Alongside the development of modern communication technology, the popularity of information-based marketing has grown; it is now one of the best established and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is why article writing, submission and publication is also increasingly popular.

There are already many tools that people can use to make the process of distributing their articles easier. Although wide distribution of articles is invaluable in getting their contents more exposure, that is only half the story.

First, let us take a quick look at the common mistakes that some people make before submitting their contents to article directories:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.

When you write articles, there are three key benefits from distributing them: branding, lead generation and promotion. These are all part of your search engine optimization and traffic generation efforts.

However, there should be only one real reason why you write any article - informing your audience. If your article is not focused on this crucial and most significant purpose, it will fail to achieve any of the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading it!

To make your articles work for you, people must want to read them and then want to find out more - so they will then click on your resource box. You can only achieve this by producing well written articles with high quality information and other content.

2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from those same articles?

To optimise traffic generation and search engine results, you will need to mention keywords at strategic places. However, you must be sure not to overdo them or your search engine ranking can actually decrease. You can also use keywords effectively in anchor texts but do bear in mind that many directories are not able to support this.

Remember that is not only about the links back to your site from your resource box once the articles are distributed. Part of doing well in your article marketing is being recognized by major publishers who will have a large audience. You can then gain the ability to leverage and joint venture with other brands because of the quality of your work. Relevant links and promotion from related sites will lead to better search engine results.

Having said all that, these things might not put much money in your pocket. There are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity that can boost your earnings rather than just increasing the number of visitors to your site.

The main principle to ensure your success is to plan you article to make sure that it will fulfil the function that you intended it to have.

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.

Maybe in the process of writing articles, you fall into the trap of thinking that all that you want is to have links back to your site, and that any visitors it can generate are fine. But guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. They regularly have guidelines and specifications on the type of articles that they accept.

You can double the number of sites you can submit to when you are writing articles that the directories will want to share with other people. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand regular readers and your potential audience will increase overnight.

You should be aware and make use of the fact that general articles submitted on directories may not receive the same level and type of exposure as targeted, specialized content articles geared to a narrow group of people. Learn the difference between these two and it will surely help you know what kinds of articles to write and to submit.

Basically, you need to write articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work in the most effective way. This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines: spell checks, correct grammar, well researched content and an interesting and relevant topic. It may even mean that you have to hire a writer to produce good content on your behalf.

In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can start getting a little exposure from increased links back but on a very basic level, or enjoy massive exposure from the relatively small amount of extra time it takes to research and produce quality content.