Copyright 2006 B Hopkins Articles are a great way to get added exposure to your website and business, and also a great way to increase your status as an expert in your field. Because of this fact, article writing and article submissions have skyrocketed. It is still an effective form of advertising, but you must be careful not to do things that will waste your time and effort. As an article directory manager, there are some things I see that cause me to delete articles that are submitted to the article directories I manage. These are 80% of the reasons I delete articles, so if you manage to avoid these problems, you will probably have a very good chance of getting your articles accepted by many of the article directories.
Submit Articles That are Relevant To the Article Directory Subject
Most article directories are general in nature and have a subject in just about every area, but there are now more article directories popping up that have more narrowly focused and specific subjects. These are called the niche article directories. They are not as large as the general directories, but their subject matter is much more highly relevant to a specific niche.
Visitors like to focus on these niche directory sites because they don't have to wade through thousands of unrelated articles. Article directory managers like to manage these sites because they are much easier to manage. niche directories don't grow as fast, but when it comes to having a site that is tightly focused, it's hard to beat for bringing value to the sites visitors.
Having said that, it still amazes me to see so many people placing obviously irrelevant articles in these directories. As an article directory manager, these articles get deleted without a second thought. Continuous offenders will get their accounts deleted. It does no good to continue this practice and only promotes bad will.
Don't Submit Articles That Are Taken Unchanged From Reprint Rights Packages
The overabundance of private label articles rising out of nowhere, creates a lot of temptation to just take the article, add a new headline and post it willy-nilly to all of the article directories you can find. This tactic is becoming less and less likely to work as article directory managers are now aware of the article redundancy. No one wants to have a site with 10,000 articles only to find that there are really 3,000 unique articles. When I find articles that are like this, I delete both articles from the directory.
Remember, most article directory owners are wanting to provide value to their visitors first and foremost (I did say 'most' as there are always exceptions). Having someone slog through 10 articles where the only difference is the synonyms used, isn't providing the reader much value. Article directory managers who care about their visitors will usually delete these types of articles, and sometimes the accounts of the repeated offending article submitter.
Link to Decent Sites in Your Resource Box
A nice benefit to reading articles is that it allows the reader to go to another site to find more information if they are interested in the subject of the article. Nothing is more disappointing than clicking the link on the resource box and going to a site that ends up advertising viagra or some other completely unrelated and questionable topic.
Look at it this way, if you don't feel comfortable sending your own mother to the site, then you can probably bet that someone who is reading about gardening tips or home repair isn't going to be too happy about ending up at a site like that either. I have deleted some, what I thought were good articles, because they went to these sites, or they went to some really crappy software generated site that provided the reader absolutely no additional value. Those article submissions unfortuantely were a wasted effort.
Think of it this way, as linking becomes more important, in the eyes of the search engines, do you think people are going to willingly want to link to sites that are sure to get banned, if they haven't been banned already?
Write Articles That Are a Useful Length
Articles that are too short (usually less than 350 words) are considered more like blog entries or extended ads. Article directory owners like articles that provide value to their readers, because articles that are higher quality will be picked up by more website and ezine publishers who are looking for quality content.
Articles that provide value usually solve a problem, tell a reader where they can find information to solve a problem and why it is a good source to use, give the reader a fresh spin on a particular topic, or just educate the reader about how to do something. Articles that are only a few paragraphs usually tend to be glorified ads to a product or service. You will get much more mileage out of writing valuable content, with a link back to your site in the resource box, than by writing 3 or 4 paragraphs as to why someone should use your product or service.
Writing and submitting articles to article directories can be a very worthwhile marketing activity, however you can waste a lot of your valuable time if you use the techniques that will get your article deleted. Just use common sense about what you write, how you write it and your submission process, and you can enjoy rewards that article publishing can bring you.
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