A frequently employed method for article marketing is to submit content directly to article directories.  A top tier directory will make these posted articles available to webmasters for publication, if those webmasters a) happen to use that directory, b) search for one of your keywords and c) don’t find your article to pose a competitive threat.  Nearly all of the best ranked directories will allow you to include one or more links back to your website, but those links are typically restricted to the author’s resource box, most often at the end of the article.  That is a time honored and reasonably effective way to promote your site.  However, there is another approach to article syndication that you should use as well.

If you submit articles directly to websites in your marketing niche, you will find certain additional benefits beyond those that come from only submitting to article directories.  For example, you will be able to control which websites are publishing that content.  You should select sites that have targeted, highly valuable traffic–that is, visitors similar to those that you want to reach in your marketing message.  You can make sure that you have longer lasting search engine optimization (SEO) benefits by providing each website with unique content.  You can determine that each site’s content is unique by writing a different article for each site or (more efficiently) fully spinning content to get more benefit from the same article topic and basic treatment.  Still another advantage is that you can place the links to your website within the context of the article.  Contextual links are reputed to have even greater SEO benefits than those within an author’s resource box.

In the usual method of direct distribution to websites, you must contact individual websites, hope that the webmasters will actually read your email (or answer your phone call, if you are lucky enough to locate a phone number) and persuade the decision makers that it is to their advantage to accept the free content that you are offering.  If your article is high quality, and if it is not too competitive with the site that you are approaching, you will be lucky sometimes.  However, far too often, you will get no response at all from the webmasters that you attempt to contact.  When they do reply, more often than you wish, they will decline your offer.

Another option for article syndication directly with websites is by means of a somewhat automated system, which distributes uniquely spun versions of your content directly to sites within your niche–sites which have already expressed interest in receiving articles such as those you offer.  That is the way that a new system operates; that system is named My Article Network, which I have reviewed elsewhere.

In this unique cooperative, webmasters can enroll their sites without any charge.  This assures that the network will always have a growing number of willing and ready websites available in almost any niche with which you would probably want to be associated 

Whether you use the time intensive method of contacting individual websites or the newer, simpler method, I recommend that all content marketers make use of the benefits of expanding your syndication plan beyond only the top tier article directories.  I know from my own experiences that the benefits far outweigh the costs of the modest additional required effort.