Very confused about article submission sites

The point to submitting an article to an article directory is similar (and complimentary) to creating an informative article on your website. You do this on your website to establish authority, and an interested audience - that is where much of your traffic comes from, because if your content is any good (and not regurgitated crap that is already all over the net) then it will create traffic (especially if its tweaked for SEO) and that traffic will be recurring.

Very few first time site visitors buy a product, which is kind of the point of providing good content regularly - it keeps them engaged, and establishes the requisite trust building relationship (which is where e-mail marketing plays its twin role as well).

The idea of submitting to an article directory, at least for most of us, is that we already have exactly what they want written and indexed on our websites; the article submission to GoArticles, etc, is to gain wider exposure and one or more back-links. The back links are (slightly) useful for PR, establishing relevance (thanks to the directory's organization that allows you to submit it to the relevant category), and picking up some traffic from readers on the directory who may follow the link back to its source - your site.

That's about the gist of it. I don't do 'spammy' content, period, so there is nothing to make 'less' spammy to begin with as spam, or the slightest resemblance to it, is what is to be avoided at all costs in everything you do online. This, IMHO, is one of those things that separates those who really don't grasp internet marketing from those who do. The first group will learn this one way or the other or drop out of the scene completely, either of which is beneficial for the rest of us as their confusing spam with marketing is part of what's turned IM into the dirty word that its becoming.

-Spyder

All they mean is that you can't submit 'articles' that are simply adverts.

Suppose you run a SEO service.

It would be acceptable to submit an article on some SEO related matter - with your link in the resource box - but it wouldn't be OK to submit a 500 word piece on why people should use your service.

10 SEO Improvements You Can Make Right Now - GOOD

10 Reasons Why You Should Use My SEO Service - BAD

You are submitting articles to these directories with the hope that publishers will use your articles on their sites. High quality content will hopefully be picked up by high quality, high traffic, high PR sites, giving you targetted traffic back to your site.

As Kierkegaard suggested in his SEO example, you would write an interesting, informative article on an aspect of SEO and your resource box would have a link back to your site where you sell SEO services.

An article that is "blatant/excessive self-promotion or hype" is not going to be syndicated anyway, so there would really be no point in submitting such an article in the first place.

Thanks for the information Spyder77, but you basically told me many things I'm already aware of. I'm new to mainstream marketing, but not online marketing in general. I do appreciate what you wrote though and picked up a few things.

Kierkegaard - Your response gave me the insight I was looking for. Thanks.

In conclusion, my blog posts are comprised of unique, un-regurgitated text due to the fact I've been writing for 25+ years and do have experience in marketing - just not mainstream marketing. Hence, my confusion about trying to sell a product without actually selling it in the article. Which is a totally new concept to me.

Thanks again folks.

An article directory is a depository of content freely available for syndication by people searching for content (webmasters and ezine compilers in the appropriate niche).

It's a way of propagating your work (via people who use the article directory to find publishable content) to attract targeted traffic to your site.

It isn't there for authors to use it for its own backlinks (those backlinks are non-context-relevant, PR-0 backlinks of negligible value) or its own potential-customer traffic.

When a potential customer finds one of our articles by putting one of its keywords into a search engine, the last thing article marketers want them finding is a directory copy. We want potential customer traffic coming to our own sites, not swanning off to an article directory.

Those are not the people we're submitting our articles there to attract.

"I have a 25% click through rate from this article directory" is just another way of saying "I lose 75% of my traffic at this article directory".

I strongly recommend a long, leisurely read through this recent thread, in which people are discussing why they still use EZA even after Google's recent algorithm change has devalued article directories so much. You're asking about GoArticles, and that thread mentions EZA, but the principle's clearly identical. And there's a lot of food for thought there that directly answers your question.

Thanks Alexa, I'll be sure to read through the thread.

Thanks, this was very helpful. I'll keep on reading for updates.

Use your articles to drive visitors to your own website and to help with backlinks.

That way you will build your own business up and not be relying on trying to get conversions from something you don't own.

but some pls give links of sites where articles can be submitted..