If you are looking for articles to include on your Web site, in your newsletter or any other online venture, your best bet is to use an article directory. Of course, if you have the skill and the time you could write the articles yourself, but most of us are lacking one or the other or both. The great thing about turning to an article directory is that not only do you have readily available content for your site or newsletter or e-zine but also you can - and should - tweak it to make it your own. You can add just a pinch of branding about your business, just a smidgen of info about your own site, and voila you have an article from the directory but with your byline promoting you and your business.

If you're not sure where to find an article directory try an online directory of article directories. We looked at one and here is what we found.

There were five major categories of article directories - latest additions, niche directories, e-commerce directories, directories with multiple categories, and other article submission sites. Latest additions - those article directories that are new - could be very important in finding fresh new content. That is one very important point that must be made about using an article directory, and anyone else' article. If you use an article directory, if you subscribe to an article membership site, you must rewrite the articles.

If you do not not only do you give up the opportunity for your own branding and your own Internet marketing, you also run the risk of sounding like everyone else. What you want is to sound like you, to give your business its own voice, to indicate to consumers why you are different and better. You can't accomplish that by saying what everyone else is saying.

The latest article directory additions on this directory of directories are spiritual niche directories, business etiquette articles, a directory of crafts and ceramic articles, multiple articles about Web sites, and four others with multiple topics.

In the niche article directory category we found article directories on holiday and vacation rentals, real estate and other property, finance and business for the novice, one article directory that dealt exclusively with articles about dogs, article directories about hair care, a directory that had nothing but articles about Clickbank, two directories on health and fitness, and one spiritual directory listing whose topics were on enlightenment, philosophy and life in general.

Self-help tips were the subjects of each article in one directory, another had a genealogy and family history focus, and another was about weddings, while yet another article directory dealt solely with swimwear.

E-commerce article directory subjects included one article directory on home business, another on women in business, a third on equipment needed for business, and one as specific as women in business in Iowa.

What was really helpful about this directory of the various article directory possibilities was that it indicated the ones to which you could submit your own free articles - a very helpful way to get your name out there as an expert in your industry and bring consumers back to your own site and its products and services.