Beginning Article Marketers - Must Read

[Allen Graves]

Article Marketing Newbie? Beginners Start Here...

Have you checked out an article directory Terms of Use or Submission Guidelines page recently? They're starting to get rediculously detailed and some take forever to read and understand!

Unfortunately, from a directory owner's perspective it is necessary. You see, these one-way backlinks to your website have been so powerful and advantageous that people are coming up with devious ways to take advantage of article directories in order to get them...so the directories must update their TOS in order to keep these spammers and scammers from running rampant and ruining the article directory industry altogether.

Trust me, an article directory editor can tell immediately, without reading one word of your article, whether or not you are a serious article marketer or just someone trying to get backlinks without the effort.

The topics below will guide you through writing an article that will get your article read and accepted the first time around.

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How to create an approvable article:

Your Pen Name and Contact Email Address

• Use an email address that you will be checking frequently.
• Never use a "throw-away" email address.
• Use an actual person's name as your pen name, not a business name or any kind of cute nickname. Make sure to capitalize the names.
• Do not include any type of punctuation or special characters in your pen name, with the exception of a hyphenated name.

The Category or Subcategory

A category is a main topic under which subcategories exist. For instance, Finance would be a category, while Debt Relief, Credit and Bankruptcy would be subcategories underneath the Finance category.



The first thing that you need to do when you submit an article is to choose the category in which the article is to be submitted. Since some article directories will not accept an article unless it is submitted to a subcategory, it is best to always choose a subcategory, rather than a category, if available.

• Always submit your article to a subcategory, not the root category.
• If you do not see an appropriate sub-category, contact the website and ask them to add it for you.
• Do not submit your article to the "Business: Sales" or the "Internet Business: Income Opportunities" category unless that is what your article is about.

The Article Title

First and foremost, your article title must be written in "title case." What this means is that each word in the title should be capitalized, with the exception of prepositions (at, by, of, upon, etc...) articles (a, an, the, etc...) or conjunctions (and, or, etc...), unless they are the first word of the title. Writing titles in improper title case is one of the two most common reasons why articles are declined by article directories. "How to Start a Business" would be acceptable while, "How To Start A Business" would not.

Some directories do not mind capitalizing every word in the title, but your article may appear more professional if written in the "proper" grammatical style.

• Titles must be written in Title Case (see paragraph above).
• Do not enclose your title within quotation marks.
• Do not submit a title written in ALL CAPS.
• Do not use special characters in your title (*, #, @, etc...)
• Do not punctuate your title, titles do not end with a period. In special cases, hyphens, colons and question marks are acceptable.
• Do not create an incredibly long title. Keep it as short as possible to achieve its goal.
• Keep domain names and/or business names out of the title.
• Never post an article with a part number (Part I, Part II, Part III, etc...) without submitting the previous part.
• Never use keyword-stuffed titles.

The Article Summary

• Do not simply copy and paste the first paragraph of your article into the summary section.
• Never link to another website in your summary.
• Pay attention to the allotted word count. Do not go over this limit.

Your Pen Name and Contact Email Address

• Never link to another website in your article body unless it is absolutely allowed and necessary.
• Check for a minimum word count and make sure your article meets this minimum word count.
• Never blatently pitch or sell a product or service.
• Do not submit press releases to article directories!
• Do not use the <Enter> key after every few words. Your article should look naturally written through to the right side of the page as if you were writing and essay for a college paper.
• Use more than one sentence per paragraph...three at minimum.
• Do not submit your whole article as one paragraph. Separate into logical paragraphs.
• Try to stay away from writing article which will become un-informative or will expire at some point in time.
• Do not use words in ALL CAPS. Use <b> tags instead.
• Do not use <h> tags unless approved by the article directory.
• Do not submit articles with pictures or <img> tags unless absolutely allowed.
• Always read your article aloud to yourself prior to submitting. Check for spelling and grammar errors.

Your Resource Information (Resource Box)

• Check for a maximum word count and make sure you do not go over this limit.
• Insert no more than three (3) links in this section.
• Each link must point to a different web page. Do not submit identical, duplicate URLS.
• Do not link to web pages that are not related to your article.
• Never "keyword stuff" your link text.

To learn how to create a hyperlink, click here.

Other General Rules and Regulations

The bullets below are my own personal preference:

• Do not use automated article mass-submission services.
• Do not use PLR articles or articles written by someone else unless completely rewritten. If an editor notices it as PLR, it will be deleted.
• Do not submit articles which were created with software, aka: spinners.

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Article Directory owners and editors are reviewing so many articles that if anything pops out at them from the list above, they will decline the article without even reading the first word. If the items above are all followed, the editor will THEN begin reading your article.

Please respond and add anything I may have missed! I am always looking to add to the list!

