Article Surfing Archive

You submit it, that's what you do! And submit it to as many article directories as you can. (More submissions = more exposure) But if you're not up for submitting your article manually to over 100 sites, you should pick up a copy of ArticleAnnouncer. (http://www.GetArticleAnnouncer.com) It will submit your site to a ton of article directories, and you won't have to do much work at all! If you plan on writing articles to increase your traffic, you NEED ArticleAnnouncer. It's worth every penny. Or, you can submit to the top 5 sites: (I want to stress that you should submit your articles to as many sites as possible in order to get the most traffic and publicity)

http://www.EzineArticles.com
http://www.Content-Articles.com
http://www.ArticleDepot.co.uk
http://www.ArticlesFactory.com
http://www.GoArticles.com.

If you want to submit by hand, and want to submit to more than the 5 sites listed above, head to http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html and there's a list of 100 (as of the date this article was submitted). However, not all article sites are created equally. Here are my 6 tips of things to look for when you're choosing which directories to submit to.

Tip #1 ' Make sure the site allows for SEO
- Do they allow you to choose your own keywords? If the directory doesn't allow you to choose keywords, you could possibly lose some SE traffic because of untargeted or less-targeted results. Entering your own keywords also helps with searches within the site, if the search operates on keywords.

- Do they put your keywords and article summary into meta tags? Yet again, this ability is great for SEO. It allows the search engines to index your article more effectively, giving you the best traffic you can get to your article.

- Do the major search engines index the site regularly? If a site isn't indexed regularly, your article will take awhile to show up in search results. Not a huge deal, but it could delay some traffic.

Tip #2 ' Make sure the site offers RSS feeds
- Do they allow your article's content to be syndicated? RSS Syndication is a big thing right now, because it makes it very easy for another site to feature your article's title, body, and author. If a site doesn't offer RSS, you may not want to waste your time posting there, as you probably won't get as much traffic from them.

- Is syndication by category only, or can more parameters be submitted? Some sites allow the RSS feeds to be customized by category only. Others allow syndication by any combination of category, submission date, and author. This is very beneficial to you, because 1) your article could remain on a syndicated 'archives' page, where the site gets the specific date RSS feed, and 2) you can have all of your work syndicated ' sites can choose to be fed only your articles!

Tip #3 ' Make sure the site is easy to use
- Can visitors to the site find articles quickly, or do they have to dig around? I'm sure you've been to sites that have horrible navigation. The same is true for some article submission sites. When you get there, make sure the articles are easy to find. If they're not, don't waste your time.

- Does the site have a category list and search function? Make sure the site has both, as some users will want to use the categories, others will search, and still others will do both.

Tip #4 ' Make sure it's easy to submit your article
- Can you submit articles quickly and easily? Some require you to login, which is okay, because then you'll probably have an "author page" where you can add a bit more information about yourself, and people can find a list of all of your articles. However, if the site makes you enter very much personal information, confirm more than once (most will require you to confirm your email address) or scan your fingerprint (haha, that'll be the day), you can probably skip them. You don't want to do that every time you want to submit an article, especially if you're submitting to more than 5 directories.

- If they proofread your article, how long does it take? Some sites proof-read your articles, which is okay, as long as it doesn't take more than 24 hours for your article to be approved and made active on their site.

Tip #5 ' Is the site popular?
- Have many articles been posted in the past few weeks? If the site hasn't has submissions for a few weeks, or they're trickling in, chances are that's because it's dead. Do keep in mind, though, that submitting to a brand new site is always great, because chances are the owner is promoting it as much as possible, which means great exposure for your articles.

Tip #6 ' Do they offer a large list of categories?
- How many categories do they have? Most sites have quite a few categories, or they're targeted to one area (like Internet Marketing). That's perfect. But if you come across a directory that isn't targeted, and doesn't have many categories, skip it. Publishers probably won't pay it much attention because less categories means less targeting, and more articles to sift through to find what they want.

Congratulations you on choosing article writing to boost your online exposure! It's an easy technique that, if done correctly, will more than pay for the time you spent writing the articles. Ok, now go out there and start submitting!