The ubiquity of the World Wide Web puts information-based marketing, one of the oldest and most effective techniques for getting targeted prospects and converting them into buyers, on steroids. This is why article writing - with its tremendous ability to convey valuable information and provide invaluable context is becoming so popular.

There are a number of tools that enable marketers to distribute their articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in increasing exposure, distribution is only half of the story.

When using article directories make sure that you are not losing focus on why you are writing and distributing them in the first place.

1. Don't confuse the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.

Article writing provides three key benefits to your online marketing efforts; branding, lead generation and promotion.

These benefits will only be realized if your article fulfills its primary purpose - which is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading it.

If your ultimate objective is to get people to click on your resource box, you must figure out first how to get people to read what is in your article. You can only achieve this by producing better contents.

2. Don't miss out on the tremendous promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You probably know that savvy online marketers use articles to generate additional links back to their Websites. Don't miss out on opportunities to get more visitors and better search engine results from placing the same articles on your Website or family of Websites.

Mention keywords at strategic places. Just be sure not to overdo them. While most directories don't allow anchor texts in the articles they accept, there's no such restriction when you post the article on your site.

Remember that is not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work. Better search engine results also are a great benefit.

But these things do 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. Not just increase the number of visitors to your site.

Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to have.

3. Don't publish content that does not help your readers.

Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all that is you wanted is links back to your site. And any visitors it can generate are fine.

Guess what? Not all article directories are going to accept your content automatically. Not surprisingly, they have some guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting. These directories are interested in quality too.

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

Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you. This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks, researching on a good topic and even hiring a writer to produce a 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 a little extra time focusing on quality content.

It will be your choice. You may not be aware of the fact that an article submitted on directories is not meant to have the same level of exposure as highly-targeted content ones geared on 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.