Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually put there by whoever owns the rights to them as a promotion method. Each item has the subtitle owners placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it (or at least who owns it) and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for more information
Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they make money. Using this method, people who are interested in your product or service to see your article, view you as an expert on the subject, and visit your website. Even if you can not write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting (for example, to run an affiliate website), you can always hire a writer to do the work for you. As quality articles written will be expensive up front but will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit
Let's take a real life example. Imagine you are an accountant working from home. You write an article on a topic of accounting and place it on various article directories. Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e -mail. Your article just gained a new client who may use the services regularly, but will definitely give you a nice profit at least once
Also, since you have posted on a free article directory, others who have affiliate websites accounting will inevitably use your article for their website. Since the subtitle must attach to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website that re-posts your article. This is because you will be benefiting of off the traffic that they get to their website
There are numerous article directories out there for you to use. Your best bet is to put a copy of each of your articles on every one for maximum exposure. It will eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit