Here’s the bare essence of the article writing system that works for me:

Break it down into three points.

This is a very important step. Before you start writing, of course you need to have a topic in mind. However the next step is just as important – come up with three points that you can write about related to that article. These could be anything: a benefit, a tip, an example, a whatever. Just have three of them.

Start writing.

Now that you’ve got the skeleton of your article, it’s time to put some flesh on it. Write a short intro (50 words). Now leave a space, and use your first point as a subtitle. Write on that point for 75 words or so, and repeat for the other two points. Now write a brief conclusion, again about 50 words. You can easily do a recap here of what you’ve already mentioned.

Remember, article speed writing is all about having a system and sticking to it. Get used to knowing how much space on the page 50 words takes, or 75 words, and you’ll quickly get a feel for how long each point should be.

Don’t Edit.

Article speed writing is useless if you spend a half hour editing afterwards right? So don’t. Train yourself to edit on the fly. One tip for doing this is to read what you’ve written out loud, or even as you’re writing it. Of course, make sure you use a spell checker.

For my complete article speed writing system, the 10 Minute Article System, visit http://www.10minutearticles.com.

However, I know there are a great many other very good article directories out there, and I don’t want to discount those.

I’ve seen people on the internet giving seemingly sound advice of picking one article directory and submitting all your articles to it. If you’re followed this school of thought, then I can see why you’re looking for the best article directory. However, that is a slightly dangerous approach, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket. EzineArticles is a terrific directory, yes, even the best article directory currently out there, but what would happen if something catastrophic happened to EZA and all your articles went poof? Relying on only a single traffic source is ALWAYS, and I repeat, ALWAYS a bad idea.

So, aside from relying on only one article directory, why else should you submit to multiple directories? Well, one answer is to get more backlinks. Every article you submit gets you another backlink to your site, giving you another penny of Google favor.

I’ve heard people talk about duplicate content penalties, but, let’s be honest. Those just don’t apply to offsite content. If Google penalized a site every time duplicate content showed up online, there wouldn’t be an internet! They know site owners cannot exclusively control their offsite content, so they don’t penalize you for it. Think I’m wrong? Go ask the boys at StomperNet. It’s your onsite duplicate content that hurts you.

But this isn’t about SEO, it’s about finding the best article directory out there. And to wrap this up, I’ll say that yes, EZA is the best, but don’t use it exclusively. Find a bunch of other ones that you trust and use them concurrently. That is your best article submission strategy.

Secret #1 – Pick Your Keyword
The long term purpose of article marketing on the internet is to capture long tail keyword traffic, and send it back to your site. Therefore, your articles should ALL be SEO optimized. That means picking a keyword, and focusing on it. Most people go wrong by trying to think of a topic first, then go looking for a keyword. I start with a keyword that gets reasonable monthly traffic and then use that as my topic, and write an article around it.

Secret #2 – Pick Three Subpoints
Once you know your topic, quickly brainstorm three short subpoints that you can talk about. They don’t have to be long. These three points give you an instant framework for a quick article. Each point should be relevant to your topic. This not only helps you focus your thoughts and writing, but it also makes for a fast, easy article to read. You naturally end up with three subtitles, which is pleasing to the eye and allows the reader to pick out the most relevant part instantly. Of all the article writing secrets I’ve ever come across, this one is the most powerful.

Secret #3 – Write Fast!
Now that you’ve got your topic and subpoints, start writing! I’ve trained myself to write articles in one go, without going back to edit (except spelling!). Write fast, just answering your subpoints. If you can escape from agonizing over wording and content in your articles, your productivity will skyrocket.

These three article writing secrets form the foundation of my article writing strategy, and they’ve allowed me to write many articles in short periods of time. They will do the same for you if you apply them properly.

Factor #1. PageRank
Go to the article websites homepage, and check what the pagerank is. I like using a plugin for FireFox called Search Status which shows me PR and Alexa score for every page I visit, right in my toolbar. If the main page has a decent page rank (at least 3) then that tells you that others are linking to the directory, and Google at least knows of its existence. If also gives you a small glimpse of the relative importance of that directory. The higher the PR, the better. However, PR is but one tiny surface of the elephant.

Factor #2. Alexa Score
Alexa score will give you an idea of the amount of traffic that visit these article websites. The lower the score, the better. If Alexa is more than 500,000, it probably isn’t worth your time submitting to that directory, as it just doesn’t have that much traffic. Again though, this is just one small factor.

Factor #3. Source Code
I’m going to get a little bit technical on this one, but it will give you a glimpse into how well these article websites are optimizing their pages for you. Browse to an article on the directory in question, right click, and View Source. That brings up the source code for the page. Near the top somewhere you should find a line that says “meta keywords”. If this line is present, and there are keywords in it relevant to the article, that’s a good thing. It means the article website is properly putting the keywords there. You should also check what they’re putting in there for title and description as well.

