This is why article writing, submissions and publication is so popular.

Besides posting your writing to your own blogs, and perhaps posting as a guest poster on someone else’s blog, submission of your articles to article directories brings a viral aspect to the exposure of those articles. The more eyes on your writing, the better, right? Best to do so correctly for maximum benefit.

So, before you run off to submit your articles willy-nilly to the directories, let’s take a quick look at 3 things you need to consider for successful article writing and submission.

1. Understand that what you are promoting is not the same as what you are writing.
Promotion of your articles works for three aspects of your online business: lead generation, branding and promotion for the sake of promotion.

But the reason for writing an article is not at all about any of those three items. It is about educating your reader. Your reader came in search of information s/he could obtain freely—that’s the nature of the Internet. Whatever you want to know about, you can pretty much find something about it on the Information Highway.

So, if your article does not inform and educate, your reader will find it all too easy to click away and you will have lost the promotional benefits of your writing. Stay focused on your subject, be clear and concise in relaying to your reader what s/he wants to know.

2. Use every promotional trick you can to maximize article success.
Not only will article marketing supply you with valuable backlinks, it should also bring new readers and better search engine results. This means doing serious keyword research, and then using those keywords strategically throughout your article.

You don’t want to overdo it, of course. Keyword stuffing is still possible and will still land you in search engine limbo. Use common sense and limit your keyword density to somewhere between 1% and 3%.

Anchor text links are excellent for use in terms os search engine optimization, but not every article directory allows them in the body of the article. You may be able to use them only in your resource box.

3. Do not bother submitting an article to any directory or other publication without reading that directory’s guidelines first.
I have owned a couple of article directories in my time, and was continually surprised at how many people would try to submit articles that were clearly not appropriate according to the rules I set forth for that directory. For example, if you found an article directory called Child Development Site, would you submit articles about male enhancement and other adult subjects? Common sense says no. And yet, they arrived every day. It happens because thanks to mass article submitters, the guidelines are not even read by the human writer. It is a complete waste of everyone’s time, because articles that are not appropriate will NEVER be accepted.

So, even if you are using a mass submitter, take the time to read the guidelines of the directories in your submitter list. You don’t have to read all of them in one day, but do make the effort. Don’t waste your time submitting inappropriate articles.

I thought it was simply careless, lazy writing. I thought these writers just chose to ignore the subtlety of marketing.

But today, as I was thinking about what more I could say about article writing, I started thinking about these writers and it ocurred to me, maybe they just don’t know HOW to write an article that does not blatantly sell a product, but DOES lead to their product’s sales page. So that is today’s topic.

How To Write An Article That Informs, Not Just Sells
The basic premise you need to remember is that people do NOT want to read yet another commercial pitch. We all want the highest and best for the Internet, and also, to not have it be full of garbage—or sales pitches. Be honest, you get up and go into the kitchen during those 30 minutes of commercials between every 5 minutes of the show you watch on TV, right? I know you do, so do I.

There’s a reason why it’s called the “information highway.” What we want on the Internet is information. Your articles need to inform and educate. So, if you are selling a product, or some such, how do you do that? You want the world to know how awesome your product is, correct? But you cannot simply write about your product.

Instead, you write about the PROBLEMS your product solves.
You talk about about the SOLUTIONS to those problems (the intrinsic values of the solutions, not specific products that would solve said problems). Then you offer, through your resource box, a way for your reader to do more investigation of a possible solution—your product.

Alright, let’s put this into action. You have a kick-butt affiliate product. It’s going to make you a bunch of money, provided you can drive traffic to the sales page. What are you going to talk about?

Are you going to talk about the product, itself? Are you going to write about the value your product will give your customers? No! That is the purpose of the sales page.

You need to address the PROBLEM that your product will solve. Draw the reader in by describing the problem. Share with them the difficulties that this problem brings. Share a personal ancedote, if you have one.

Then, you can start talking about solutions to the problems. Solutions… not a product that will solve the problem, but the actual “what-it’s-going-to-take” to solve the problem. The values intrinsic to whatever solutions there might be.

