Article writing provides you with an excellent method of increasing the PR (page rank) of your website. The only expense to you is a little time to write short, informative articles that have value to others.

The articles you have written can then be submitted to some of the best article directories such as Articledashboard.com, ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, isnare.com, and articlealley.com

Article marketing is a great way to increase the flow of traffic and visitors to your website. If you are a business person and have a website, you may have heard the term SEO or search engine optimization. Article marketing is a very effective way to promote your business or website.

In simple terms SEO uses tactics such as keyword optimization to achieve a better placing in the search engines, resulting in more visitors and hopefully more sales for your business. Google operates a site ranking system commonly known as page rank. Page rank is partially based on the quality of your website content but also looks at how many other sites are "back linking" to your website. A website with more back links should hold a better search engine placement and in turn receive more visitors.

Once you have written your articles, make a list of article directories where you wish to submit your articles. Most directories will ask you to create a free account before articles can be submitted. Once you have your accounts in place, you can begin your article submission. Article directories must approve your submitted articles before adding them to the article directory.

Try to make your article interesting, factual and useful to others. Do not just write a 300 word advert for your company or service as it will most likely be declined. Make sure the title of your article accurately describes the content of the article and contains keywords associated with your subject. Layout the article in short paragraphs, do not bunch all the text together as it looks terrible and web users will rarely read large sections of text.

It is a known fact that web users have a very short attention span and tend to skim over large sections of text, so make it easy on the eye and easy to read. Most article directories provide a resource box into which you can place your name, a little information about you or your business and - this is the important bit - a hyperlink to your own website. This link creates the back link to your site and will help to improve both visitor numbers and search engine placement.