Article marketing has long been a very good way for internet marketers to drive targeted traffic to their web sites. There are hundreds of article directories online. However, there are a few that receive the bulk of traffic and provide search engines benefits. A properly crafted and optimized article can rank highly in the search engines if you are willing to do a little link building. However, an article that reaches the top of the search engines, if written poorly, will almost do you no good. In order to make your article an effective sales machine, you need to make sure that it informs and is not a sales pitch. Individuals will quickly press the back button if they think that they're being sold to. Hard sales often don't work well, especially in a struggling economy. People just aren't going to spend money as freely as they once did.