Many people begin their online road to riches dream by starting
up a website and trying to sell a product they have created
themselves. They may have written an e-book, recorded a cd of
original songs, or knitted some lovely potholders with pictures
of cats on them.

Enormous volumes of hype have been published with the claim that
the internet is an easy, if not mindless, way to riches. The
internet is now a global advertising grid, and millions of people
surf each day for things they would like to buy, learn about, or
discover. They search for the needle in the electronic haystack
that suits their fancy for the moment. Shopping online has now
become reasonably safe.

The first problem is, how will shoppers with a credit card and
the urge to shop find your website? A count as of January1, 2005,
suggested there may be as many as 11.5 billion public webpages
published. That was just over a year ago at the time of this
writing, so that number can only be much higher today. To expose
your little website selling cat potholders to prospective
customers may take a little a little work.

Search engines use complex algorithms (mathematical formulae) to
determine if the content of a website matches its owners claims.
Self-proclaimed experts who follow this route for exposure must
research every day to ensure their success. The search engine
companies themselves keep their algorithms secret to avoid
unscrupulous marketers taking unfair advantage of the whole
internet shopping and surfing experience.

So what is a potholder seller to do? Search engine experts can
charge upwards of $25,000 to guarantee that your site might be
the first to be found when someone enters a search. That’s a
whole lot of lovely cat potholders. Some very easy and free
methods are available to drive traffic to your website. One of
them is writing simple articles. You’re reading this one right
now, aren’t you?

Hundreds of “article directories” exist on the web just for this
purpose. The main and simplest thing people search for on the
internet is information. People want to know about something, and
often a good place to find a snippet of information is in an
article directory. Thousands of 500-1500 word articles have been
written and published on the internet, and people love to read
them. If they are short and informative, they will become popular
to read, and not too time consuming.

Then once your website is up on the net, write a brief, helpful
article about your product. Target the style and content of your
writing to suit your friends and customers, and also yourself.
The average newspaper is written for a grade 9 level reader, and
tabloids are written for a grade 6 level or lower. Writing on the
internet runs the whole gamut of education. Explain a problem that
needs to be solved, and at the end provide a solution. Sales copy
is more involved than this, but an article should be entertaining,
or fit the parameters of a possible search.

The most important part of the article, besides the content and
the attention grabbing headline, is a live link to your website
in the author’s bio at the bottom. More often than not, the reader
will click the link, if it is live, to see what other information
might be available on that particular subject. This link must lead
straight to your potholder website. A reader is less likely to copy
and paste your website address into their browser if another
similar article is listed in the directory.

Write a short paragraph stating your expertise with cat
potholders, and invite the reader to visit your website. This will
be your “author’s bio”. If someone does read the whole article,
they are often curious who wrote it, if it covers the subject they
are interested in. Most article directories will accept html code
in the bio box.

Search for the words “article directory”, and make a list of as
many as you can. Most directories are free to read and submit
your articles to. Registration is usually necessary, with your
email as the username. Get another free email address to use
specifically for article submission to avoid any trouble with
spam.

After you have submitted your article, it may take a few days for
publication. Check back to the directory to see if your article
is published and your link is working. Then do it all again. The
articles will stay published forever, or as long as the directory
exists. Over time, people will continue to read your article, and
click back to your website. If you submit your article to 20
directories, and 40 people interested in cat potholders read it,
that’s 800 more potential customers from one article. If you have
the time to write 20 little articles, and submit them to 40
directories, and 40 people read each one over time, well you do
the arithmetic.

Article submission is one easy, quick and guaranteed way to
direct some website traffic your way, and at almost no cost. Give
it a try, you’ll be amazed.