Article distribution is a time honored and reliable method of traffic generation.

It is similar to viral product promotion in the sense that your links will spread across multiple channels. Your job is to write high quality articles that other site owners want to use to buff up their content offerings.

When you submit an article, you remain the copyright holder.

All you're doing is granting permission for reprints. Each article you submit should have what's known as a byline or resource box. This is just a brief piece of text at the end of your article where you write a short "about the author" description of you and/or your web site and include your URLs.

Articles can net you great exposure in more than one way.

You'll definitely gain exposure through reprints when other marketers use your article for web site or eZine content. You'll also gain leverage in the search engines! The more articles you submit on the same theme, the more often your articles will come up as top listings for related keywords.

This is a bonus that many people overlook. Try to compose your articles with keyword optimization in mind and see what happens!

Here's a quick reference list of sites to submit your articles to:

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.postarticles.com
http://www.article99.com
http://www.webarticles.com
http://www.womensarticles.com
http://opt-inleads.com/cgi-bin/vp/articles.cgi

Mix and Match Your Bylines*

Once you begin submitting articles and realize their power, you'll probably come up with all sorts of creative ideas.

You don't always have to link to your main index page in your byline.You can link instead to your newsletter opt-in page or even insert your autoresponder address with subscription instructions.

You can also use articles as a type of "pre-sell" for various affiliate products.

If there's a reason you aren't collecting leads and would prefer to send traffic direct to the merchant's page, your article can serve as the pre-sell content you'd normally send out to a list, but with the potential for reaching a broader audience.

In fact, if you choose, you could submit an entire follow up series of articles to an article syndication site, and just drop your affiliate URL (cloaked, of course!) into the byline at the end of each one.

Final Tip*

When you compose your articles, do so with a degree of keyword optimization in mind.

Article syndication sites often come up higher in rankings to being with due to the vast amounts of content they serve.

Therefore, individual article pages properly optimized for keyword targeting can ride on the site's higher ranking. Remember: you've got a link to your site in your byline. Even though your URL isn't technically the one popping up in the listings, you're effectively creating a virtual ranking for yourself. Searchers who click on the article link will no doubt click on your link at the article's end as well.

Copyright 2006 Javier Salces