What Is The Purpose Of An Article Directory?

New York Public Library #5
Originally uploaded by an untrained eye (is elsewhere)

That may sound like a pretty simple question with a really obvious answer, but it's one of those topics that is so basic that many folks have forgotten the fundamental reason why we submit articles to article directories.

An article directory is like a library of articles, where online publishers can "check-out" articles and publish them on their websites.

With a library you need to return every book that you check-out, but with an article directory publishers get to "keep" the article (publish it on their site) as long as they give credit to the author and include the author resource box when they republish it. 

This is why articles used in article marketing are called "free reprint articles".

Publishers can reprint them for free, but the author gets paid back by having his resource box reprinted (including a link to his website) every time his article is republished.

It's a win-win situation for both parties!

So, exactly how does this work?

Imagine–you've just submitted an article to an article directory.

You wrote the article really carefully and made it educational so that the editor of that directory would find it acceptable and publish it. After your article gets published on that directory, then if everything goes well people will come to that article directory, fall in love with your article, and then decide to reprint it in newsletters, websites, blogs, and other online publishing avenues.  

Each time someone republishes your article, you receive a one-way backlink to your website, and also you get to demonstrate your expertise and bring exposure to your business.

By submitting your article to one single directory, it's like submitting your article to multiple publishers since article directories are where publishers go to find articles.  

Now, some folks really focus on the link they get back from the original article directory they submitted their article to as being the big prize. They think the only reason to submit articles to an article directory is to get a link back from that specific directory in return, and decide that it's only worth it to submit to the tippy top ranking directories. 

If you think like that you're forgetting what the real purpose of an article directory is–to be a library of articles where publishers come to find content for their websites. 

So, one of the big objects when you submit your article to an article directory is to have it re-published…

And that is why the directory chose to share it with their readers to begin with!

They are an article directory–they want to publish articles that their customers can use, and a successful article is one that is re-published.

If submitting your article to one article directory gets your article exposure, imagine if you could submit to several or even hundreds of article directories!

If you could do that you would:

1) Increase the places that folks could find your article and reprint it (along with the precious backlink in your resource box!)

2) Get a link from all those directories

3) Increase the opportunities of your target market seeing your article and finding your website

4) Increase the chances of getting picked up by an ezine, which can bring a surge of targeted traffic

If you are submitting articles manually, I can totally understand why you need to just pick one or two directories to submit to, but what we offer our members at SubmitYOURARticle.com is the ability to submit to a large distribution network of article directories (and other online publishers) at the click of a button.  

We submit to more directories than would be humanly possible for someone submitting manually, and our members' articles receive compounded exposure as a result.

I can understand that if you are submitting manually that you really need to focus on just hitting the top directories. If you are submitting manually, then by all means, don't drive yourself crazy trying to submit to tons of directories, but just pick 2 or 3 that you feel like you have time to do. Submitting your articles to more than one directory you will get increased exposure, more backlinks and a greater opportunity to reach your target market.

If, on the other hand, you ever get tired of submitting by hand and want to take things up a couple hundred notches try a high quality automatic article distribution service, such as SubmitYOURArticle.com.  

Oh, and in case you're wondering why you would want to have your article submitted to more directories than just the tippy top ranked ones, stay tuned. I'll be answering this question soon:

"Is There Any Benefit To Having A Smaller Website Publish My Article?" 

Posted: Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
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