These three factors are very simple, basic ones you can check within seconds whenever you’re evaluating article websites, however the real story should take into consideration how well Google can crawl the article website, how many articles they have ranked in the search engines, and many other more complicated factors. The Ultimate Article Marketing List was created by scientifically evaluating 6000 article websites, ultimately boiling that list down to only 98. If you’re looking for the definitive list of the absolute best article websites that you can submit to, you really need to checkout the Ultimate Article Marketing List.

Readability
Are your articles easy to read? Is the English easy to follow? Does the logic make sense? Are you writing at a grade 5 level? Experts tell us that we need to write articles at a level a child in Grade 5 could quickly comprehend. Go too much beyond this level and people find it tiresome to read.

Clickthrough
Ok, let’s be honest here. What is the sole purpose of your article? To educate the reader? Not in my books. My sole purpose when writing an article is to get that reader to click through to my website. So writing better articles must include increasing the clickthrough rate per article.How do you do this? Write better titles, and above all, write better resource boxes.

Efficiency
Writing better articles should perhaps be re-phrased to be writing articles better. Most people spend way too long on their simple articles, when in fact a few minutes is often sufficient for what the article demands. Therefore, if you can increase your writing efficiency and slash the amount of time it takes you to write an article, you’ll be writing articles better.

Writing better articles is important, but more important is your time, and the overall place of articles in your marketing campaign. I’ve trained myself to write an article in one take, and I don’t usually go back to edit. Yes, I could be writing better articles, but my time is worth more than that. I don’t want to write perfect articles, just good articles. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort, so identify that 20% and run with it!

Chances are, writing better articles isn’t going to drastically improve your results. Writing more articles will. Keep it simple, cut out or reduce the editing, and you’ll be writing articles better in no time.

The problem was, every list I found looked great, but there wasn’t any methodology given as to how it was compiled. Basically, it was the just the personal opinion of the list author.

My article submission strategy became something like this: submit to EzineArticles, plus a couple dozen other sites that had decent PR and Alexa. As far as strategy goes, it was pretty poor.

Then I recently came across Jack Duncan’s Ultimate Article Marketing List. It is an article directories list that has been selected scientifically, and took him hundreds of hours to complete.

If you’re looking for the ultimate article directories list, you really need to check this one out. There are 98 article directories in the current edition, ranked according to a score that includes many factors, including page rank, percentage of overall pages indexed in Google, on page SEO factors, article directory traffic, clickability (on page readability factors) and much more.

Jack scoured the internet, coming up with a list of 6000 unique article directories. He then narrowed that huge list down to just 98. The cream of the crop. Directories where you can be sure you have an excellent shot at ranking in Google for your keyword. Directories that you won’t be wasting your time if you submit to them.

If you’re serious about your article marketing, you really need to checkout the Ultimate Article Directories List. Not only will you save wasted time, but you will be enhancing your marketing efforts by only investing in high-value sites. Definitely a “strongly recommend” in my books.

Before you go looking for an article writing service, you need to first consider your motivations for doing so. Like anything else you outsource, you should measure it against what it would cost you to do it yourself. Personally, I’ve developed a system that allows me to write an article in 10 minutes, so I can do six per hour. If I outsourced the same six articles, I would like pay $60. That means I’m working at a $60 per hour productivity level, which is higher than I currently pay myself, meaning I should write the articles myself.

However, if you find yourself unable to write at that speed (you can learn – it’s easier than you think!) or consider your time more valuable than that, then you will probably be looking for an article writing service. What should you be looking for?

The biggest thing that I’ve considered in the past (yes, I have and still do outsource some articles) is the level of English and the quality of the resulting articles. If you hire an article writing service that is producing substandard articles, then that is going to reflect poorly on your business. In some well educated markets, you will immediately turn off your prospect just by showing them something with very poor English.

Beyond English, I look for a sense of creativity. Is the article writing service capable of producing unique content that hasn’t just been dredged and rehashed from other article directories?

If you can find an article writing service that does both of these things, at a reasonable cost, then you just might be onto a good thing. However, if you’re interested in writing your own articles, if you could learn to do it quicker, then you should checkout my 10 Minute Article System. It’s just the thing for you.

The answer to that question is highly dependent on how the article marketer goes about doing it. However, for the sake of this article, I’m going to assume that you’ve written a correctly optimized article, focused on one keyword, using the keyword in the title and properly throughout the body as well.

