I've noticed a disturbing trend recently of articles suggesting that people write articles to send traffic to their websites, and enhance their credibility. In theory, the more articles you write, the more traffic you'll receive, the more credibility you'll have, the more sales you'll make.

It's an interesting theory. However, what those articles fail to mention is that your writing needs to be of a certain quality. And quite frankly, I'm seeing a proliferation of poorly written--or just plain bad articles appearing across the Internet!

Unfortunately, there are some pub-2403258503801684lishers out there who will pub-2403258503801684lish just about anything. That's the good news. The bad news is, those pub-2403258503801684lishers don't have the quality websites or the huge traffic numbers, so your article probably won't be seen by too many people anyway.

So, in essence, you're really wasting your time writing garbage, because you're not going to reap the benefits that go along with writing quality content. Remember this saying, "garbage in, garbage out!"

To get pub-2403258503801684lished in the top ezines and on the top websites--the one's with mega traffic, you need to have your act together. Publishers of top ezines and websites aren't stupid, and so desperate for content that they'll just pub-2403258503801684lish anything that's submitted to them. Their credibility is at stake everytime they pub-2403258503801684lish. They have standards and their readers have come to expect a certain degree of excellence from them.

After all, how do you think they became top websites and ezines in the first place?

Now, I'll be the first to admit, I'm no Woodward or Bernstein. However, I take great care to make sure that my articles are well written, lucid and of high quality.

I've been fortunate enough to have my articles pub-2403258503801684lished by some of the top websites and ezines on the Internet. These pub-2403258503801684lishers aren't pub-2403258503801684lishing my articles because they like me or think I'm a nice guy. They pub-2403258503801684lish my articles because they feel my content will enhance their website or ezine.

And contrary to what you may have read, everyone can't write articles--at least not good ones. You have to be honest enough with yourself to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you know writing articles isn't one of your strengths, don't continue to write anyway.

When you submit poorly written articles to pub-2403258503801684lishers, you not only waste their valuable time, you also make yourself look bad in the process.

Writing articles is hard work, and if you want to write articles and you're not good at it, then you need to work hard to improve and develop your writing skills.

If you're not willing to put in the work that's required yourself, then at the very least, hire a competent ghost writer to write your articles for you.

This article was posted on October 14, 2004