Peter Nisbet asked:


If you know how to write articles effectively, so that they do the job you want them to do, then any time you have the need you will be able to write an article to achieve your objective. Article writing skills are learned, and how quickly you learn depends upon your teacher.

People write articles for a large number of reasons and those that do it well will generally achieve what they set out to achieve. In the world of internet marketing this will normally be to market or advertise a website or product. However, it is the ‘doing it well’ that is the problem for most people, and no matter how hard you try or how good a writer you believe yourself to be, internet article writing is more than simply putting a few words together in a sensible way.

However, before you think of using articles to promote or try to sell your products, or even attract visitors to your websites, you will have to stand back a bit and consider what it is you are doing, and what the purpose of the article is. Before you start writing you need a clear idea in your head of your objective. If you are writing an article for submission to article directories and ezines, you will not generally be permitted to promote any specific product, or provide a link to your website in the body of the article.

Your success, therefore, depends upon your ability to persuade readers to visit the website for which you provide a link in the ‘author’s resource’ that generally appears at the end of your article. Nobody will click on that link unless they believe that:

a) You really know what you are talking about and can help them with their problems or answer their questions, or

b) They believe that your website is going to give them the extra information they are seeking.

Like any other skill, knowing how to write articles effectively has to be learned - it doesn’t ‘come naturally’, and even the best novelists have no idea what is needed. Writing articles in the world of internet marketing is a totally different skill to writing professionally for public consumption. The use of language is different, and the semantic approach to content is totally divorced from the type of writing of which Tom Clancy or Agatha Christie were masters.

That is what you have to learn: article writing skills, and how to write articles effectively for submission to article directories and for content on your own website. In fact, your article could end up as content on somebody else’s website, and how cool is that! If you don’t understand what I mean by that, then you still have a lot to learn about writing articles to ensure your online success.

It is well beyond the scope of this article to teach how to write articles to meet Google’s needs, and to enable them to act as adverts for your websites, products and services. I mention Google specifically since it is by far the largest search engine on the internet, and most of the others use Google’s standards and methods of assessing web pages for publication in its listings.

In fact, Google have taken a very positive attitude to articles that are well written and used both as website content and published on article directories. Even duplicate content between a number of article directories appears to take a long time to be noticed by Google.

Once you have learned how to write articles effectively, and have the article writing skills needed for effective internet and article marketing, then you will have a tool in your hands that you will be able to use again and again to force your websites up the listings, attract masses of traffic and provide you with results that no other form of advertising could approach with the results you will achieve.

Adrian Lawrence asked:


Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are literally hundreds of article directories cropping up on the Internet. In line with Google’s Adsense program and other such programs, people are looking to get on the Internet with their Web page. One thing that most Web site owners have learned is that having articles that say something help rank them higher on the search engines instead of having jumbled up keywords on a page that doesn’t read well at all.

Article directories have a big job—every day, thousands of authors and want-to-be authors submit their articles to these directories. These authors aren’t seeking payment, but rather a link back to their site, exposure for themselves as writers and for their websites. It’s a scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours society. Many of the articles that are submitted to these directories are not articles at all, but rather blurbs of nothingness with little content and usually lacking readability. The revenue from Adsense for the article directory Web sites can be substantial, but only if they have quality articles posted on their site and if they can get it up quickly.

There is of course Spam to these article directory Web sites as well—repeat articles submitted one after another or copied-and-pasted content that has been plagiarized from the Internet and another author. This Spam and plagiarism scam is the bane of article directories and the editors that run them.

Article directories are looking for articles—if your article hasn’t been accepted, it’s likely for a good cause. The articles that should be submitted to an article directory should reflect your best work—remember, you are putting your name and your link to your Web site on the work, and the people who are looking at it could want to commission you to do more work for them.

The articles themselves should be clear and concise, error free and well-written. Don’t get verbose on the bane of your own existence or the antics of your dog—save these rants for your blog and keep them off the article directory sites. Your article should be lengthy, at least 400 words and definitely not less than 250 words. Anything less than this suggests a lack of thought by the author and a cheap attempt to get their name in lights with a link-back to their site without sharing anything meaningful.

It is also important to note that adult material, gambling and pharmacy content are against the terms of service of Google Adsense. Editors at article directories are careful to delete these types of articles that are submitted so as to not lose their Google Adsense account and revenues.

All in all, it is highly important to output quality articles that are informative and well-written. These types of articles are much more likely to get through onto the article directory. Avoid plagiarizing materials from the Internet at all costs—most of the larger article directories and even some of the newer, smaller ones run the copy you submit through Copyscape to scan for plagiarism. Editors at article directories are constantly barraged with emails from irate authors who claim their content has been plagiarized—the usual course of action for the editors is to delete the article completely.

Article directories are very popular and are consistently gaining in popularity as well as more and more Web sites pop up on the Internet every day in hopes of making a few dollars. Articles are used by Web site owners to increase their readership; however, it is important to note that the more copies of the articles that appear on the Internet, the lower the search engine ranking can be for any particular Web site that uses it.