There are two main reasons why people submit articles to article directories. The first is because some people love to write articles. They write about their life experiences, their families, and their careers. The other main reason is for marketing and that is going to be focus of this article. I think that most people write articles for marketing purposes because articles are a great way to share what you know with people while exposing them to a link to your website. If someone reads what you have to say and they like it enough to click on the link in your resource box you now have a highly targeted lead.

The great thing about article writing articles and submitting them is that it does not take much time. If you enjoy what you write about (and hopefully you do) and you know what you are talking about then you should be able to write a good article in a half hour. The emphasis is on "good". You will not have much success if you write an article with no value for the reader. Your article may be their first impression of you and why would they click on your link if they did not gain anything from your article? Good question, they would not.

Article directories have become very very popular of late, for many reasons. One being that you can have your article ranked in the major search engines, sometimes on page one! Another reason is that most article directories syndicate their articles using RSS feeds. Your articles have the potential for mass exposure around the web. In addition to the syndication, webmasters and newsletter owners looking for content often search article directories for new and interesting material. If your article is picked up by one of them your article may be seen by 1000s and 1000s of people. Now imagine that in your article you were able to solve a problem for these 1000s of people, in other words, provide value to the readers. They would be eager to visit your website in the hope that you have more valuable information. You never know what's going to happen with your article, so make sure you're providing something of value. If you fail to do that you will not experience the full potential of submitting articles.

It is generally best to submit your articles to the big article directories like articletrader.com because they are established and have a huge readership base. However, if you are writing articles for a niche you might want to seek out niche-specific article directories. If you do a little research you will be able to find article directories relating to nearly every field. Even the smaller article directories like www.smartyarty.org.uk will provide benefit to your marketing.

All this to say, you should be writing quality articles that provide value to your potential customers and submitting them to article directories. If you do this properly, you will build traffic to your website and you will see a large return on the small amount of time it took to write your article.