If you aren't already submitting articles to ezines, you're missing out on an easy opportunity to promote your business. It's a practice that has a double impact on your bottom line - by decreasing expenses and increasing profits.

Consider the following benefits of having articles that you've written published on-line.

Resource Box Exposure: This is basically fr^ee advertising. When you submit an article, publishers not only allow, but request that you include some background information. Often called a resource box, you can include information that helps you brand your business, web site, and yourself.

At a minimum, the resource box includes your name and business name and your web site address. Oftentimes, you can also include your credentials, email address, a tag-line, etc. Read the editorial guidelines of the ezine to which you are submitting.

Inbound Links: Via the resource box, each time your article is published with a live link to your web site, that is one more inbound link that helps your site with search engine ranking.

Credibility: Your published articles help to establish you as an expert in your field. You develop a position of authority regarding the topics you write about. With this credibility, it is much easier to gain the trust of prospective clients, who will then be more likely to buy your product or service.

Targeted audience: Your article and business information is being sent out to a number of people who have subscribed to the publisher's list because they are highly interested in the subjects of the ezine. They are pre-targeted for you.

Note that you can maximize that effect by submitting your articles to more than one ezine publisher.

Exposure: When your article is sent out to a publisher's list, that's an excellent result of your efforts. In addition, many publishers place articles from the current issue on their home page, and then archive the articles.

Visitors often refer to the archives before deciding whether to subscribe, and so the exposure you receive from each article extends beyond the initial publication date.

Leverage: When you write an article, you have content that you can leverage. That is, you can use what you've written in other formats. An article could be developed into a presentation at a seminar, or expanded to a special report or e-book. And remember to put the article on your own site: search engines love to find fresh content.

Viral Marketing: Allow ezine publishers to include your articles in their fr^ee ebooks, as long as your resource box is included. Since these are being given away, your ad multiplies.

As well, submitting articles to publishers that have a fr^ee content directory on their site will allow visitors to republish your article intact, again multiplying your exposure.

If any or all of these benefits of being published online appeal to you, then simply go to a search engine and type in a phrase like: ezine publishers. Get more specific by including the word fr^ee, and the topics about which you would like to write.

After you have found some publishers, and you know that there's an audience out there for your topics, write an article. You can help your chances of getting published by taking a look at other articles in your selected ezine editors' archives.

And of course, proofread your finished article. Remember, your intent is to establish credibility and to brand your business favorably. A well-composed and polished piece of writing will go far toward accomplishing that result.

Once you've gotten your first article published, go ahead and do it again, continuing to spread the word about you and your business all over the internet.

Loren Beckart, business consultant and internet publisher, is a contributing writer for Click Tracs, offering valuable marketing resources to help increase traffic to your business web site. Articles by Loren can also be found at Yes Education.