Article marketing is the way to go to get free traffic to your website, but it can be time consuming if you don't use the time saving tools and technology that is available. The question to ask yourself when it comes to using these services, is "How much is my time worth?" If your time isn't worth very much, then you can spend the several days it would take you to submit your article by hand to most of the article directories out there. If your time is worth a lot, then you will not get a very good return on your investment if you take the time to submit your articles by hand to all of the article directories. However, if your time is worth a lot, then you will want to use article submission services to submit your articles for you. There are many article submission services out there, so what service should you be using and what features should you demand from your article submission service?

1) Does the service distribute multiple versions of the same article?

The search engines are always changing their algorithms, and although there isn't a penalty for duplicate content, you won't receive much credit for it either. You can have the same article on different websites, and if enough of the rest of the page is very different, you can get away with placing the same article on different websites, and get credit for it. However, you will want to understand that wherever your article ends up, you have to depend upon the webmaster to make their website different enough to use your article.

The answer to this dilemma is to send out a different version of your article to the different article directories. Writing a different version of the article for each directory takes even more time than submitting to all of the directories by hand. What is the solution? It is choosing an article submission service that creates a different version for you as it submits your article to the different directories. When choosing your service, make sure your service allows you to create quality variations of your article. It defeats the purpose of creating variations if your variations are unreadable and don't make sense. You would be better off submitting the same version of your article to the different article directories. You want a service that will create a quality variation that still adds value and someone else would want to have on their website.

2) Does it allow you to use HTML in your resource boxes?

The article submission service you use should allow you to the option of using an HTML resource box. The value of having this feature is that you get to increase your link juice for your desired keywords. Instead of linking to your website using your URL (such as mywebsite.com). You get to use a keyword in the link to your website (such as ). This adds link popularity for your keyword and will increase your chances of being found in the search engines. This can be a very beneficial feature because if you combine this feature with multiple versions of your articles, you can use one article to build your link popularity with multiple keywords.

3) Does your article submission service give you tools to promote your articles more efficiently?

The article submission service you choose should give you your own personal RSS feed. This is a great way of keeping your readers informed of the articles you are publishing. You can also market your RSS feed to the different feed directories that are out there to bring even more exposure to your articles. This should be a standard feature to your article submission service. If it isn't, look for another service.

Marketing your articles can be a tedious process if you don't have the right tools or technology. To make the most of your marketing efforts, you want to use an article submission service that gives you the best chance of having your articles be found by the search engines. Using these tips along with others will increase the chances of your articles reaching your target market.