Writing and submitting articles is one of the most effective means of promoting and improving the search engine rankings of your website. The process is fairly simple. You write articles, forward them to article submission websites, and wait for webmasters looking for content to add them to their websites.

By providing articles other webmasters can use to add content to their websites, you can benefit in three ways. The first is that once your articles appear on enough websites, you will be regarded as an authority on the subject or subjects about which you write.

Another benefit of article writing is that it will result in increased traffic to the author's website when people reading his or her articles click on the text link in the author's box.

The most important reason to write and distribute articles, however, is that each time a webmaster adds one of your articles to their site you pick up another link. And, the more links there are to your site, the higher your search engine ranking in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. And, if webmasters with sites on the same subject as yours carry your articles, the links you will get from their sites can be especially valuable in improving your search engine rankings. That is why it is important to write articles related to the subject of your website, although articles on any subject can be somewhat helpful in raising the profile of your site.

Be sure to compose the author's box as carefully as your article. It should include your name, a sentence about you, and a text link, with appropriate anchor text, to your website. Note that the text links in the author's box below use the terms most likely to be used by people searching for websites like mine.

Of course, your articles will only help promote your site if other webmasters use them. To ensure that, follow these simple tips.

1. Be sure your articles are instructive, helpful, and of practical value.

2. Remember that your title should create curiousity and draw readers in.

3. Webmasters will not add sloppily written, error ridden articles to their websites. Not only should your proofread your article, but you should have someone else do so as well.

4. Be concise. Don't ramble on.

5. Remember who your audience is and construct your article(s) accordingly.

Understand that even experienced article writers are not always successful. But, ultimately, almost all article writers become successful if they persist. In fact, many very successful website owners will tell you that nothing else they do has as great an impact on their enviable search engine rankings as writing and distributing articles.