How many times have you read the following? If you want to expand your home based business and build an online reputation then all you need to do is write and submit ezine articles. Sounds simple. However I found the task very daunting. So I will share with you what I have learned.

Research and Plan

Firstly you need to write the articles. Write on a topic you know something about. Some ideas you have learned building your Internet business, something related to your business opportunity or a hobby or investment opportunity you have. Ensure it is interesting and informative and not just an advertisement for your home business. The most popular articles are between 300 -750 words. To find your word count, go to “tools” in the Windows menu. There is an automatic word count tab there. Some ezines want articles to contain 65 characters a line. Here is a formatting tool for free conversion to the number of characters you want. I do not pay for any listings, nor do I charge for my articles.

Here are some tips from Ezinearticles.com on writing good articles. 'The first 4 words of the title are crucial to its success. The introduction can be the first paragraph. Make sure the article is keyword rich and reflects the theme of your home based business. Never put the title in the body. Never use more than 3 web addresses and they should all be different. Print a copy, proof read it, and then ask someone else to read it. Your article should look professional, with no spelling mistakes or vague sentences.

Submitting

When you are satisfied with your article start submitting it to ezines and ezine directories. Look for ezines designed for work at home people, or whatever your article is related to. It is often more time efficient to write a few articles and submit them all together. It is time consuming to manually submit. Some can be submitted thru the website others want email attachments. Some ezines want to you to subscribe, before you can submit articles. Establish an email address just for ezines. Consider an address that matches your business, for example if you sell weight loss products use something like loseweight@yourprovider.com Once you start submitting articles you will receive a lot of spam. However you need to read through it, as sometimes there is a request to reuse an article or a request for more articles and sometimes compliments.
Some people use different URL’s for every ezine they submit to. I have not done this as once they are out in cyberspace articles can be picked up by anyone. So you really do not know where the traffic is coming from. This is the beauty of the Internet. Good articles are used over and over by many ezine owners.
It is imperative to include a ‘resource box’ or ‘signature file’ at the end of your article. This is your opportunity to describe your business in a few lines and include your URL.

Do some searches for ezine directories. Here are some addresses to get you started. I cannot guarantee they are all still current.
Site-reference.com
Ezinearticles.com
Directoryofezines.com
ezinepublishingcafe.com
zinestar.com
ezinelisting.com
goarticles.com
ideamarketers.com
gogetglobal.com
promotenews.com
trafficswarm.com
searchwarp.com
netterweb.com
articlecity.com
ezineadvertising.com
ezinewriter@com.au
submit@impactarticles.com
publisher@aboutaffiliates.com
editor@gogetglobal.com