An article directory is pretty much what it says it is -- a directory of articles.

By design, however, article directories fuel Article Marketing, which, along with Pay-per-Click and Search Engine Optimization, is one of Internet Marketing’s current kings.

Article marketing (the posting to your website of articles that contain keywords that will attract search engines, and thus traffic, to your site) is big business, and article directories are a crucial part of it.

A good article directory, then, contains scores of articles about a wide variety of subjects (for the larger directories, to offer tens of thousands of articles is not uncommon).

Why should small business care about article directories?

You care about these directories because in them you find articles (for free) to publish on your website, articles that will help bring valuable search engine traffic to your site. This is all at NO COST to you.

Sound worth caring about now?

Everyone benefits

Done right, using article directories can be a win-win-win relationship.

• The business owners win because they get free content for their site; content that generates traffic, yet, costs nothing.
• The article directory wins because the business owners visited their site and saw their advertisers’ ads.
• Even though they tend to not be paid for articles they submit to directories, the authors of the articles also win because they get great exposure each time a webmaster publishes an article of theirs, helping to establish them as subject matter experts.

(NOTE: In what has become a trust system that all parties generally abide by, articles can only be published in their original form, with full author credit.)

Do the research

When you find a good article directory, it can help bring a lot of traffic to your site.

And to be a good source, there’s one thing an article directory must do:

Screen.

Many article directories, including the massive ones, claim that each article submitted for publication by them is read by a real person. This in order to screen out the undesirables; namely, things like spam, out and out bad writing, and blatant repetition of keywords.

That kind of guarantee alone -- that real people screen the articles -- is enough to prompt me to check out a few articles in a particular directory, which means I’ll spend more time on that site, which means I’ll be exposed to more of their advertisers’ ads.

So, there’s big incentive for the directories to play fair, and to be helpful to people looking for quality articles.

Remember, as much as you want to find the right articles, the article directory wants you to find them there, in their files, because the number of downloaded articles is yet another factor that boosts a directory’s value as an advertising vessel.

What to look for in article directories

What I look for, above and beyond everything else, is article quality. I would only post something on my site that I’d be proud to put my own name on. I’m sure you feel the same.

This is especially true for small business, which is more personal than the corporate world. In small business, as well, we tend to be more a part of the product or service we offer. (Indeed, there is usually no bureaucracy to hide behind, anyway!)

So in terms of what to look for, as you check out more directories you’ll find that it really is about the articles. That’s how the directories expect you to think, too. Indeed, many article directories simply have their list of articles as their homepage. They tend to get right down to business.

What to look for IN the articles?

Obviously, the article should relate to your business. If you sell antiques, that would be a logical theme for any articles you post.

You also want the articles to be short, as online attention spans are notoriously short. (500-700 words is about average range for article marketing content.)

You also want articles to be rich with keywords, but not to the point of saturation, where readers are wondering why the same words and phrases keep coming up. All that does is bug people.

People read these articles, after all, because they need or want the information. The least the writers can do is make them readable.

Alright, then -- off you go! There are lots of article directories out there, and within their files, so many articles as to boggle the mind.

Good luck finding the directory that’s right for you.