by James Opiko, 6/23/2006

Article submission is perhaps one of the best ways to leverage your products and services on the Internet....that is, if done correctly, but like Link Exchange, I think it's being abused.

That said, I don't think Article Marketing is about to die. It's alive and strong!

I have noticed that a lot of authors are submitting articles for the wrong reasons. Authors are submitting 'half baked' articles fueled by a 'PageRank' and 'BackLink' craze, a very fruitless endeavor. Like in link exchange, the search engines have wisened up and are getting better at weeding out 'spam'.

It's imperative that you submit 'quality' articles. A badly written article may generate you that 'backlink' that you so much desire, but the real purpose of submitting your article to an article marketing directory is to gain publishers who will willingly publish your articles on their websites, blogs and newsletters; that's where the real traffic comes from. Publishers should 'want' to publish your article...and they will not publish a poorly written article.

Submitting numerous short (less than 500 words) and haphazardly written articles will do you no good. Also submitting the same article with a few modifications over and over is not acceptable; it's duplicate content and defeats the purpose of a directory.

An author needs to sit back, choose a good topic and come up with a article that is an effective marketing tool, an article that captivates the reader and makes him or her want to publish it, print and/or forward it to their friends.

Anything less is essentially a waste of time!