Example: I sell MicroNiche Finder, one of the best solutions out there for the problem of proper keyword analysis. But instead of just saying that, I do the following:

I point out the problem intrinisic with finding the right keywords, describing in detail how it is rather difficult and daunting, especially to newcomers.

The “solution” would be to find a way to streamline the process. I would even give steps to help eliminate PART of the problem, right there, in the article, for free. In the case of MNF, I would talk about the free tools that exist, pointing out that they are only partial solutions.

Lastly, I write about the benefits of finding a complete solution, and this is the paragraph that will lead to my resource box where my call to action and sales page links are.

Bottom line: Be informative with everything you write.

I think these two suggestions go hand in hand to create an EASY but powerful article marketing campaign.

Let’s look at the first one, writing short articles.

When you think about it, the Internet is changing the way we read. People are learning to scan things they read on a monitor. It’s the very reason why breaking an article up into paragraphs of 2-3 or 4 sentences each is popular. I don’t have statistics, but I know that a lot of people, when faced with a huge block of text, are opting to skip it and go somewhere else. It’s just too easy to click away. If an article looks like a lot of headache to slog thru, there are too many options available for the reader to click away. A catchy title may have drawn them in, but the thought of reading every last word of your 500-700 word article may turn them off.

Combine that with the fact that you REALLY want to entice them to click on your links in your resource box, and you’ve got a compelling reason to write shorter articles. Let me explain:

If, for example, you write an article on the “3 Best Tips To Housebreak Your Golden Retriever,” give the three tips quickly, without a lot of elaboration, and then start your resource box with an invitation to read 3 MORE great tips (or some such), your readers will be more inclined to click-thru. If your first 3 tips sounded useful, and they liked what they (quickly) read, they’ll be more inclined to click-thru to read more.

You can write a 3-Tip article in 350 words easily. I suggest 350, as that is the minimum most article directories allow.

Now, combine that with Point 2, spinning said articles, and you’ve got an incredibly fast article writing system in place.

My recommendation for the fastest way to spin articles is to use Chris’ Rewriter. It’s free, BTW.

As you write your short, 350-word article, write each sentence 3 or 4 times (make it 3 OR 4 for each sentence, you’ll need to be consistent with this). Then, plug each sentence into Chris’ Rewriter and voila! Upwards of 1500 articles can be spun from your efforts!

The upshot is you will have 1500 short, readable, click-thru-enticing articles to submit. Can’t get any easier than that!

While it is true that you can get articles written cheaply, for a couple of dollars, but they are likely to be very poor quality. For a decent 400 to 500 word article you are looking to pay between five and ten dollars, possibly more depending on the niche and the author.

However, you can write the articles yourself, and it’s not that difficult to do if you follow a system.

Below is a system that works very well–it is one that I use myself when I’m fighting writer’s block. You can be writing high quality articles surprisingly quickly with this technique. It really isn’t that hard and it enables even the most novice of writers to create decent articles rapidly.

Okay, here we go:

1. Decide upon the niche you are writing in.
2. Determine which keyword(s) you are targeting in your article. Now, this did not used to be part of the writing process, but with the reach that is possible with the power of the Internet, doing things like SEO just helps you get noticed a little sooner.
3. Determine the subject your article will be about.
4. Type into Google some of your keywords and see what problems and issues people are facing in that niche. What do they want to know? What is their pain? What solutions are they looking for? What is it, about your keyword, that you need to write that will solve your readers’ question?

Make notes and keep this information handy. We start the actual writing next:

5. Write a powerful, interest-building title with your keyword at the start, if possible. If it just won’t come to you, at first, that’s okay. After you’ve been writing the article for a fewmintes, something may come to you that you can use to construct an attention-getting title.
6. Write 3 or 4 statements describing the problem.
7. Write three sentences that each asks the reader a question about your subject.
8. Think about the solutions to your reader’s problem. Try to come up with more than one thought about the answer to the problem.
9. But only write one sentence about the most innocuous or easiest plausible answer. Remember, you want your reader to be forced to click your link to read more. Therefore, you will:
10. End you article with an invitation to read the better answer.
    10a. If writing for article directory submission, this last section (#10) should become your resource box.
11. Now go back to each step from step #6 and expound on each sentence. Here’s good news: your paragraphs need to be short. 2, 3 and 4 or 5 sentence paragraphs are exactly what you need. Anything much more than that, and I guarantee you will lose your audience.

