In a word, yes. By posting articles on the major directories such as ezine, Squidoo, Blogger and Hub Pages you can establish yourself as an expert in your field. Everyone likes to get something free so why not give away your knowledge? If you are a hairdresser, posting articles about hair care and suggesting different products will give potential clients the impression, rightly so, that you are an expert in hair care. If you are an internet marketer, you may want to post articles telling people how they can increase their sales and market their products and services. These types of articles will not only help people recognize that you know what you’re talking about, but make them interested in what you offer on your website.
Although it is very important to your Search Engine Optimization to have a blog on your site and to post entries regularly, articles posted to directories can drive traffic to your site and help the major search engines recognize your site and index it into their databases. The way these articles help to do this is by backlinks to your site. You can place relevant backlinks to your site so that after people read your informational article, they may want to check out what you have to offer. For instance, the hairdresser who is an expert at hair color will want to place a backlink in her article to the page on her website that covers her hair color services.
Take advantage of the different things you can add to your article. For example, Squidoo has modules that you can use. These modules include videos, a guestbook, Amazon links to related products and many more that can make your article interactive and help draw readers. You can embed videos into Hub Pages and Blogger that you have made or that are on YouTube. Always put a comment section or guest book and encourage people to leave comments. One way to do this is to pose a question. Don’t just say “leave a comment” rather ask a question that relates to your article. Using the hairdresser example again, if your article is about hair color you might ask “Have you ever had your hair colored?” or “What do you think of (celebrity’s name) new hair color?”
So do you need to post articles on the major directories? Yes you do. If you don’t want to or have time to do this yourself, you can hire a freelance writer or use an article service. Article services will make sure that your articles are search engine optimized and bookmarked at the major sites such as Digg, Diggio, StumbleUpon, Propellor and Delicious. They will also make sure that the backlinks lead back to the proper page on your website. Don’t be afraid to give your knowledge away, it will come back to in the form of new visitors and clients.