Having a high ranking in Yahoo, Google and MSN is definitely going to get you more traffic to your web site.

One of the best free ways to get higher rankings in the search engines is to write articles and submit them to article directories.

Webmasters looking for content for their websites and e-zine publishers looking for content for their e-zines can now go to these article directories to find articles they can use for free.

When they use your article they must keep the resource box in the article. The resource box contains a little information about you, including a link to your web site. If 100 people pick-up your article and use it on their website or e-zine, you now have 100 links back to your web site.

Back links to your web site will naturally increase your ranking in the search engines. A high ranking in the search engine will increase traffic to your web site.

The problem most people have with this technique is the actual writing of the article. This should not stop you. Below are some tips.

An article contains three parts: Title, Body and Resource Box. It should contain useful content and be between 400-800 words.

The title must be attention grabbing and let the reader know what the article's about. 10% of effort is put into writing the story and 90% is put into the title.

Assume the reader knows nothing about the topic. The body of the article must answer questions a reader would have about the topic.

The resource box is at the end of the article. It should be short, 3-5 lines max. It should contain some information about you -- name, what you do, and a link to your website. You can separate the resource box from the article by a single row of a character such as the asterisk (*********).

If you still don't want to write the articles yourself, you can hire someone to write them for you. You can get writers to bid on your job at www.Elance.com or www.RentACoder.com. It will cost you around $8-$12 for professionally written articles that you can publish as your own.

Before you submit your articles to any directories you must do some basic formatting. Different directories will have preferences on formatting so check with them individually for that. You can download a free text formatter from www.TextPad.com.

You should submit at least two articles a week and submit to many directories. Some article directories to submit to are:

www.GoArticles.com

www.ArticleCity.com

www.EzineArticles.com

www.ArticleCentral.com

www.IdeaMarketers.com

www.Articlez.com

You can do a search on www.google.com for "article directories" to find more.

Submitting articles to article directories is one of the best ways to get back links to your website. Back links will increase your search engine rankings and bring more traffic to your web site. The best part, it's FREE.

Start writing!

Laura Hite helps you increase your search engine rankings and flood your website with traffic. She works with Safety Technology, a wholesaler of self defense and security products. Get more success tips by visiting http://www.safetytechnology.com