Search engines, we all agree, are critical to the success or failure of your website or online venture. If the search engines don't find your business within the first page or two of search results, you're doomed to mediocrity at best, failure at worst. But most of the giant websites have millions of dollars of capital to throw at regular advertising campaigns; you couldn't advertise at a kindergarten football game, let alone the Superbowl.

But there's another route for those of us with great ideas and work ethic, but little cash: directory submissions. These are sites that store free articles for sharing, contributed by website owners who get one critical item in return: a resource box with the contributor's link, formatted in the manner he or she prefers.

And you simply give the article to the directory.

Most people who hear about this for the first time are appalled. Give away articles? They're hard to write, time-consuming, and besides, you want them for yourself so you can have fresh content on your own site.

But that's not the point. Fresh content and search-engine-optimized articles are helpful to a degree to be listed well on the search engines, but links back to your site and the amount of traffic you get are becoming increasingly important. Content today is much more important for keeping the customers that the search engines first send to your site.

If you have good content already, you can gain the audience to enjoy it by donating articles. When you're listed in an article directory, three things happen:

?The search engines pick it up as a quality inbound link; many directories are top-ranked on Google and other search engine sites.

?Your website will be naturally indexed, which is a much better way of getting it into search engines than waiting for them to pick it up.

?You'll gain traffic from the directory itself.

All that from a single article submitted to one directory.

If you want to rise in search engine rank more quickly, you can submit the same article to hundreds of article directories. Each directory, though, is time-consuming. It can take up to a half-hour with some systems to submit your article, and that's after you locate the directory and assess its quality.

Many webmasters go to specialists instead of performing this task themselves. companies and contractors will take your single article and submit it to dozens of websites by hand, resulting in hundreds of inbound links to your website that will be tracked by the search engines. The best news: these companies can submit your information faster and cheaper than you could imagine, freeing you to developing your website, serving your customers, and filling orders.

Be careful who you choose, though. Many directory submissions services submit low-quality packages that article directories will reject, providing you with little or nothing for your money. Look for directory submissions companies that guarantee their work and who operate quickly. Then watch your rankings in Google and other vital search engines rise!