One of the oldest yet still more effective techniques in driving targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers is information-based marketing. This is why article writing, submissions and publications are at an all-time high.

There are many tools that you can use to make the process of distributing your articles easier. However, although this is invaluable in getting your article exposed to more sites, there are common mistakes that some people make before submitting their articles to directories.

Let us take a look at the more common mistakes made in 3 key areas:

1) Confusing the reason to promote articles with the reason to write them.

In article writing, the main benefits of you promoting them is branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization efforts.

However, there is one reason why you write articles, and that is to inform your audience about a subject. It is greatly important that your article is based upon this fact, or else you stand to fail in the promotional benefits as outlined above.

Of course, it is also highly important that you figure out how to get people to read you article, and then to click on your site link in the resource box. I have produced a couple of articles that cover these areas so please check them out .

2) Failing to realize and maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You will more than likely already know that your article can generate links back to your site from the article directories themselves, and also from any sites who publish your article from these directories. However, did you know that you can attract more visitors and better search engine results from the same article?

The first step to achieving this is to provide relevant keywords at strategic places in the article. However, do not overdo this. A good benchmark is to aim for between a ten to fifteen percent keyword density. I won’t go further into this here as I’ve discussed this in other articles but if you would like to find out more, look out for more of my article marketing articles.

You shouldn’t just aim for your article to be accepted by article directories, but should ultimately aim for it to be used by publishers who scour the directories for website content. You should not underestimate the potential that this can have on your promotional efforts, as many of these publishers may have hundreds or thousands of regular visitors who could then view your article.

Start out by having a plan of what you want achieved and make sure that you reach your targets. It is important to do this so that you can reap the maximum benefits of every article that you write.

3) Creating articles with content that does not help your readers.

Maybe your only plan is to create an article and get links back from article directories, and that any visitor that you may get from this is fine.

Well you may need to think again. Many article directoriesclamp down on the amount of articles that they accept that are simply not up to standard. And even if a poorly written, uninformative article does make it into the article sites, then the potential of being picked up by webmasters seeking quality content is certainly lost.

The benefits of one publisher with a hundred thousand website visitors picking up your article should be enough incentive for you to write an informative article. This is by no means impossible, and you may find that this value is conservative in what you may achieve from a number of publishers running your article on their site.

Researching into a topic that is sought after is important. There may be many readers of this article who will feel that this information is all well and good but feel that they cannot write an article well, or may not know enough about a certain subject to write an article. This is by no means a dead-end. There are many places where you can research into a topic, or hiring a writer might be an option worth considering.

The choice really is yours on how dedicated you are in increasing the exposure of your article, and consequently your website. On a basic level you can choose to gain a few backlinks from article directories, or with a little more effort you can enjoy massive exposure from providing quality content.

3 Essentials Before You Submit To Article Directories

1. Create pages within the blog that contain reference material you refer to often in your posts. These static pages will also get crawled and indexed by the search engines and as you write posts about your topics you can refer people to these static pages as references to what you are posting about.

2. Use articles as static pages. You can reprint articles on any topic for free by visiting one of the many article directories like http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit/ Then refer people to read the articles that relate to the post you are making. You could even add one article as a new page every time you make a post.

3. Refer to other posts you have made on your blog or on another one of your blogs while posting. This gets the reader to click over to previous posts. You can even decide your posts by browsing previous posts and deciding which one to follow up on. Those archives are not to be lost and forgotten. Its great material, (you wrote it right?), so use it.

4. Create a page that links to your favorite posts that are timeless. You browse your old posts, find posts that you want readers to find easily, then build a links page with those posts directly linked. Then add a link to that page from your front page. Call it favorite posts or whatever and you will benefit by those that click through and follow those links.

5. I’ve posted here before about the “more” tag. You write your post as normal, then decide where you want to break the post up onto a new page. You put the more tag in and readers have to click to a new page to read the rest of the story.

6. Write once per week special projects. These are a series of articles on a particular topic. You will be offering it once per week giving readers a week to comment on it, then have them hanging on for next weeks special post in the series. Each time add links to previous posts in that series.

7. Using your content from your other websites or blogs is also a great way to get more pageviews for all of them. Use the target new tag and refer to material on your other blogs and websites. It will open a new window leaving the current blog open while they visit your other website or blog. You can quickly double up your pageviews while also introducing your readers to your other websites and blogs.

8. Make a list of 10 previous posts and the links to those posts. Make a post in your blog about 10 things you want your readers to know and read in case they have not done so before. At your suggestion they will at least go see if they have read those posts before, increasing your pageviews once again plus bringing old material to new readers. That also lets them know they should browse the archives for things they have missed.

9. Using that same list of 10 posts or a new one, visit other blogs on your topic. Find posts that talk about something similar to one of those 10 posts, then instead of adding a link in your signature to the home page, make a comment there and refer to the post that is similar and that contains helpful information to that blogger and their readers. You will also be increasing your link popularity while doing this. Do not spam the link. Make sure it actually contains useful information. Don’t be trolls or spammers and you will end up with new readers and more page views for your blog.

10. Do not stop being creative. Use the tips in this article, plus invent some of your own ways to interlink your blogposts together. Create pages. Don’t just post and forget. That content is valuable, use it. Do not make people search your blog. They are lazy and busy. Bring it to them. That is just good customer service.

I hope this article helps you learn there is more to blogging than just writing a post once in awhile or even daily. If you employ the tips I just gave you into your blog I guarantee you will increase your pageviews which in turn will increase your revenue if using an ad program in your blog.

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. It’s simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it’s not that easy… We’ve finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads.. If only.. Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software – WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates – aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary – Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:
* Template optimization – RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
* Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
* Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking – Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs – Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog – Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.