Article Submission

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Over the past few days several article submission directories have sent out emails stating they’ve added many new categories to place articles into. While its certainly easier to select a category when there’s only a few to choose from, the article directory owners keep adding more and more. Are they just trying to get more submissions by opening their directories to more topics? Or do they know something you should be aware of?

Naturally, any article directory owner with any sense would want to follow the trends and see to it that any topic category, rising in popularity, would be included in his or her directory. Often they’ll get requests from their author base to add these in so articles submitted can get the exposure for those topics.

In this case, yes, they want to grab more articles and thus increase the size of their databases. Who wouldn’t want that? It adds value to the directory, increases their author base by attracting new writers, and elevates the amount of traffic they get.

However, many category additions are more in the way of sub-category add ons to topics they’ve already included. These additional categories serve and entirely different purpose that many writers and article submission software makers fail to take advantage of.

The reason for sub-categories falls into line with “long tail” promotions. Targeting specific key phrases that the average “Joe” would search for.

For example, take “health” as a category choice. Everyone knows the health field is enormous with many thousands of topics. If you were searching for information relating to a specific health topic like gall bladder problems, would you start your search by typing “health” in the query box? Certainly not!

Well that’s the point of sub-categories. If your gall bladder article was posted in a general health category it may not get picked up by the search engines as being relevant to gall bladder problems. It would most likely never get ranked well for “gall bladder problems,” and so your article, though nicely written and informative, would never get the exposure it deserved.

Unfortunately, writers who use fully automated article submission programs are forced to choose whatever categories those software products make available, and because the choices are usually general, they lose out.

They’re not equipped to handle the “long tail” benefits of article submission, and so, while their articles do get posted in the article directories, their placement leaves something to be desired.

In order to take full advantage of the resources the article directories make available to authors, its a much better idea to either submit manually or use an article submission software that allow the user to choose a specific sub-category for the best placement possible.

There are currently over 20,000 category choices you can make throughout all the article directories. Some provide only general categories, but most go deep into the long tail on every topic. Hopefully now you know why and can see how taking a little more time in your article submissions will make all the difference in the world for you.

When it comes to article writing and submission it sometimes gets difficult to determine how much and what type of information you place in an article. The problem comes from deciding if its best to provide content for the search engines, or for the readers.

It doesn’t take much effort to find articles and blog posts made up of just a jumble of words that don’t seem to make any sense. These writers are working the search engines and believe that hitting every possible keyword will bring results.

But what happens when their nonsensical articles do get a high ranking on a search? Will they inspire someone, anyone to look at what’s behind the links on the page?

It’s not very likely.

Submitting poorly written, keyword bloated articles might be likened to the dad who builds the bicycle he bought for his son or daughter for Xmas but doesn’t use any of the nuts and bolts needed to hold it together. Or the mason who builds a chimney without cement.

It’s all going to fall apart.

Likewise, if you’re playing to the search engines but offer no usable content to those people who browse the search engines, you’ll just be blowing smoke. There needs to be some balance in your actions, unless you’re just trying to see how many times one article or post can get listed for different keywords with no other motive in mind.

The trick is to optimize every article or post you write for both the search engines and potential readers. This creates the flow you’ll need to see results for your efforts. And this is true whether your articles are designed to bring awareness, create controversy, or sell a product. You need both the search engines and readers to make a splash.

So the best thing to do is, find a few good keywords that relate to each other and write an article, using them no more than four or five times throughout. Keep your writing to the point, and offer something to think about.

Take a few more keywords and write a second article or post about them. Rinse and repeat.

Then, if have a link to another site, whether its a blog or a sales page, add it in to each article just once using your main keyword or key phrase as an anchor text.

In doing this, you’ll be giving people something of value to read which in turn may inspire them to follow through with your recommended link. It’ll also satisfy the search engine algorithms that are more and more coming in line with content relevancy these days.

Sure it takes a little more work than just taking someone else’s article and spinning it to fit every possible keyword. But your end result will bring you a better presence on the web, and more readers that’ll appreciate what you write.

Just remember, a balanced way is always the best way. This is true in everything you do, and is also true when it comes to article submission, writing and posting, and creating a presence on the web.

Article Submission is hailed as one of the best ways to get the word out about your knowledge on any field. But like everything else on the web, people look for the lazy way out to get as many articles submitted in the shortest amount of time possible. However, that lazy approach could do you more harm than good.

That’s not to say there aren’t faster ways of submitting articles than doing it all manually, but you have to know a few things before you make the attempt. Just remember this: The lazier you want to get, the less quality your articles submission results will have.

Writing Quality

The idea behind article writing is to get people to follow your recommendations, which in turn will lead them to your money page. To accomplish this, you have to be convincing. To convince, you have to at least be somewhat coherent.

One tool marketers often use to crank out hundreds of articles with one click are those “article spinners” that let you take one article and turn it into many variations. The problem with this method is the articles produced often make much less sense than the original.

Let’s take that last sentence as an example, and we’ll highlight what an article spinner would do with the word “original.” Versions could then read “The problem with this method is the articles produced often make much less sense than the primordial,” or, “The problem with this method is the articles produced often make much less sense than the beginning.”

As you can see, the two variations don’t quite relay the same message as the first though the terms used for original are actually synonymous.

But that’s just two versions. Imagine what the sentence would look like if we spun “method,” “produced,” “articles,” and “sense.”

Unfortunately there are a lot of spun articles sitting on websites or submitted to article directories.

But words on a page do not a message make. Using an article spinner is kind of like throwing a bunch of sticks in the air and hoping they build a house on their way down. At best you might get a leento where you’d hope a mansion would be.

Readers don’t have the time or the patience for nonsense. If you want them to read, then take the time to write it well. Check your spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. But above all, make sense using the simplest words you can muster.

If you have trouble writing, there are tutorials that can help. One of the best writing tools on the market is Instant Writing Software, a template-based writing tutorial.

Article Submission Quality

There are approximately fifteen hundred or so article directories with more coming live every day. Not all of them are alike, not all of them accept articles submitted to them the same way. They range in Google page rank of PR0 to PR8. Some post accepted articles immediately, while others could take weeks or even months to post an article.

The way articles are formatted on these directories can vary as well. Some have separate text areas for bio boxes, others want the bio box and article body together in the same field. Some want a pen name, others use your login name as author.

On top of that, among all article directories there are over 20,000 possible category choices you can make. So if you’re the least bit keyword conscious, then you know how important it is to place your articles in the most defined category you can get.

Leaving all of this to a one click article submission program could get dicey. While these may work for a handful of directories using a certain script, they don’t do a very good job on most of the directories in the higher page ranks where you’d really want your articles to appear and place well.

Of course if you attempted to submit to all known article directories manually, one by one, you’d be at it forever. So while the simple one click article submission programs may not be the answer, you might want to invest in a more suitable one.

At this time, there is one article submitter that submits to over fourteen hundred directories. It allows you to see how your article is being formatted by the submission forms, allows you to choose from among all possible categories, and will let your submission go through any security features, like captchas a directory may use.

Its called Article Submitter Pro, and is used by many of the top authors on the web today. It produces a balance of automation and accuracy because it treats each and every directory as a separate entity, and so articles are submitted as they’re supposed to.

And the best part is that it’s no more expensive than many of the others that do half the job.

In any event, the idea is to produce quality articles and get them seen by as many people as possible. You’re not going to accomplish this by taking the lazy way out.

Write well, submit accurately, and you’ll find the extra effort will make all the difference in the world for your article submission results.

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