* An increase in traffic from the article directories, through the links in your author's bio/resource box. More traffic again when copied from the article directory and published by other webmasters.

* An increase your status and will get you recognised as an authority on your chosen subject.

* Publicise and advertise your product, if you wrote about it.

* The article may stay in circulation for months or years.

* It is free.

* Articles can be used to fill your newsletter or ezine and build a list of loyal subscribers.

The question on your mind right about now may be, "Sure Gerry but I am not a writer what do I do? How can I produce articles?"

Write about what you know

It may sound obvious, but you should write about a subject with which you are familiar. If you write about a subject that is as much a mystery to you as it is to the people reading your article it will be obvious and your article will not have the desired effect. In fact, it may discourage people from visiting your site. If you are interested in animals and dogs in particular, then you should choose this subject for your website and your articles.

Do your research

Get your facts right before you start. Nobody will publish your article if it is factually incorrect. It would damage their reputation and their website's also. Research means reading books and confirming what you think you know. Often we think we know things and find that they were just urban legends or old wives tales.

Do not copy someone else's work

Plagiarism is nasty and just plain bad manners. Unfortunately, it is common to find that your article has been copied without your credit (resource box), and more importantly your link, attached. A friendly email to the webmaster usually sorts this out without a fuss.

Make your article informative

Some people have a talent for writing articles that go on and on and tell you nothing of any value. Articles like this are not published by other webmasters, even if you succeed in getting an article directory to accept it. Make your article informative. Make sure that it contains facts relevant to the subject of the article. Be descriptive but don't go on too much or you will bore the reader.

Layout

Organise your information in a manner that is easy for your readers to absorb. Break it up into short paragraphs. If you keep the entire article in one lump, it will be too difficult and will put most people off. Using bold, italics and bullet points helps to make the information readable and understandable.

The title

I am tempted to say that the title should be an attention grabber. It does but that has been just about done to death by everyone else. Just look at the list of article titles in any article directory. Which one gets your attention? Is it one with a title like a Sunday newspaper headline or the one that indicates that the article might have the information you want. Don't go for the glamour headline. If you want webmasters to pick up and re-publish your article, make it one you would use yourself. Remember that because of your rights to the article the webmaster cannot change it without your permission.

The mechanics of article writing

1. Choose a topic.

2. Jot down your ideas.

3. From your ideas, choose headings.

4. Organise the order in which you want to make the points.

5. Write a paragraph on each point.

6. Summarise.

7. Edit.

8. Get someone else to read it and check for mistakes.

The bullets above are self-explanatory. It makes the job easier if you have a plan. Work with this plan and you will not go far wrong. You can of course tweak the plan and change it to suit your own style of writing.

There are people who can just sit down at a PC and after ten minutes, they have an article worthy of a PHD. But, we are not all like that. Most of us will follow the plan, after reading the article make huge changes again and again until we are happy with it.

It is a good idea to get someone else to read the article before you submit it to an article directory. They will see things that you never would see. I don't know exactly why but we somehow overlook many of our own mistakes when reading something we wrote ourselves.

Don't forget that the spell-check does not always know what you are trying to say and therefore will not always pick up on words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly. Examples would be words like: to instead of too or two, or like: form instead of from. This is because the errors are words and you will not notice the errors at a glance because all the letters may be there but they are making a similar but wrong word.

When starting out try to put yourself in the reader's place and imagine what you would want from the article if you were reading an article on that subject then make it your objective to give it to them.

Don't spend your time in the article talking about your problems. People are not interested. They want to hear about how to solve their problems and how you or your product can help them.

Try to avoid clich's because everyone else is going to be using them. By all means read everyone else's articles first you will very likely pick up a few more dos and don'ts and get a better idea of what you want to do yourself. .

A good tip I have seen in many places is to write as you speak and then edit the result. Make it conversational but not too casual.

Lastly, take your time

Article writing is doable but I am not saying it is easy for everyone. Take your time and don't be discouraged if you don't write a prize-winning article first time. You'll get there if you keep trying.

One other point. Always submit your articles to the correct category. Webmasters do not want to be put out by having to move your article to the correct category, so they will simply delete it.