Article marketing is all about providing credible and useful content to your readers.
One of the best ways to provide valuable content in your articles is to read other high ranking articles.
Read through the comments readers have posted for ideas on how you can write your article better.
Large article directories possibly have millions of articles.
Out of the millions of articles it's really hard for your article to stand out unless you are exceptionally good.
One of the best ways to get noticed is to post your articles on small article directories.
Small article directories probably get a few thousand visitors a day but it will ensure that your article is displayed at least within the top twenty results within your niche.
Do not try not to rewrite some one else's articles because even though it might be technically unique it's not going to do anything for your credibility.
You can do your research by searching though other publications and online resources but you should make sure that you write your own article which should be 100% unique and different from all the others.
People tend to put in as many keywords as they can into their articles, but this really does not work for them.
Your keywords / key phrases should be ideally within the title, first paragraph and the last paragraph.
A keyword density of around 2% works best.
Make a list of all the article directories you want to use and make a note of their guidelines.
Make a template for each directory and then follow the template when you need to write an article.
This will save you lots of time in the long run.