Professional Social Promotion

Guest post by Timothy Torrents

If you have been searching for information on how to make money online than you have undoubtedly stumbled on several articles where the author recommends submitting articles to article directories for back links and traffic.

However, due to recent search engine algorithm changes, and other factors, submitting articles to directories for back links and traffic is no longer a viable technique.

Outdated Information Continues to Circulate on The Internet

Several years ago submitting articles to article directories such as Ezine Articles and HubPages was indeed a great way to build strong back links and attract additional traffic.

However, if you submit articles to most article directories today the back link that you will create will be low quality and click-through rate will be practically non-existent.

So why do people continue to advertise this technique? Because articles and other products that recommend this technique are simply outdated.

But, people keep buying these products, and trying this technique, only to find out that it does not work, or not as well as it used to.

It is important that you remember that not all the information that you read online is relevant today. Some website admins do their best to update their products and articles when the information is no longer relevant but most website admins forget.

Editing hundreds of old articles can be incredibly time consuming. But if you own a website that is dedicated to helping people earn money online, I highly recommend that you at least try to keep the information as up-to-date as possible. Don’t keep spreading outdated techniques.

Are Article Directories Totally Useless?

No. Submitting articles to article directories can be quite beneficial to your online campaign. In order to understand how you can benefit from article directories you should first know how article directories are designed to work.

Article directories are designed to provide people with free articles on a wide variety of topics. Once you submit the article to the directory it becomes public property and people can copy it and share it as they please.

Most people, thanks to the outdated information floating around, believe that the articles found in the directory belong to the website and cannot be copied.

The truth is that a lot of people use article directories to find articles that they can publish on their website. Everyone needs website content. It is not entirely necessary to publish original content on your website.

The act of copying the content of an article from one website and publishing it elsewhere is called content syndication.

If you learn how to advertise your articles for content syndication your content could spread like wild-fire. That is how you can benefit from submitting articles to article directories.

Content Syndication Tips

Forget about building back links and increasing your traffic with article directories. Focus on submitting articles that people will want to publish on their websites.

In order to do this you will need to custom write articles specifically for people who have websites in certain niches. Conduct some research to find out what niches are popular and then write some articles for each niche.

If you publish a lot of well-written and informative articles for a certain niche people in that niche will want to syndicate your articles and future articles.

When someone syndicated your content the link that you included in your article will be published which will create a back link and more traffic.

I know, I stated that article directories are not useful for building back links and traffic. That is still true. You won’t be receiving traffic from article directories.

You will be receiving traffic from your content syndication partners who found your articles THROUGH article directories.

Closing Thoughts

I highly recommend establishing yourself as an authority in one niche. The niche should also be related to the niche of your website.

Don’t forget to build a list of article syndication partners that are in similar niches. Remember, it is perfectly acceptable to publish your article on your website before you submit to an article directory.

I hope this article helped clear up some confusion on how to use article directories. They can still be of some benefit to rankings, but it is better to seek links from relevant sites in your niche with good authority.

About The Author

Timothy Torrents is a Canadian internet marketer and freelance writer who can be found in coffee shops in Taiwan. He has written articles on topics ranging from fashion advice to internet marketing tutorials. For more information check out his website.