As part of a good article marketing strategy, authors and business owners put a lot of thought, time, research and effort on selecting the best subjects, keywords and overall components of a good, revenue-driving article. When the time comes to finally making it public, there are a myriad of options. Let's take a look at one of this article publishing options; article directories.

Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually provided by whoever owns the copyright to them as a one of its promotion methods. Each article has the owners information placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it (or at least who owns it) and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for further information.

Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they will make a profit for you. By using this method, people who are interested in your product or service will look at your article, view you as a subject matter expert, and will visit your website. Even if you cannot write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting , for example in the case of an affiliate website you own, you can always hire a writer, usually known as a ghost writer, to do the work for you. Getting quality articles written will be expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit. Another source of good article material is PLR, or Private Label Right's articles, which is a matter outside of the scope of this article, you may be interested in research on it.

Let's take a real life example. Imagine that you are a lawyer working from home. You write an article on certain topics on law and place it on various article directories. Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e-mail. Your article just gained you a new client who may use your services regularly.

Furthermore, since you have posted it on a free article directory, others who have similar websites about law will inevitably use your article for their website. Since they must attach your byline to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website or blog that re-posts your article, benefiting you from the traffic that they get to their website.

The advantages of using article directories as a vehicle for article publishing are numerous as there are numerous article directories out there for you to utilize. There are strategies were you can either publish your articles manually on these sites or you can chose for free or paid automated process to publish several sites for maximum exposure. Whatever method you pick to post to these articles directories, it may eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit.