The starting point of any good article is the headline. Spend a good portion of your allotted time on the headline. Make sure it grabs a passerby attention and it isn't something someone can say ho-hum to. The headline will draw the user into your article. If you can't get the person to start reading your article, it doesn't really matter what is written in the article itself. Really spend some time on the headline, it pays real dividends.
Next, the article needs to be engaging, informative and well written. Put a unique slant on your topic. Then throw a bit of your unique personality into the mix. You aren't writing for a computer, you want humans to actually read it and finish it! Make sure to check for spelling and grammar errors. If it seems it's written by a 2nd grader, nobody is going to trust what you say! Now, you'll need to send out unique copies of the article to each publisher. The duplicate content penalty is real. The true name should be the omitted results penalty, but under any name it damages your chances of building links and generating traffic. Create at least 3 versions of your article and get a software tool to merge them into a unique readable whole to be sent out.
Finally, make sure to send your article to as many ezine owners as is possible. There are dozens of software packages and services available to submit your article, though only a handful while send out unique content automatically. There are some gems to be found, including for the best price - free! I suggest you spend at least an hour each week building up a list of ezine and newsletter publishers and websites until you are submitting your articles to 5,000 publishers or more.
Once you do these things you will find the search engines love you more, traffic will flow to you and you'll have more back links. All these things for just a few extra minutes at your computer and a little elbow grease. Hardly a cost at all. Stand out from the clutter by taking action today.