I hope this helps new (and veteran) article marketers understand the general article submission concepts from the article directory owners' perspective.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

[e-mail2u]

Great words of wisdom Allen,

Wish you had wrote this a week ago it would have made my first article a little easier to write. It made it through and was published today, i kept checking re-reading it and was not to sure it was good enough. First time nerves i guess.. LOL

A tip to add could be re-search current articles to see what has been published so far, so you can make your article more unique.

[TheManicMarketer]

Allen, pearls of wisdom as ever.

One of the first of the new forum posts that will be bookmarked and sent to some of my clients for reference as you just saved me from typing out a similar post for my newsletter.

[Frank Donovan]

Hi Allen

Great post with really useful advice for all potential article writers.

I'm not sure if it's just my browser, but your link to creating a hyperlink just opens on a blank page (?) .

Frank

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by Frank Donovan

Hi Allen

Great post with really useful advice for all potential article writers.

I'm not sure if it's just my browser, but your link to creating a hyperlink just opens on a blank page (?) .

Frank

Link works now...can't put quotes in the BB code. LOL It's just a page I found searching Google.

Thanks,
AL

[goralka26]

Wow, thanks for the useful information Allen!

[Barry Plaskow]

Great stuff!

It's amazing just how powerful a single article can be if written and distributed correctly.

[JJ Manning]

Hi Allen

Great Points.

It's usual for new article marketers to jump straight in without looking at the terms and guidelines. It's human nature to want to get your article out as soon as possible and see some results.

A very detailed reminder that rushing without thinking can sometimes bite you in the ass.

To your success

JJ

[Sean A McAlister]

Wonderful presentation.
Wonderful Information!

This new forum is really going to change things for the better!
The lay out you presented with the visual is how it should be done.

Great Job!

Sean

[lgibbon]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

It's just a page I found searching Google.

Did you have their permission to
copy and paste that here?

[arthurt]

Hey Allen.

This couldn't have come at a better time for me.

I'll be getting ready to write & submit my first articles in a week or two.

Thanks!

[Frank Tello]

Allen,

Great post, there are so many people out there who can benefit from your information. I think I will bookmark it also to save time when helping others.


Frank

[nRehman]

Dear Allen,

Thanks for the valuable addition, nice post..

[Jelasco]

Allen, those are good points, but I don't see how an editor could notice all those things without reading the article.

For example, number of sentences per paragraph is hard to tell without looking at the article. That's one I don't agree with. On the web, it's common to have short paragraphs. I'll bet all my articles that were accepted at EZA violated this "rule".

[Steve Taylor]

Nice report Allen,
The only trouble I'm having is..."never use keyword stuffed titles"

The keyword in the title can give an article a lot of mileage.
Are you saying, not to over do it or just don't do it at all?

I like to use the keyword in the title if it sounds natural.

Regards,
Steve

[Allen Graves]

Thanks for the kudos everyone.

The points I made above are general regulations to follow to get your article submitted to ALL article directories. If one decides to let them go through then that is their decision.

Trust me, after reviewing thousands upon thousands of articles, you can tell when any of the above apply...including how many sentences are in a paragraph. They pop right out at you like a sore thumb. Perhaps another article reviewer could chime in on that.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

lgibbon - yes I do have permission, why do contantly harrass me? I thought you were not a moderator anymore.

EDIT: Oops, got an infraction for that last statement. LOL But dude! Just leave me alone!!! If it's that important to you, maybe you should click the link on that page that says PERMISSIONS!

[Allen Graves]

Hi Steve,

Yes, I meant not to overdo it:

Dog Training - Dog Training is Easy for Dog Training Experts in Today's Dog Training Community

...would be stuffing.

AL

[Jean Morgan]

I was trying to explain all of this to a new marketer this afternoon. I wish I had done it as well as this. In fact I am sending her a link to this thread right away.

Thanks Allen

[cashcow]

Submitting good quality articles and using the tips that Allen suggests help keeps the article directories as a good resource for everyone!

I'd like to add a bit about PLR too - Instead of rewriting your PLR article as it is, why not combine the ideas from 2 or 3 of the articles in a set to make a totally new and unique article - it will be more interesting for your readers and you won't be sending out an article that says the same thing someone else said (only using different words).

Lee

[ali_ravians]

Thanks for sharing such priceless info in such precise post.

Great post for any newbie in article marketing

[Ray Erdmann]

Allen,

Great post!

I remember once viewing the TOS's for either EZA or another major AD early last year and all I could think of was how overly 'legalized' it was...the way you've explained...makes it very easy to understand what can/cant be done.


Thanks!



Ray

[EndGame]

I noticed you took a leave of absence from the Warrior Forum a while ago. I remember you writing a similar post to this when you used to frequent the warrior forum some time back. I bookmarked and saved it.

I also recall a couple of other threads you posted which I bookmarked. All have been invaluable to me in my article marketing efforts. Thanks again for delivering such excellent and concise advice.

