You've brainstormed ideas for your article. You've written the article. You've created a killer headline and included a great signature and Biography Box. You've created a specific landing page or target page to send visitors to (if appropriate). You're geared up and ready to start tracking the ‘homing pigeons'. Excellent - now it's time to get your article published!
Rule Number 1 Of Publishing Articles
Always play by the website owner's rules.
Whether you are looking to get your article published on a website or in the website owner's newsletter you always need to stick to Rule Number 1! These guys do not owe you anything and many of them, despite being on the constant search for relevant quality content, will be receiving many submissions every single day.
It only takes one small mistake or lack of adherence to their requirements for them to reject your article which, after all the effort you've invested is quite simply not an option!
Although a lot of these website owners rely on articles for content do not assume that your article will automatically get used.
Use The Personal Touch
Going the extra mile when you're submitting an article can reap huge rewards for you. If the website owner requests article submissions via email don't just copy and paste your article into an email and hit ‘Send'. Use the personal touch - find out the website owner's name for starters!
Include a very brief note in the email before your article starts to show that you have not just bombarded this website owner with the same email as 1000 others:
"John,
Here's an article you may wish to use on your website. Hope you like it."
Don't go over board with it - they won't have time to read your life story but a few brief words and a ‘hello' can go a long way and set you apart from all the other article submissions the website owner receives.
Submitting Your Article To Ezines
Submitting to Ezines (newsletters) is very straightforward. It's just a case of copying and pasting your article into an email. Certain Ezine owners will want you to use a specific subject heading for the email so they can see when it lands in their Inbox that it is a new article submission.
There are so many resources out there that openly request article submissions that I would avoid wasting time on sending speculative emails to Ezine owners on the ‘off-chance' that they might use your article. Stick to the website owners that want articles and spend your time on finding more of these and on writing more articles instead of sending out speculative emails.
Whilst most places will accept your article in plain text format with no line breaks (except for paragraphs) there will be Ezines that require you to submit your article in a special format. Usually they ask that each line of your article only be a certain amount of characters in length (usually 60 or so).
As mentioned already - always stick to the formatting for each resource and if in doubt just use the standard text version of your article with no line breaks.
Submitting Your Article To Websites
Submitting your article to websites is normally just a case of using an online form similar to the following:
As you can see from the above - some websites require you to select which category you would like your article to be published in. The one above also asks you for keywords related to your article so that people searching for information on these topics will be shown your article in their search results.
Every website has a different system for accepting articles so keep your eyes peeled for their exact requirements.
Some websites, like that above, enable you to use HTML to format your article. If you are given this option and you have basic HTML coding knowledge you should always take advantage of it as it enables you to add formatting like bold, italics and even hyperlinks within the body of your article to make it stand out.
Paying For Prominence
Some websites will offer you a ‘special position' for your article or offer to highlight it in some way in return for payment from you. The only way to truly know whether or not this is worthwhile is to stick your neck on the line and try it. Only judge by results - this is where your tracking system comes into play.
If you have a specific tracking code for the article you promoted using a paid listing on a particular article website then you can look at your statistics to see how many people visited your website as a result. You can monitor this and gauge whether the number of visitors you attracted was worth the cost your incurred.
Getting Your Article Published Is The BEGINNING Of The Relationship
The first step to take when a website owner or Ezine owner publishes your article is to say thank you!
Just a simple, quick email will work wonders for the relationship you need to build up with these people. You need to convey that you are not just another ‘article submitter' that isn't interested in their website-because you are interested in their website.
It is in your interest to be interested in their website!
You can also consider further developing the relationship with each website owner by giving them prominence on your website in return. Or how about mentioning them in your newsletter? Perhaps you could do a content swap of some kind or consider an affiliate arrangement? You could give them a product or free gift as a thank you for using your article.
At the outset these opportunities will seem distant but as you submit more articles and reward and thank the person for publishing your articles the potential to develop valuable joint business ventures will start to unfold.
There's more to this article-writing game than first meets the eye isn't there?!
Keeping Track
Don't forget to keep a record of the articles you've written and which resources they have been submitted to along with any helpful notes about each resource. Before long you will have built up a list of places that you know are almost guaranteed to accept and publish your articles (as long as you use the winning principles outlined here!).
