Article marketing is of course a windfall for the small web site owner who wants to develop a traffic source to their web site or web pages.
But in much the same way, the publisher of the article needs your article as bad as you need the traffic it will generate.
You see, generally, the publishers already have traffic, and already have rankings, but they constantly need fresh content to feed the search engines.
Alternatively, if somebody is looking for content for their own website and they like your article and think they can use it as content on their own website, they can copy it from the directory, but must keep your resource box with the article.
This gives you a link back to your website.
Back links are very valuable in the eyes of Google and help your listing placement.
However, keep in mind that the listing is for each web page, not your complete website, so get as many links back to individual pages as possible.
Design the articles so that they address the topics of each of your web pages, and not the subject as a whole.
You can then divert your readers to each relevant web page on your site, and get very valuable back links if they decide to copy your article to their site.
Article marketing is not difficult.
It is writing the article to retain the interest of the reader that is the problem.
You have around five to ten seconds and if they are with you after that, then perhaps you have a chance.