Once you are done writing your article for article marketing, the next step will be to submit your article to an article directory. There are thousands of directories, and obviously some are better than others. There are also a number of ways in which you can distribute your articles.

Article Submission

There are three main ways in which you can submit an article. Each will have it's drawbacks and advantages. The choice will depend on the submission tactics you believe will most help your type of article.

• Manual Submission
• Article Submission Services
• Automatic Article Submission Programs

Manual Submission of Articles

Self submitting to the larger article directories is very popular. There are a number of directories to choose from, each one with it's own set of rules to follow. Some directories also manually review each article that is submitted before it is published. Here is a listing of a few of the more popular ones:

• Ezine Articles
• ArticlesBase
• Buzzle
• Go Articles
• Squidoo
• Hubpages

If you plan to submit articles to more than one directory, then it is a good idea to 'spin' your articles which basically means writing multiple articles about the same keyword/subject in such a way that most of the content is the same, while differentiating them so that they look different to a search engine. This would include cahnging the title of the article as well.

Article Submission Services

Outsourcing the submission of articles to a company that provides a submission service is another way to deal with your article marketing. There are two main divisions of services and typically you will get what you pay for. There are companies that will manually submit your articles to directories, and there are companies that will use software to to distribute your articles.

Always ask for a list of sites that your article will be submitted to. Make sure to look a number of these sites to see if they are worthwhile directories to have your article listed in. You can look at the Alexa ranking to get a sense of the number of visitors, Google Pagerank may provide some more value in your decision. Also, by typing into Google "site:www.sampledirectory.com", you can get a sense of how many pages from that site are actually indexed.

Many of these article submission service companies submit to directories that are essentially worthless, as far as traffic is concerned. Of course there may be some value in the backlinks that the article creates, however search engines are getting more sophisticated and upon finding the same exact article hundreds of times, may render the backlink worthless as well.

Ultimately there is questionable value submitting the same exact article to multiple sites that don't generate any traffic. It is not the quantity of the directories you submit to that makes the difference, but the quality of those directories.

Automatic Article Submission Programs

There are two types of programs or software that can automically submit articles for you.

Some will have the capability of submitting to hundreds of directories in one click. Similarly to the above, it is important to know what directories your article will be submitted to. Submitting to hundreds of worthless directories, even in 'one click', is still worthless. Do not be deceived by the number of sites the article submission software submits to.

How specific is the category that your article will be submitted to?

Does it just support submission to generic categories such as 'Arts & Entertainment', or specific categories like 'Arts & Entertainment:Music' or 'Arts & Entertainment:Movies'?

This is important because most generic categories are overloaded with poorly targeted automated submissions. If your article lands in a generic category it is more than likely that it will get lost in the crowd.

The second type of automatic submittal program is not one submits to article directories, but will submit your article to other websites that have signed up with the creator of that software.

A few examples of this type of automatic submittal software are:

• Unique Article Wizard
• Automatic Article Submitter

Website publishers can download the software to install on their website. Typically this is free. Writers who want to submit their article will pay to have their article posted on the sites that have installed the software. There are features within the software to make sure the article content matches up with the theme of the publisher website.

These programs sometimes also offer a 'spinner' option, meaning that you are able to change the article slightly so that the same exact article is not submitted to hundreds of sites.

Lastly, you must be aware of the extent of automation that the software will do. There are many article marketers that have been severly dissapointed because they expected too much of the software. It is important to do your research on the software before you make a purchase so you know its limitations.

There you have it, the three ways in which you can submit your article to online article directories. Although, manually submitting an article is more time consuming, you probably will end up with better results. Of course this depends on the marketing strategy that you have chosen.