With developments in internet marketing comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to your website and converting them into a qualified lead or a customer.

Article writing and submissions are rapidly becoming one of the most popular methods of getting targetted prospects to your site.

The reasons are as follows:

1. Good quality articles in article directories (particularly those with a high page rank) get high quality 1 way back links to your website (with a link in the article resource box at the end of the article). This results in your website being spidered (and indexed) faster and can also increase your position on the SERPs (search engine results pages).

2. Websites around the world have increased their reliance on displaying Google Adsense ads to monetize their site. These same websites may use 3rd party content (such as your articles) so they can display content related adsense ads and earn money. Website developers are still obliged to display your resource box which still also provides links back to your website.

If you write good quality, compelling information then your reader will read the entire article and is more likely to click on the link back to your website to learn more about you, your business or your products and services.

The challenges when submitting your high quality article to the article directories are:

1. Uniqueness and correctness - Ensure that the article is unique (ie not plagiarised), grammatically correct and contains no spelling errors. The content should be well researched and documented. Articles should not be any longer than about 700 words.

2. Finding the appropriate category for submission. Each directory seems to have slightly different categories for submission and it may take some time to find the correct category.

3. Taking the time to write and submit the articles to the article directories.

4. Getting your article deleted. High quality, customer focussed articles are usually accepted by the directories. If your article is poor quality, blatently advertises affiliate links or generally will not be useful to the article directories then you unlikely to get your article published.

5. Not adhering to each directories terms of service. Some directories allow anchor text links in your article - most wont.

6. Mixing up your articles so that you can test effectiveness, increase uniqueness and avoid duplicate content.

Many webmasters make the mistake of just blasting out all their articles just trying to get one way back links. Most marketers who try this technique get labelled as a spammer and will get banned.

When it comes to article directory submission it is quality over quantity so spend a little longer on writing compelling, well researched articles that are customer focussed. When you do this you will get more qualified leads that are more likely to buy from you.