One of the most successful online marketing strategies you can
do these days is to submit your articles to various article
submission websites. This is a great way to promote your
services, your expertise, and your book (if you're a published
author!). It has been well documented that one-way links to your
website increase search engine rankings more than reciprocal
linking, and article submission is an excellent way to achieve
one-way linking.

However, the downside is that it takes time to manually submit
your articles, and if you have several articles, you could spend
hours submitting them to the various websites. There is software
available that will automatically submit your articles for you,
but you do need to check this out carefully. And if you do
decide to manually submit your articles you need to have a
system in place that makes maximum use of your time, but also
keeps a detailed record of which articles you've submitted
where, and when.

If you have articles already written, you're off to a great
start. All you need to do now is to set up an article
submission system. But if you don't have any articles written,
then you might find the task of writing quite daunting, and
you're not sure where to start.

I have always found a good article comes from working with my
clients on a day-to-day basis. They might have a question that
requires a detailed reply. Use this reply to form the basis of
an article. For example I had one client ask me, ‘how do I get
an mp3 audio file to you, and how do you turn it into a word
document?' I sent them back my reply and, hey presto, I'd got
the basis for an article.

Brainstorm some ideas. Some great article titles, and which
will also get you thinking, are:

[Number - odd numbers work best] Top Tips For [fill in the blank]

How To [fill in the blank].

Try and come up with three or four articles - you will probably
find that you can think of a lot more!

So now you have your articles, you need a system for submitting
those articles. Below are my tips for an organized and
efficient article submission system (I use it so I know it
works!):

1. Convert all your articles to plain text as this will make the
submission process easier! Most article submission sites
require plain text articles; some will allow html. You will
need to refer to each site for their guidelines.

2. Set up a spreadsheet which is broken down into various
workbooks for article submission sites, ezine directories, and
ebook directories

3. Use this spreadsheet to track the article submission sites,
log in info, and other relevant information.

4. Go to each of the article submission sites and submit each
article to the article directory by copying and pasting from
your plain text document.

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About the author: Tracey Lawton is a certified Master Virtual
Assistant with many years of experience, helping professional
speakers, coaches, and authors operate an efficient, organized,
and profitable business. Visit
http://www.traceylawton.com/article_toolkit.htm for more
information about her Complete Article Tracking Toolkit, with
immediate access to over 100 resources for submitting your
articles.