4 articles a month for the current low price of $37.00 per month.

As you can see above, different parties charge different rates and prices. This does not mean that you should go for the lowest price or immediately assume that the highest charge will provide better results.

You have to carefully analyze the data above and ask yourself – which one has the right budget for you and the right audience you want to reach. Then decide.

Since the beginning, you’ve been told that “Content Is King” but there are so many website owners – who have been trying to win the search engine battles – ignore the rules and try to be ‘smart’. They used software and tools to trick the search engines to get their websites indexed highly but only to find out that their websites were banned a month later.

Don’t get me wrong! There are actually some legitimate tools that can help you get your websites ranked higher. People pay a hundred dollars or more just to own them. That is fine as long as it works and does not violate the criteria search engines are looking for on a website.

But why are they doing it?

For an obvious reason, I guess – to get as much traffic possible to their websites, which in turn produces more revenue to the website owners.

And then, there are really smart marketers who go by the “Content Is King” rules and are really winning the search engine games day by day. These marketers use words to turn into traffic. With a single 500-word article, within time, they can create hundreds of backlinks to their websites – resulting in more web traffic, more sales, and more profits. Then, they write one more article, and some more.

That’s right – we call them article marketers. You can see their names when you search a keyword and their articles appear on the main page of the search engine. You click on the links and their articles come up.

Now let me tell you a little secret. These marketers don’t write these articles and post them only on their websites.

First, they write these articles and at the same time allow others to reprint them for free. That makes you able to forward these articles to other people and these other people can also forward to more people provided the content of the articles are not changed or modified. In short, these articles are viral.

Second, they submit these articles to various article directories and online publishers to get maximum exposure. The more publishers they can find, the more audience they can reach. Thus, the more sales they can make.

Think about it. If the pros are doing it and they are getting tons of traffic and sales, then you too can have the same privilege – only if you follow their steps.

Wouldn’t you want to generate sales without having to pay a single red cent?

If the answer is a resounding ‘yes’, then consider article marketing seriously.

Here are five fantastic expert article marketing tips that can help you maximize the exposure that your articles get and that will also help convert more of your article readers into website visitors because they clicked on the link located within the resource box of your article.

1) Create A Compelling Title That Will Draw Your Readers In

You need to create an article title that will capture the attention of a potential reader and pull them in to the article content itself. This is an incredibly important step because it will set the expectations for what the individual who chooses to read your article will be expecting. Don’t promise too much, and instead create intrigue and curiosity. These are very effective emotional triggers that will pull your reader into your content.

2) Provide Genuinely Useful Content That Is Incomplete

Make sure that your article content is genuinely useful. However, make it incomplete so that the reader will subconsciously be persuaded to click on the link that you have located within the resource box at the end of the article. It’s important that you not overtly tease the reader. Instead, provide good information that is simply lacking all of the necessary details.

3) Craft An Effective Resource Box That Converts Readers Into Link Clickers

You typically only have a limited amount of space in which to compel your visitors to click on a link. The best approach is to simply encourage the reader to click on the link to continue learning more information about the topic you were discussing in the article itself. The idea here is to basically create an environment in which they feel compelled to click on the link to find out more. Don’t be too pushy.

4) Submit Your Completed Article(s) To These Article Directories

Once you have created your article, consider submitting it to the following article directories (listed in the order in which you should make the submission):

• EzineArticles.com
• GoArticles.com
• ArticleCity.com
• Amazines.com
• ArticleBase.com

5) Build Backlinks To Your Articles To Enhance Their Search Engine Ranking

In short, backlinks are essentially web links that point to your article from websites that search engines consider to be important. This helps persuade search engines to view your article as being both relevant and worthy of being prominently featured in the search results. If you are targeting a particular keyword, make sure that the so-called “anchor text” of your backlink includes that keyword.

Following these tips will help you maximize the exposure that your articles get and will also help convert more of your article readers into website visitors!

Let’s talk about the characteristics of an effective article for marketing purposes. You need to begin by realizing that anybody who happens to read an article you write will be doing so with certain things running through their mind. To the extent possible, you need to try to join the conversation that is already taking place in the readers mind. Does that makes sense? For example, somebody who is reading an article that you have created that talks about how to fix a broken game system is probably feeling extremely frustrated and is eager to have their game system working again.

What you may want to do in an example such as the one mentioned above is to talk about the different things that an individual can do to further diagnose the nature of the problem to make sure they know exactly what is causing the malfunction in the first place. You can then reassure them that there is no need to take their system in to be repaired at a repair shop given that the problem can be fixed with some simple household tools. You can then proceed to tell the reader how to fix the problem. Think about this for a moment.

You have essentially identified with a problem that the reader has. You have walked them through a diagnostic process that demonstrates your expertise in the topic and also helps convince the reader that they now fully understand the problem that their game system happens to have. You follow this up with quickly telling them how to fix the problem. You treat the reader as if though they are also an expert. You assume that they will understand exactly what they need to do given the limited nature of your explanation of what to do to fix their game system.

Now imagine if in the resource box of this article you offer to SHOW the reader exactly what they need to do to fix their game system in a short video that they can purchase for a modest price and have access to immediately over the Internet. As you can imagine, you will have people whipping out their credit card begging you to simply show them exactly what they need to do to solve the darn problem so they can go back to enjoying their game system without having to incur the expense of sending it back to the manufacturer or taking it in to an expensive repair shop. This example contains all of the characteristics of an effective article for marketing purposes. Use this as a template for your own article marketing efforts and don’t be surprised when the money starts rolling in.

If you are planning to write a promotional article, there are several key ingredients that you will want to make sure your article contains to maximize its effectiveness. Let’s begin with an understanding that you never really want an article to come across as being overly promotional. The reason why is because people do not like being sold to. They become less trustful if they perceive that you are trying to convince them of something. How can you get around this?

You want to make sure that you are already joining the conversation that is taking place in your reader’s mind. For example, somebody who is reading your article about diabetes may have recently just been diagnosed with the disease. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment, and try to think about what would be going through a persons mind who is nervous, confused, and concerned about what their future may hold given that they have been diagnosed with this particular illness.

Please be careful, your reader is a real person, with real feelings. Assuming that you are attempting to help this person, it is important to present them with information that will subconsciously persuade them to want to visit your website by clicking on the link that you have provided in the resource box portion of your article. One strategy for doing this is to provide information that is genuinely useful, but somewhat incomplete. This will compel your reader to want to click on the link you have provided in your resource box.

Something else you can do is ask questions within your article. Make sure that the questions you are asking will prompt the reader to conclude that the answer can be found on your website. The idea here is to warm up the reader and to try to build a little bit of intellectual rapport with them so that they are more likely to not only click on the link that will lead to your website, but also follow through and take the action that you wish for them to take once they arrive at your website.

These are the key ingredients of an effective promotional article. You’ll notice that there’s very little in the way of overt promotion. You want to try to be conversational, competent, and to provide information that helps the reader but that also leaves them with questions in their mind. This will help compel them to visit your website to find the answers. Be ethical — you’ve been given a template through which you can essentially control the actions of other people without them even realizing it.