Article writing, submissions, publications and blogs are getting popular because with modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. Submission tools abound that authors and marketers can use to make the process of submitting their articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in getting the contents more exposure, it's only half of the process. Here are three common mistakes many authors make before submitting their contents to article directories: 1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them. In article writing, there are three key benefits in using them for promotion; branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization strategy. But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. Your article must be focused on a topic to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them if they aren't. The first goal is to get people to read your article, the next is to get them to click on your resource box. Providing focused content will help you achieve these goals. 2. Overlooking all the promotional opportunities of article marketing for maximum results. First of all your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. Most marketers already know this. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from those same articles? How do you get more visitors and better search engine results? Mention keywords at strategic places. Just be sure not to overdo them. A keyword density of 3-5% is an optimum percentage. Some directories support anchor texts which is effective. It's important to note as of this writing that majority of the directories are not able to support anchor text links. If you plan on using anchor texts you'll have to determine which directories will accept your submissions. Otherwise use a plain text url such as this. http:///www.yourdomain.com 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 great benefits. 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. Make a list of all the different ways you can put that article to work for you and all the purposes it serves. One guru I know makes his articles work in 20 different ways or he doesn't use it. How many ways can you come up with? 3. Publishing content that is not useful for 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 is just a bonus. THAT couldn't be farther from the truth. Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. Each of them have guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting. 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 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 writing quality useful content.