Writing and submitting articles to article directories has always been an effective method for promoting your website and gaining visitors. Your articles capture the attention of those people searching for specific information and the resource box offers you the opportunity to create anchor text links to your site. Using anchor text as a link back is considered valuable by most of the top search engines, versus a typical URL address.

On the other hand, web directories will generally only publish your website URL. Also, most of the web directories online will only allow the homepage to be linked, whereas article directories will allow the deep linking into other pages of your site. While many online marketers consider links from web directories to be somewhat of an outdated SEO method, you still need to look at all the possibilities for building backlinks for your website.

Submitting your site to web directories is generally a fairly simple process. The first step usually requires you to set up a user account with name and password fields. Of course, you will have to submit and confirm a valid email address for your registration to be effective. Most directories, both article and web will require this process for the simple reason of preventing the use of spambots, which are basically designed to handle multiple registrations.

Once you have created your login details you can immediately start inputting the required data for your website. The information needed for each directory can be different, but it usually consists of your website name, the title, a description and the main URL address. The listing of your website will include all of the above information so use your main keywords within the description.

Once again, be cautious and do not stuff your description with your keywords. Write your description informatively as some readers could easily find your site through a directory listing. As soon as your site has been approved for listing your website will receive a link from those web directories.

Now, the article directories are a totally different situation when it comes to generating backlinks and traffic. You still have to go through the same procedure when first signing up with most of the article directories, with the exception of a website description. Once you are registered your objective is to submit articles that are relevant to your own websites niche theme or topic.

To submit an article you follow a general procedure of adding your name, title of your article, any keywords associated with the article, a brief summary, the main body of your article and than the part that many believe is the key to submitting articles, the resource box or author box.

Article marketing as it is commonly known can have many advantages for any online marketer seeking additional promoting methods for their website. The two best advantages of submitting articles to directories is the traffic source that can be generated through the content that you provide to readers. Another is the link building process that article marketing is so highly regarded for.

As you can see, both web directories and article directories can be very helpful in developing your website promotions. All it takes from you is action.