The Internet has done a strange thing to people; it has taught them to read by skimming. This is why bullet point and bolding of certain words or short phrases are highly recommended. People skim an article and if something catches their eye, then they will stop and read deeper.

To make it easy for your reader, 8 or 9 short paragraphs will suffice. That amounts to only about 450-500 words.

It can be very daunting to sit down and write if it is something you are not used to.

And there you have a good quality, unique article that you could spin or just submit to an article directory or use on your website. Content is king on the Internet, and unique content provides you with an edge over the competition.

This method will help you to quickly write articles, and it won’t be long before you can write a high quality article in under ten minutes. With practice, you will be able to do them in five to seven minutes easily!

And remember the more articles you have out there, the more you can potentially earn!

During each day, for just one product/project/campaign, you have been writing articles and posting them to the article directories. Using Pingler.com and Onlywire.com, you have been pinging and bookmarking the articles each day.

You should start seeing some kind of results soon, if you haven’t already. Have you checked Google for your keywords yet? Head for Google and do that. First do a broad match (placing the keywords in the box) and see if your page comes up anywhere in the first three pages results. If not, this will tell you you have more articles to write and more lenses/hubpages to create.

Remember, all your links in all the articles and lenses/hub pages should point back to the first batch of articles you posted at GoArticles.com. THOSE are the articles you are looking to find in a Google SERP.

The next action item to integrate into your campaign is hitting the trail, so to speak and doing some forum marketing, blog commenting and answering some Yahoo Answers questions.

But where? Head back to Google and type in, Forum: (YOUR KEYWORD HERE). In other words, if you are writing articles about iguanas, then a forum search term at Google would be “Forum: iguanas” and such (with or without quotes–doesn’t matter, in this instance. Try both ways, see what comes up).

Make note of each forum’s popularity and page rank. Write down (or Favorite) any that look interesting to you. These will be the Forums you will visit, a little later on. What you will be doing is creating a profile, with appropriate signatures, and then you’ll start posting. But only after you’ve gathered a list of Forums to visit.

Next, back to Google and type in, blog: iguanas (following our previous example). Just like your Forums list, make a list of potential blogs to visit. Then one more time at Google, type in, site: iguanas. Again, make note of sites with high PR and popularity. Not every website will have the capability for commenting (like having guestbooks and whatnot), but some do and it’s worth a try. That’s why you can also go back to Google and type blog: iguanas.

Make note of sites/blog that have potential for your needs. Why am I suggesting you only make note of these sites? I find that if I load up a SERP and start on that list, pretty soon, I’ve gotten derailed, looking at so many sites and searching each site for commenting sections. Before I know it, I’ve only hit one or two sites and I’m caught up in a chaos that bogs me down.

That annoys me. I find I need a plan of attack. So, I make a list of places to go, and then, I head out to do my commenting in a methodical manner.

Now you are set to get started. Head over to Yahoo Answers and do a search for any open questions that have your subject matter in the question. Find any questions you can answer and in the Source Box, create an anchor text link to one of your GoArticles articles. You may not find too many questions, but if you do this every day, you’ll start to become recognized, by the readers, as an authority on the subject.

Then get out your list of sites, and start commenting (NEVER SPAM THE WEBSITES). For the forums, of course, start registering and creating a profile complete with signatures. Then find threads to which you can make relevant posts. NEVER SPAM THE FORUMS.

You don’t have to do them all in one day, especially in the forums, where setting up profiles can be time consuming. But remember, you can’t eat an elephant all in one day, either, so just keep at it.

That’s the key to this whole darn shootin’ match. Just keep at it.

There are numerous other things you can be doing to promote your GoArticle articles, as well, and I’m sure you’ve got more than a few eBooks on your hard drive to teach you all about them. Point is, never stop promoting those articles.

That is, until it’s on auto-pilot and you’re making a decent enough income from it.

That’s my plan of attack in a 3-step nutshell. Goos luck to you all!