Further to that, I’m going to assume that you’ve submitted your article to a directory that has actually put some work into making sure their articles receive SEO benefit. There are thousands of article directories out there, and please beware that they are not all created equally. Only a relative handful are actually truly optimized. Anyways, let’s assume you’ve submitted to one of these.

So if you’re wondering how does article marketing help with SEO, the simple answer is that you get backlinks from all your articles. In fact, you get keyword targeted backlinks because you get to choose the anchor text for the links that point back to your site. A large part of Google’s ranking algorithm depends on links, and their text, so this is a great way to get a large number of targeted backlinks to your site.

A second, usually smaller benefit comes from the page rank that will flow back to your site from the article. Every single page on the internet has at least some minimal level of page rank when it is created. Over time, if Google deems that article relevant enough, it will rise in the rankings, and possibly also increase in page rank. At this point, the links pointing back to your site will become more valuable because they are not only keyword targeted, but they are also coming from pages of increased page rank.

Finally, if you’re still wondering how does article marketing help with SEO, there’s the fact that most article marketers will submit their articles to dozens of different directories. Therefore, each of the benefits I’ve already mentioned are multiplied many times over each time the article is submitted somewhere else.

If you’re looking for article writing tips, I’m guessing that you’re a conscientious marketer who is looking for ways to improve your article writing skills and ability. If these article writing tips have helped you, come checkout http://www.10minutearticles.com and learn how I was able to cut my article writing time from nearly an hour to less than 10 minutes!

Tip #1. Pick a Keyword
Good article marketing (on the internet) always revolves around keywords. Offline it doesn’t matter so much, but online you must focus on a keyword. So pick a keyword for each article to focus on, and be sure to mention it a few times in your article. That keyword essentially becomes the topic of your article. Make sure you use it 1-2 times per hundred words.

Tip #2. Think of Three Subpoints
Of all the article writing tips I can think of, this is perhaps one of the keys to saving the most time. Once you’ve got your keyword or topic, take one minute and think of three simple points you can make about that topic. Write them down. Now, when you go to create your article, all you have to do is write a couple sentences on each point and you’ve got most of your article complete! Add an intro sentence and a conclusion, and you’ve likely got a 300 word article.

Tip #3. Create a Catchy, Keyword Optimized Title
Titles are very important to the success of your articles. If you’re looking for article writing tips make sure you find some dealing with titles. For SEO purposes, you must include the keyword in the title. However, for the “catchy” factor, you often need to make it more than just the keyword. Try making it a short list, like with this article “3 Easy Article Writing Tips” for instance. Or, “3 Ways to Lose Fat Today.” You can also make it a question or a how-to statement. Have some fun with it!

If you’re looking for article writing tips, I’m guessing that you’re a conscientious marketer who is looking for ways to improve your article writing skills and ability. If these article writing tips have helped you, come checkout http://www.10minutearticles.com and learn how I was able to cut my article writing time from nearly an hour to less than 10 minutes!

Article marketing has been around as long as there have been printed publications. It is definitely not new to the internet, though many people associate it with internet marketing. If you were to ask you local newspaper editor what percentage of their content was actually researched and written by staff, you might be surprised to learn that nearly 70% of the content in most papers is actually submitted to the paper by business owners, or by other people that are looking for publicity.

So how does article marketing work? Well on the internet of course, things look a little bit different than the standard process that happens with newspapers. In fact, on the internet, it is even easier.

You, as a marketer, need merely write an article that is in some way related to the product or service you are providing. It does NOT have to be about your product, but merely something interesting or useful in the same niche, or in some way related.

Once you have your article, you can submit it to online article directories, for free. Ideally, you want to have optimized your article for a particular keyword. The article should be kept short, so that people haven’t lost interest by the time they reach the end.

Now, the final part is what really makes article marketing work on the internet. Along with every article, the writer is given the opportunity to submit a resource box, sometimes called a signature box. This resource box should be used to present an offer to the reader, or at bare minimum, send them back to your website.

The value therefore flows both directions. The article directory gets a good deal, because people like yourself are constantly providing them with free and unique content, and the marketer gets a good deal because they are able to get their information in front of a much larger audience.

Depending on the directory that you submit to, there will be a short term burst of traffic from the article you write. However, the real power of article marketing comes from the long term value. Over time, your article (if the article directory is properly optimized) will gain rankings in the search engines. At that point you should start getting traffic from people that have searched your term directly in Google. Long term you can receive thousands of views from this, and if you have properly written your resource box you can expect to receive a percentage of those in clickthroughs to your site as well.

So, the next time you hear the question “How does article marketing work?” You’ll know the answer and you can educate the questioner!

To learn how to put article marketing to work for your business and website, visit http://www.10minutearticles.com to find the latest cutting edge strategies!