It's time to promote your article.



It isn't enough that you've written a great article. You have to get others to read it. This means distributing it as widely as you possibly can. It also means going where your potential reader is so that the reader gets to see your article and read it.

There are several ways to promote your article that I highly recommend because it will bring you more traffic to your site.

1. Article Submission Services

This is the fastest and easiest way to distribute your articles. However, the problem with article submission services is that they can be very expensive over the long haul. You have to be very careful about choosing your article submission service.

One of the best, and most popular, is Article Marketer: http://www.articlemarketer.com. With this service, you can get a free account so that you can try it out. You can stay with a free account as long as you like, and this allows you to submit to over 1,000 publishers. You can submit an unlimited number of articles for free.

2. Forums

Some forums allow you to post articles. My experience has been that you can get a lot of traffic from high traffic forums because the content is search engine friendly, and these sites get spidered quickly.

To find forums, do a search of your topic plus the search term "forums". Look for forums that have lots of members, have a lot of posts, which means they are active, and accept articles.

3. Networking Sites

Networking sites are similar to forums in that they are community sites. However, networking sites are different from forums in that they are sites that tend to be composed of people in industry. You won't find many customers on these sites, but these sites are also search engine friendly, get lots of traffic, and can get you a lot of traffic.

Here are two that I recommend:

http://www.ecademy.com

http://www.ryze.com

4. Specialized Article Directories

Article directories that are related to your topic are also an excellent place to post your site. Although these sites may not get the traffic that the mainstream general article sites get, they are still a good place to post your articles because they are more targeted to both publishers and readers in your topic.

This can mean more targeted traffic to your site from your articles. Niche article directories shouldn't be overlooked. Because articles are viral, you have a better chance of being found the more article directories you are included in.

To find specialized article directories, do a search for these directories the same way that you would do a search for forums. Search for the topic plus the search term "article directories".

5. Other web sites

If you know of high traffic sites that accept articles on your topic, and you can submit directly to them, you should definitely do this.

Although I have often found these sites by accident, these sites aren't hard to find. These sites require that you do a seach for your topic plus the search term "submit articles" or "articles".

The best tool for doing searches of this type is Alexa. You can use Alexa to give you site rankings and other information about a site, as well as lead you to other related sites. This will save you a lot of time in research.

The bottom line is that the more directories and sites that you submit your article to, the more traffic you can get to your site. What's important is that you write a good article, especially if you submit to individual sites. Submit good articles, and publishers will come looking for you. This can unleash a traffic virus for your site that will drive traffic to your site for years to come.