I'm not going to deny that links from these directories help. But getting links from them should not be the end goal; in fact it should only be your initial goal.

What you should actually be striving to accomplish is having your articles published on related websites. Those links look far more impressive to search engines like Google. An example to help clarify it for you – if you want to get a job as a carpenter and on your resume you only have one reference – who do you want, Bob Vila or the better known Michael Jordan. Bob Vila, of course, because he's known for being in your industry.

The major mistake I see people making when writing articles or hiring others to write their articles is that they're focusing on quantity, trying to put out as many articles as possible or hiring writers as cheaply as possible to mass produce articles. That's a mistake – a MAJOR mistake.

It hurts you in multiple ways. First of all, real people read articles on the major article directories. You'll get traffic to your site just for having articles on these sites just from people clicking your resource box links. However, if your article is full or errors or unhelpful, they're not likely to visit your site. On the other hand, if your article contained information that was actually helpful to the reader, they're far more likely to visit your site and spend their money there.

Second, if you're putting out low quality articles, other webmasters are not going to want to republish your article on their site. I've visited a lot of sites where people put articles on them, and the good sites you desperately want the links from are not using the articles you had written for $5 each from a writer in India. They're using the articles that were written by people who are experts on their subjects or articles that are clearly well thought out and written.

So do yourself a favor if you're in the business of using articles to promote your site. Commit to only putting out quality work and only hiring quality writers. Yes, you'll spend more time writing, or more money on your writers, but try it for six months and you'll be sending me a big thanks.