Q: I have a question about links. I have been researching other SEO sites and a few discuss a process of authoring and submitting articles to hundreds of article submission sites. Because each article has a link back to my site I would be creating hundreds of links to my site with each article I publish.

Is Article authoring a strategy you have an opinion on? Pros and Cons? I keep reading about the pros but no cons so far.

A: We love the idea of writing articles as part of your link building process. There are several approaches you could take:

1. The approach you mention, writing articles and submitting them to copyright-free distribution services
2. Creating a blog and posting your articles there
3. Writing articles and posting them on your own website
4. Writing articles and submitting to online or offline publications

Different strategies will work better for different people. Our own strategy has been #3, writing articles and posting them on our own website. We primarily promote these through social networking like digg and del.icio.us and naturally developed inbound links. You might want to look at our article about “Head Trauma: The Movie” for some ideas about social media marketing. We think that #2, posting articles to blogs, is also a very valuable option. If you work on becoming active in the blogosphere, having a lot of good articles on your blog will ultimately build your inbound links and credibility. Of course, you have to be willing/able to commit to regular posts. Option #4 has the advantage that you can target the audience.

The cons of option #1 – submitting your articles to free distribution websites such as Articlesbase or a zillion others – are that your content will be posted on websites that you can’t control, and some may not be of your choosing. This could detract from your credibility. You may not want your “sweat and blood” poured into an article to create Adsense revenue for others. And these articles don’t work for you in building your own blog content, reputation, and “trustrank.” Another obvious con is the time and effort involved in the writing and submittals. But yes, option #1 can be a good strategy if you are comfortable writing articles. Just be sure that you follow the advice inour SEO bookwhen we discuss this subject: make sure your content is going to be cited properly and will include a link back to your site.