Submitting your article to article directories and ezine publishers could expose your website or blog to thousands, even millions, of readers online. Unfortunately, you must compete with other website owners and internet marketers, all of them submitting their articles to the very same article directories as you.

How do you make your article stand out from the crowd? Here are some common mistakes many article authors are guilty of making.

1. Your article is not targeted.

Many article authors target the wrong niche market. If you own a website on "Dog Training" and are writing articles to attract visitors, the last thing you should be doing is writing articles about gardening or car maintenance. It should be obvious to avoid this basic error, but I've seen a lot of instances where this has happened.

2. Your article is not unique.

Duplicate content is penalised by the search engines and most of the article directories. Any articles you have that come with private label rights should be re-written enough to make them unique. Try to learn something new in your market and convert what you have learned into a unique article.

3. You have not formatted your article correctly.

People hate reading big blocks of text on their computer screen. Break your paragraphs up as much as you can to make it easier on your audience.

4. Your article is an advert.

The article you write should offer something of value to your target audience and not be a blatant sales pitch for the product you are promoting. Writing an advertising article will kill your business online. Use your resource box, or author bio, to get people to your website or blog. Offer something free, such as a free e-book, as an incentive for them to visit.

5. Your article is full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

There is no need to make spelling mistakes as spell-checking software is all over the place. If you are not very good with English, or your chosen language, give your finished article to a friend or relative to proof-read.

6. Your article is too short.

All article directories have a minimum word limit. An ideal article length should be around 400 words and most article directories will accept articles of this length.

Avoiding these mistakes will bring you a better level of success when writing articles to promote your website or blog. Writing articles should be an ongoing process. To bring you the amount of traffic that you want or deserve, keep churning out good-quality articles and success will be yours.