Article Submission Tips: Making Sure Your Article is Accepted - Article Marketing

Article Submission Tips: Making Sure Your Article is Accepted

Every article submission directory has guidelines that must be followed. While each directory is different there are some common characteristics of all directories.

When you know these guidelines in advance, it makes it easier to create quality content that will not only get accepted by the article directory but will be picked up and distributed by many websites, newsletters, and blogs. The following are the ten most common requirements.

#1 Your article must be original content. This means you may not plagiarize content or publish content written by another person without attaching their name and contact information in the bio box within the article. This also means PLR content and public domain articles may not be allowed. If you hire a ghost writer to write your articles, you will need to have an exclusive licensing agreement that only allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you. Don't submit articles from article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as almost all directories will reject those articles.

#2 You are generally required to include your first and last name as the author of the article. Each directory has their own guidelines, and most require you to only have one account with them however many will allow you to submit under different author names. This can be helpful if you have several different websites or businesses. Your biography box generally allows you to link to your website, if it doesn't consider using a different article submission site.

#3 Linking. Linking guidelines vary from submission site to submission site. Some welcome and encourage embedded links while others strictly prohibit it and will reject your article if you link to your site or any other site within the body of the article. One idea is to write different versions of your article, one that contains embedded text links and one that does not. The majority of submission sites do not allow affiliate links and only allow you to link to sites you own.

#4 Article content. Most article submission sites will reject your article if it is a sales piece. The intent of these sites, and your article's purpose, is to provide benefit to readers – not to sell a product or service. Take care to not pitch your product or service in the body of your article. That's what your author's resource box is for.

#5 Article quality. Take care to read your article thorough to make sure there are no spelling, grammar, or formatting mistakes. Your article could be picked up by hundreds of websites, blogs, or newsletters and if there are mistakes it will be published all over the internet, reflecting poorly on you and your business. Additionally, objectionable material of any kind is not allowed.

#6 Article length. There are generally minimum and maximum article length requirements for each site with the medium requested length being between 400 and 700 words. The easiest kinds of articles to read on the internet are generally broken into manageable steps, tips, mistakes, bulleted lists or numbered lists. This provides your reader with a benefit, the ability to read your article quickly and easily, and an easy way for you to structure an article to meet your word count requirements.

#7 Some article submission sites allow HTML formatting in your article, others do not. If you do not know basic HTML, don't worry. The HTML that is generally allowed is extremely basic and there is usually a quick tutorial if HTML is allowed.

#8 Keywords and SEO. All sites enable you to optimize your content for maximum exposure and search engine ranking. This means including your keywords in your title, opening paragraph, closing paragraph and sprinkled logically throughout the body of your article. Many also enable you to tag your article to help people find your information.

#9 Your author's resource paragraph. Most article directories separate your resource box from the content of your article. Your resource box will generally contain your name, a bit of your history or experience, an email address and a link to your website.

#10 Take care to read the submission site's duplicate content guidelines. Some sites explicitly state that you do not post your article on any other directories or submit the same article with minor changes. This is a good practice to avoid because the search engines tend to look unfavorably upon duplicate content.

Have you got any questions on article submission, or tips of your own that you'd like to share?

Tags: Article Submission
Published under Article Directories

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