Submitting Articles - Simple Common Sense POWER Tips for Article Marketers

Article marketing basically consists of submitting your promo pieces to article directories and hoping that they will be approved. However, there is a better way of doing things than simply submitting and waiting with crossed fingers. The trick is to guarantee that article directories accept your work.

It takes time and effort in order to write an article, submit it by hand to the article directories (the recommended method), and if you get rejected, you have wasted all of that time. Simply completing the submission process can take a minute or two and if you are submitting to several article directories or are trying to send multiple submissions to one, that could easily 30 minutes to an hour or more - enough time for you to write another entire article!

The best way to guarantee that article directories accept your work is to be familiar with their guidelines. Each directory is different, but by following general rules, you can ensure that every article directory will accept your article submission. The editors are not usually that picky, as long as you follow formatting guidelines and stick to non-offensive information, you have a pretty good chance of adding your work to the roster.

Formatting guidelines for article directories are pretty standard. If you write an article that is between 400-800 words, you will be fine for length. Article directories tend to like their articles formatted for the web, which means writing in the same manner as this article that you are reading right now - single spaced lines, with a double space between paragraphs. This is easy to read and easy to write, as well. Avoid using TABS or indentation and stay away from automated numbers and bulleted lists. While using numbers is encouraged for steps, just make sure that your word processor isn't adding them and indenting them automatically.

Your paragraphs should be fairly short as well. Three to four sentences is usually good. This means there is plenty of white space on the page and gets your article noticed faster. While the editors might accept your article even with long paragraphs, webmasters and ezine editors will be more likely looking for something that is easy on the eyes.  And after all, getting your article picked up by webmasters and web publishers is the whole idea in the first place, right? 

Spell-checking is a must for any article that will see the light of day. There is no excuse for submitting misspelled words to article directories. They will not accept this. All basic grammar rules should be followed, as well. Capitalization at the beginning of sentences and all other such rules need to be applied or your article will probably be rejected. The idea is to look professional, even if that means getting someone else to critique your work.

Links (hyperlinks, affiliate links, any links) are also a no-no within the body and especially in the title - this is cause to get your article submission denied, flagged, or deleted at most article directories.  It's best to simply avoid them. If you want to add a link, you can do so in your bio at the end of the article. That is what the author bio is for.  Otherwise, you can mention company names (like Chapters), but not the site (chapters.com). This will greatly boost your chances of getting accepted into article directories.

My article directory gets a minimum of 100 article submissions daily.  The most common reasons I am forced to reject some of them are listed below:

1. Incomplete articles - Yep, it's hard to understand how an author could miss something so obvious.  But at least a couple dozen article submissions per day are missing one or more paragraphs.  No conclusion, no ending… what a waste.

2. Hyperlinks in the article title, summary, and/or body.  In fact, the latest tactic some authors are trying is to insert several hyperlinks just below the 'fold'… hoping that the Editor won't scroll down to the bottom and see it.  WRONG! 

3. Misspellings, poor grammar, misplaced or NO puctuation, and no formatting at all (all sentences mashed into one huge paragraph - ugh).  By far the most frequent offender in this area is no formatting. 

I will often let a little punctuation issue go by.  But I personally am a stickler for grammar and spelling.  With all the free grammar and spell-checking tools at anyone's fingertips these days, there's just NO excuse for an author to submit any article with these kinds of errors.  There's no way any respectable article directory is going to overlook this.

Keep in mind the article directories and the web publishers you hope will accept, choose and publish your article around the web.  Take care to write your articles for them.  And, by following the tips above and making sure to read the submission rules and guidelines at each of the article directories you plan to submit your articles, you will be sure to have success.

Article by: Quality Free Articles - the popular free article directory offering mass rss article syndication for it's authors and categorized rss article feeds for publishers.

Tags: article seo, article marketing, article marketing strategies, traffic generation using articles