[paul65]

Hello Allen,

Here is a list of the most common replies that are sent to Authors for rejected articles declined at our directory. When reviewing an article these reasons for decline, are the most cut and pasted reasons I use every day. Now I have not listed all of them but these are the common reasons for an article rejection.

Partial Decline List in order of most common reply reason given for rejection

Please apply proper spacing between paragraphs
Please put into proper article & paragraph format
Please fix paragraph spacing and periods
Please Do not use all CAPS in the Title, “Should Be In Title Format”
This article is in the form of an advertisement
Sorry but you had broken links in your article
Please do not use e-mail links in your article.
This article contains an affiliate link.
Your links are not related to the topic?
You have more than Three Links. We only allow 3 links per article

Well hope this help some to save time in the future.

Cheers and To Your Success,

Paul

[Big Al]

I'd like to add another one...

Too many words in the Anchor text, they would like to see only 3 as a rule of thumb. That could be a bummer if your anchor text is a product name like "principles and practises of bacteriology" (he say's as he looks at the bookshelf for an example).

My product has 5 letters in it's title and my article just got delayed (submitted Sunday) and I have a platinum account... bugger!

Al

[Allen Graves]

Thanks Big AL.
hey...guess what my "real life" nickname is!!!
AL

[zerofill]

I'm tellin ya...if you aren't into Article marketing Allen can just about convince you to start lol. Go away man I have enough work to do...I can't do that to damnit...

Actually your book and your posts I think have even made my grammatically challenged self want to try after I get a few projects completed.

Allen do you mainly focus on affiliate marketing in most of your main articles now? If so...clickbank, cj type products? Or is website-articles your main deal running it now?

Maybe if you do affiliate products you could possibly outline a good way to make a product marketing article flow?

Maybe we can get you and Steve and some others to make a thread and just let us abuse your brains?

[Allen Graves]

I have 13 affiliate websites that sell via different affiliate companies - based on the niche.

For instance, right now my two most lucrative niches are herbal supplements and stop smoking...both of which promote products from http://www.markethealth.com.

DON'T WORRY EVERYBODY, I DO HAVE PERMISSION TO USE THAT URL!

Anyhow, I also use Clickbank, Commission Junction, "pet company" affiliate sites, MLB.com, Clixgalore, Sonic Shack, 2 Adsense sites and a couple other affiliate gems that I'd prefer to withhold for another day. I also have a local city website that gets revenue from local adverts.

They have all basically been running on autopilot for a couple of months while I have been working on a couple of new projects, but (showcasing the power of AM) they keep on truckin and bringing in the paychecks like they always have, getting the traffic from previously written articles and organic traffic.

I will probably be selling most of them while I segue into mostly AM stuff.

AL

[zerofill]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

I have 13 affiliate websites that sell via different
DON'T WORRY EVERYBODY, I DO HAVE PERMISSION TO USE THAT URL!

yeah yeah that is what they all say...lol

Anyway...sounds pretty sweet...that markethealth commission system works well?

I was actually trying to help a friend that had cirvical cancer and had surgery where they damn near seemed to take like all the female organs and bladder etc etc...away in the surgery... She was trying to see if she could make some money off the cancer niche. But being someone that went through two bouts with cancer she would definitely only promote things she used and places that have a good rep behind them.

She has been working on content basically writing about everything she went through and then trying to do affiliate links for things she had used herself. She went on an alternative treatment craze when they told her her tumor was too large to do anything about and she was pretty much done for. So 3 months later...after doing all these alternative treatments she goes back and the tumor had shrunk enough to operate. So she is a diehard believer in some of them.

So I was going to help her setup a blog and drip feed everything she is writing now into it.

What would you suggest for someone like her marketing in that area? I should make her come on here lol...she gets frustrated because I sent her here before and she doesn't know the lingo so she doesn't understand what she is reading most of the time hehe.

[Allen Graves]

Well, cancer is a tough niche to crack. It's full of authority websites that have basically taken all the profitable keywords. But if she has specific products in mind (not necessarily the brand names, but the type of product) I would suggest starting there. Markethealth's affiliate system is top notch...a check ON TIME every month, high commissions and an awesome interface and reports. Lots of nice affiliate tools as well.

You can sign up and check it all out for free. I am really glad I found them and decided on them as I have seen many others go by the wayside.

AL

[zerofill]

Yeah the products she used don't necessarily have to follow under a brand name. I have seen multiple brands out there that were the same thing when I was looking over some info with her.

I will have to have her look through their products and see if any of it was what she was using as well. She wanted to mainly speak from experience. Obviously just because she feels it worked for her doesn't mean it did...anything is possible. I think she was mainly just going to focus on what she did...what happened to her as a result, and basically tell them she feels it worked for her but it may not work for everyone. I told her you have to tread rather lightly in those niches...or you can have some legal issues even as a result.

