Getting your articles published in most cases is an easy task. Most importantly, no matter which directory you choose to submit your article, you must follow their submission rules. These rules are a little different for each directory and by not abiding by them, your article will not be published or in publishing terms ?binned? (in their trash can).

Your first step is to write the best possible article that you can, with a great title that will generate interest for the reader and the publisher. Your headline will be the attention getter, so make it work.

Don't be wordy; keep your article short and to the point. Long text that runs unbroken is visually unappealing. It will make the reader think it will be hard to get through. In the bustling world of today, people want instant gratification. They want to be able to scan through the information quickly and understand it thoroughly.

Make it easy on the publisher and tell them they have the right to use your article freely. The less work they have to do, the more they will respect your efforts. Some publishers prefer plan text with hard wrapped 60-65 characters per line. Be sensitive to the publisher's requests.

Never shamelessly promote your product. If you want to sell your product, explain your knowledge, your character and your innovative thinking. Your goal is to solve a problem or fill a need by educating the people on how you can help them. Sometimes just telling a story will get your point across. Try to be subtle! Everyone hates to be sold and if you are too blatant, you will turn people off. You want to project your expertise.

Only at the end of the article do you include a few sentences about you in your resource box or ?About the Author?. This is where you have a short biography about yourself and your expertise. List your website(s) and hyperlink them so it is easy for the reader to get to them. Just before the resource box, I write that: ?Everyone is free to use the article as long as the article is published intact and the resource box remains.? See my example below.

Run a spell check on your articles then read it out loud to someone else in order to check for grammatical errors. Nothing says unprofessional better than sloppy spelling and incorrect grammar. Be careful with words that sound alike but have different meanings. The most troublesome are ?their? and ?there? or ?your? and ?you're?. Make sure you use them in the right context. Remember, an apostrophe indicates possession. For example, Mary's dress is extraodinary.

Here are a few of the FREE article directories that have a page rank of 4 or more that you can submit your articles to (always submit to article directories with the highest page rank first):

www.amazines.com

www.articlealley.com

www.articlecity.com

www.articlehub.com

www.articlemarketer.com

www.buzzle.com

www.ezinearticles.com

www.fastarticlesubmit.com

www.goarticles.com

www.ideamarketers.com

www.isnare.com

The above article directories will just get you started. Go to the search engines and type in ?article directories? and you will find many more. Article writing with meaningful content is an important tool to drive traffic to your website and should not be overlooked. Publishers are always looking for fresh content and your articles may be just what they need.