[emeraldfire]

Thanks so much for the post. It helps newbs like me learn something new all the time. WF rocks!

[latoya]

Do not use PLR articles or articles written by someone else unless completely rewritten. If an editor notices it as PLR, it will be deleted.

Of course, it's acceptable to use an original article written by a writer that you hired. Nothing wrong with that.

I've been hired many times to write articles for clients to submit to directories.

I'm sure you mean we should rewrite articles that are given away as freebies and things like that.

[Allen Graves]

Latoya,

You're exactly right! Not a problem at all as far as I am concerned...I would guess this is the way everyone else feels as well.

AL

[Allen Graves]

edited for private reasons....

sorry

AL

[Ross Kenny]

Hey Allen,

I'm sure this will help a lot of Article Marketers out.

As for the Infractions. Only supposed to stay with you for a hr???

[Gunter Eibl]

The newest "improvement" is that EZA now recommends (requires?) to always add the author name into the resource box, otherwise they tend to believe you are only submitting articles to get a backlink. How comes they believe that?

Gunter

[jimcal]

Hi Allen,
Great info. I've only written a few articles and a couple got rejected. This should help and now I need to get off my butt and write some more.
The Rays need to take out the Red Sox. The Angels will be tough.
Thanks,
Jim

[jbolte1976]

Hey Allen,

I'd have to agree... I know what you're talking about when you say you can almost immediatley tell if an article will be declined w/o reading much or any of the article.

I've found that after reviewing thousands of articles you recognize patterns and even article category tendancies for certain categories. Certain categories get more approvals just because of the quality of articles seem to vary category to category. That's what I've seen anyway.

Great post, tons of great information.

[natalie1]

Thank you for the fantastic post. I've read a lot of article marketing books and some of the information you shared I've never read before...and you shared it for free. Thanks again!

[TheRichJerksNet]

This is why they call you the Master of Articles, Allen ..

Great Post..

James

[Allen Graves]

Hey, thanks everyone.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask right here and I will answer to the best of my knowledge!

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

[onlinemoney00]

Great information for thtarting out sose of us that love article marketing and for those that are

[Tuzic]

hi,

thats a great informative & detailed post that you have made & helps many new to article marketing on what to do & get articles published 1st time round.

[lgibbon]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

edited for private reasons....

sorry

AL

There is a box for adding reasons for editing which doesn't
bump old posts up.

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by lgibbon

There is a box for adding reasons for editing which doesn't
bump old posts up.

Hey, thanks! You are the man!!!!!!!

AL

p.s. oh...one other thing...threads are not bumped when you edit a post. DUH!

[lgibbon]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

threads are not bumped when you edit a post. DUH!

Not when you edit it normally.
But when you make another post about it, it does.
As the dates will confirm.

[Allen Graves]

OK then, I'll tell you what it said.

It said why is the totally uncalled-for infraction that YOU gave me above still in my profile? I thought they disappeared after a few days.

Considering you, you would have taken offense to it...so I deleted what I posted and replaced it with what you see above.

I'm sure some of the members here saw it and they will back me up on it.

So, to answer all questions, I was stopping this stupid conversation before it even started, but I guess you couldn't help yourself, could you?

I am trying to help people here and you keep unterrupting with all this crap. So I'll ask you again...please just leave me alone. There is an ignore feature if you can't do it on your own. PLEASE ignore me...and if you have a problem with me, take it up somewhere else.

AL

[lgibbon]

I see, so you bumped it with a totally unrelated comment.
I rest my case.

[dclodge]

Thanks for the great info Allen.

I am new to the whole IM thing and article marketing. At EZA I have 10 articles and have requested the upgrade. Waiting....waiting....

What would you say is the max amount of times to use your keywords throughout the articles? Some say use them in the first sentence, a couple times in the body and in the last sentence as well.

Anyone that is getting into article writing - heed Allen's advice! I submitted an "article" (yeah cause it was loosely considered an article, IMHO), without any guidance and it has crapped out. NOW, I have a couple that follow the guidelines and they are doing much, much better.

It isn't rocket science and you don't have to re-invent the wheel (unless that re-invent creates a ton more traffic, then let everyone know!)

Follow the steps and it will work for you too.

Dean

[Allen Graves]

Thanks Dean. I love to hear success stories, no matter how green they are.

I have always gone the route of the keyword phrase in the first sentence and the last sentence, then just use it in the middle as it comes up naturally.

I haven't seen any solid evidence of too much or too little making much of a difference.

I can site articles with a 20% keyword phrase rate that has the number one spot in Google for killer keyword phrases like 'real steroids' (I leave that article there as an example - it's pretty much crap)...and I can show you some that do not even contain the keyword that rank on the first page due to backlinking strategies.

So just use it in the first and last sentence and naturally throughout.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves