This is Part 8 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

I have seen folks do this before–

They'll write in saying that they are not seeing the results they were hoping for with article marketing, and they'd like some feedback as to where they could be going wrong. 

Then I look at their list of articles and start wondering,

"Hmmm, were all of these articles written to drive traffic back to the same website?"

You see, some of the articles are on the topic of "stereo systems" and others are on the topic of "ballroom dancing" and then others are on the topic of "parenting". 

I check the resource boxes and sure enough–all of the articles are trying to drive traffic back to the same website…a website that sells stereo systems.

What is wrong with this picture?

When you're trying to get a grip on what you should write your articles about and why it's so important to stick to a certain topic, it helps to start with the basics.

First, let's refresh our memories about why we're actually doing article marketing in the first place:

To build inbound links to your website.

The inbound links will improve your search engine ranking, which will then, in turn bring you even more traffic. How do you build inbound links through article marketing? You receive a backlink from every publisher who decides to pick up your article, publish it on his website, and share it with his readers.

Now, not all links are created equal. Google gives more weight to links coming from related sites, or sites that contain other content that is related to the topic of your site. For example, if you have a website on Sail Boats, it's better to have an incoming link coming from another site about Sail Boats or Sailing Gear (or anything having to do with Sailing), than a backlink from a website that's about Computers. 

With article marketing, some of the publishers who pick up your article for publication may have very specialized sites, and others will be article directories or other types of online publishers who have their content divided up into categories. 

If your article gets picked up by a specialized site, then that's great…if you've written your article about the topic of your website. If your website is about ballroom dancing and your article is about ballroom dancing, and your article gets picked up by a website that is all about ballroom dancing, then BRAVO!

But, if your article is about ballroom dancing and your website is about stereo systems and your article gets picked up by a site that's about ballroom dancing, then something is a bit off.

Yes, you're getting a backlink to your site still, but you're missing out on a few things–one of which is receiving a backlink from a site in a related field to your own.  This is one reason why you should always, always, always write articles on the topic of your website.  

To get the word out about your website, bringing widespread exposure and an increase in long term targeted traffic.

 When I say "get the word out about your website" I am referring to your well-crafted resource box that sits below your educational, non-promotional article. The idea with article marketing is not to get just any type of traffic, but targeted traffic, and we do this by:

1) Grabbing the attention of our target readers with a compelling article title

2) Then we provide them educational information in our article body that leaves them saying, "That article really helped me!"

3) Then we transition the momentum that we built up in our article into our resource box. We've hooked the reader's attention in our article, and then we give them a really great reason to click through to our website in our resource box. 

If you are not writing articles on the topic of your website, can you see where the problem starts to happen?

You may have a stunning article about ballroom dancing, but it's very hard to suddenly convert someone who is looking for info about dancing into someone who wants to buy a stereo system.

Any click-throughs that you receive from an article that is not on the topic of your website are not targeted traffic, because you are not luring in your target customers. 

Do you see what I mean? 

We want our article to flow into our resource box, and then for our resource box to lure folks into our website.

If we write articles that are not on the topic of our website, then we lose the flow, and it's like we're trying to dance the waltz with two left feet. 

To rank higher in Google and the other search engine rankings.

The number of backlinks that your website has influences Google's estimation of your website's importance, and we all know that when Google is creating its search results for its customers, that they really want to give the searcher results that have the greatest chance of answering their query.

The importance of your website in Google's eyes determines where your site is ranked in the search results when someone types in your keyword terms. 

Why do you want to be ranked higher in the search engines (Google in particular)?

An increased search engine ranking for your major keywords can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.

When a customer is thinking about using your services, they are likely to find you through a Google search.

If you've been doing article marketing and writing articles on the topic of your website, it's likely that several of your articles will come up when someone does a search.

But what is the likelihood that the when a potential customer types in the search term "stereo systems" that they will get a list containing articles about parenting and ballroom dancing? Pretty close to zilch. 

This is another reason why it's very important to write articles on the topic of your website–your articles can drive targeted search traffic to your website if they are written on the topic of your website. 

To establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

One of the big perks of article marketing is that your articles can make appearances in search results and also will appear on numerous websites on the net. When a potential customer reads one of your articles they will get a great idea of your expertise in your business (if you've written about the topic of your website). This also builds customer confidence.

If you're writing articles that are not on the topic of your website, then you're forfeiting the chance to show folks that you are an expert in your niche.

Alright, so what should I write about?

Great question!

Even with the instructions "write articles on the topic of your website", for lots of us it is still hard to come up with ideas of what to write about.

I KNOW! I think we all have been there and sometimes we really have to wrack our brains for interesting topics (and this may very well be the reason why some folks start writing on other topics ).

We'll be going into "what exactly should I write about" in the next installment of this series, so please check back in a couple days for that post! 

This is Part 7 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

You are submitting articles consistently. [check!]

You are writing articles that serve your readers and please publishers.[check!]

Your resource box is sticky and lures readers to your site. [check!]

You've created some really superb content in your articles. [check!] 

Yay for you , but what if you're not getting as much traffic from your articles to your website as you would like?  

Whenever someone asks me what one thing they can do to take things up a notch with their articles, I've got just 2 words for them:

Your TITLES!

Imagine you're going to a job interview.

You may be extremely qualified, inventive, creative, a real team player, but if you do not present yourself in such a way that you stick out from the other applicants, you'll just be looked over.

In a way, every article that you write has to pass a job interview–it will be judged from the outside first, and a reader's first impression will determine whether they want to take a closer look. 

With your articles, your title is your first opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

The truth is that you can have an absolutely breathtaking article and an enticing and irresistible resource box, but it your title is totally ho-hum, then you won't see the traffic you're looking for.

Why?

Because think about it–when a person is looking at an article directory, they are usually searching for a particular topic. When they click a particular category on a directory, a long list of article titles will pop up containing several articles that are on similar topics. (And the same is true of someone who finds your article via a Google search)

Now, it's true–some of the articles in the list are better written than others. Some are more insightful and more helpful. Some have a more alluring offer in their resource box. Some are leading back to websites that offer tons more helpful information.

But what determines which article the person looks at? He won't click through to look at each and every one of them–there are too many of them!

He has to make his decision about which articles to read by just scanning a list of titles.  

Now, imagine that your article is in that list of articles that the person is scanning–with the titles you've been using, will your article stand out enough to grab a reader's attention?

If you've been crafting lackluster titles or if you just feel like you're in a rut with your titles, here are some ideas for creating titles that will catch a reader's eye:

1) Any "How To" title.

"How To" articles are HOT–the reason why someone is reading your article is because they are searching for the solution to a problem or the answer to a question.

In your title, use the words "How To" and tell them what you'll be showing them how to do. For example: How To Make Artisan Chocolates or How To Grow Heirloom Roses. 

2) Any "Top 7" or "Top 5" or "Top 10" list.

You get the idea. It could be any number in your list (although for some reason 3, 5, 7, and 10 seem to be the most attention grabbing numbers). 

For example, "The Top 5 Beach Vacations Destinations", "The Top 10 Misconceptions People Have About The Self-Employed", "The Top 7 Ways To Do More In Less Time". 

3) The curiosity tweaking title.

Check out this title: "The #1 Very Simple Tweak You Can Make to Your Articles for Maximum RESULTS!".

That title tweaks the reader's interest because:

a) I've haven't told them exactly what the #1 thing is–they're left wondering!

b) I've also told the reader that it's simple–simple solutions are attractive. 

c) I've also told the reader what the benefit is–to maximize your article marketing results.

d) And by putting a #1 in there, I've conveyed that this info in the article is crucial–if there's anything you need to know to maximize your results, it's this thing I talk about in my article. 

4) The controversial title.

One of our readers, Bob, from The Recognized Expert, left this comment for us:

"Controversy is another great way to get a reader to stop and read your article. One of our most successful articles was entitled, “Why Blogger is better than Wordpress.” Another was entitled, “5 Reasons Why You Do Not Want A Free Weebly Website.” Controversy sells!"

I agree! Now, when I say "controversy" I'm talking about a title that brings about an emotional reaction in a reader where they say, "I totally disagree!" or something like that.

For example, the blog platform WordPress has oodles of die hard fans who would be aghast to see someone saying that Blogger is better than WordPress. They would say "Are you kidding me? There is no competition there at all!"

And I bet you they would click that article title just to see what sort of argument the author could come up with for promoting Blogger over WordPress.

5) The title that asks a question.

Momentum plays a big role in article marketing. First, you need the momentum of your title to lead the reader into reading your full article. Then you need the roll your momentum from your article into your resource box where your resource box is customized to fit the topic of your article. Then your resource box needs momentum to catapult folks from your article to your website–there needs to be something to inspire them to click through!

With your article titles having a question in your title is a great way to start the ball of momentum rolling. You want your question to be phrased in such a way that the reader actually starts wondering what the answer to the question is. For example, "Is It Time To Get An Outside-The-House Office?" 

When the reader see that question they start to wonder, "Hmmm, is it time? How could I tell if it was time for me to get an outside the house office? Maybe this article will give me some criteria."

6) The command title.

For example, "Ditch Your Cell Phone!" or "Start Making Your Own Baby Food!" This is another way to get the ball of momentum rolling on into your article, because the title implies that within the article you will tell the reason why someone would follow your command, and how to accomplish the command. There is also an urgency to command titles.

7) The "reason why" title and "steps" titles.

For example, "5 Reasons Why You Haven't Taken A Vacation Recently", or "25 Reasons Why You Don't Need To Worry On Your Wedding Day". Obviously the "reason why" title is closely related to the list title–for some reason it's easier to read an article that has numbered items.

I've also heard that if you have steps in your title and article, such as "7 Steps To Take Your Desk From Cluttered to Organized", that it is very hard for human beings to just read a few of the steps. There is something in us that finds it unsettling to read only 3 of the 7 steps–if you're listing 7 steps, most folks will want to read through them all. This is why any time you insert a numbered list in your article you are leading folks through your article, and you have a better chance of them reading everything you have to say.

Many of you probably have other tricks for coming up with cool titles–please share! 

Related Resources:

The #1 Very Simple Tweak You Can Make to Your Articles for Maximum RESULTS! 

How To Give Your Article Curb Appeal 

How To Appropriately Use Your Keywords In Your Article Titles 

This is Part 6 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

Article marketing is where art, craft and technology meet.

When we think of SEO and technology, we sometimes think that things are super-complicated, that you need to think like a machine, but actually that couldn't be further from the truth! 

Your ability to write a thoughtful article is much more crucial to your success than understanding the technical stuff surrounding article marketing.

Surprisingly though, sometimes the area where people slip up the most has nothing to do with technology, but involves more the "art" and "craft" part of the equation. Instead of producing well-written educational articles, folks can fall into the habit of phoning in content. 

To determine if you've fallen into this trap, let's look at the 2 areas where "phoning in" of content occurs:

Problem #1

Link building tunnel vision.

There are some folks who regard their articles as simply a means of obtaining a backlink (from the author resource box), and therefore they create a thrown together, makeshift "article" that is only marginally acceptable to some publishers (and unacceptable to many others).

I'm talking about an article that just barely makes sense (yes, I see these sometimes!), that is not compelling to read, and does not teach anyone anything. It's just filler, and I won't point to any article as an example of what I'm talking about, but trust me–you would know for sure what I'm talking about if you saw one of these babies.

I know where this approach comes from–article marketing is known for being a great way to generate one-way backlinks, and while that's true, it's also paramount that the articles you distributed give something before you receive those one-way backlinks. 

Like we talked about in the post about not acting like a salesman in your articles, before you get what you're looking for out of article marketing, you need to first please 2 other groups of people:

a) The publishers

b) Your target readers 

If you're all about "gotta build links, gotta build links" and you forget that the medium you're using (article marketing) involves pleasing not only yourself, but publishers and your readers, you will produce really bad articles that will not represent you in the way that you would like, don't produce the click throughs that you're hoping for, and don't get published as widely as if you had sat down and taken the time to craft a truly helpful, educational article.  

The Solution:  

Remember that the object when you're creating your article is to:

1. Come across like you know what you're talking about
2. Come across as unbiased, like you have nothing to gain from providing the helpful article
3. Put the reader at ease and heighten their curiosity about whatever your topic is
4. Provide information that teaches your reader or answers a question that they have.

Article marketing is not a link building tool that exists in a vacuum where you just press the submit button and collect a fresh crop of one-way backlinks. Your articles are a representation of YOU, so there is no phoning in of content allowed. If you do you will not see the results you're looking for. 

Problem #2 

Simply being in a hurry, not taking the time to write coherently and be sure your grammar and spelling is correct.   

The Solution 

Now, this is one we can all relate too–we decide we want to submit a certain number of articles a month, and we want to crank them out!

We start writing, and at the same time we're thinking, "I wonder if I can get this submitted before lunch."

And then we rush through, do a quick read-over, and think to ourselves, "Yeah, sure, it's good enough", and then we submit it not really realizing that we've got an embarrassing typo in our TITLE (eek!) and we've misused "your" and "you're" throughout, and we have a sentence that seems to go on for a dozen lines or so without a stop!

Yes, most of us have made this mistake of submitting an article in a hurry at one time or another, so the tips below are a good refresher for all of us:

*Proofread, proofread, proofread! Remember, your article will be on tons of websites over which you have no control potentially for years to come (maybe even FOREVER!) so it is worth it to be sure it's something that you're proud of. 

*Put your article aside for a few days. I would recommend writing an article and then putting it away for a day or so before reading it over again. It's amazing how many more typos and errors you can find when you look at your article with fresh eyes!

*Make technology work for you. Run the article through the grammar and spell-checkers of your word processing program.

*Get a second opinion. If possible, get someone to proofread your article.

At SubmitYOURArticle.com we offer a huge bonus in that we have professional Editors on staff who screen each and every article.

Now, they will not proofread your article for you, pointing out every last thing that's wrong, but if you do have recurring grammar and/or spelling errors, they will send your article back to you and ask you to make corrections before re-submitting it.

Every once in a while I'll run into folks who are in a super-hurry to get their article submitted who get annoyed when their article is sent back to them requesting that changes be made, but from my point of view I am thankful whenever the editors send back one of my articles–they've just saved me broadcasting my spelling and grammar mistakes to the entire internet!  

This is Part 5 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

We all LOVE immediate gratification, don't we?

This is why we start workout programs, hit the gym hard for a few days in a row, and then look in the mirror expecting to suddenly look like:

a) Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his "Terminator" days OR

b) Linda Hamilton back in her "Terminator 2" days (remember her arms?)

And then when we see that we still look very much the same way we did at the beginning of the week, we get frustrated, think "Ugh, this is taking too long!", and then promptly eat 3 slices of pizza and a hot fudge sundae.  

Yes, most of us (myself included!) do have a tendency to want to see immediate results with anything we do, and this includes article marketing.  

One of the most common reasons why folks don't see the results they were hoping for with article marketing is giving up too soon after expecting results immediately.

I just want to be up front with you about what you can expect with Article Marketing as far as the time frame goes:

*Article marketing is a long term endeavor, ideally to be done consistently over the lifetime of your website.

Yes, some folks see lasting results from just a few submissions, but that is nothing compared to what they could have achieved if they had stuck with this marketing tool over time.

*Search engines like Google can take months to adjust search engine ranking based on incoming links.

This means that if you submit an article on Tuesday, that you most likely will not see a huge leap (or any leap at all) in your search engine rankings the following day, or week, or month.

When I am just starting an article marketing campaign to drive traffic to a site, I tell myself not to expect any results for at least 4 months.

4 months??? Yup, that's right.

It is not that it takes article marketing 4 months to work–it starts working from the first time you submit an article, and it continues to gain strength with each quality article you submit month after month.

It just takes Google and the other search engines several months to register changes in ranking based on incoming links.

Article marketing is a long term marketing strategy that can have long term impact on your site –an increased search engine ranking for your major keywords can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.

While results certainly can be dramatic - for example, publication in a major ezine can bring a surge of traffic over a few days - article submissions are generally a long-term strategy for building up the traffic to your web site.

So, you may very well see dramatic results from the get-go, but as you begin your article marketing campaign, know that your best results are visible several months after you start a consistent article marketing campaign.  

*Consistency is key.

Schwarzenegger didn't get to be all buff by working out when he felt like it or just occasionally. He got that way by consistently challenging his body over a long span of time.

Article marketing muscle can be built in the same way–As we covered in the first installment of this series, what you're going for with article marketing is submitting a consistent number of articles over an extended period of time. For some folks it's one article a month, for others it's 8–for lots of us it's somewhere in between. You decide.

So, it isn't just a matter of submitting one article and waiting 4 months–over the months you would want to be consistently submitting articles, which will help your site gain links and build momentum.

Now, what do we do about our craving for immediate gratification?

Like I said, I crave immediate results too!

But I know that's not realistic, and I don't want to sabotage my article marketing efforts, so I have this trick I do that allows me to maintain a "Terminator" state of mind–focused on the long term goal, never giving up.

Here's what I do and what I encourage you to do too:

1) Gather your "before" stats information.

Before you start your article marketing campaign, note the number of backlinks that your site presently has. You can find this info by going to Google and typing into the search box link:http://yourwebsite.com (you would substitute the URL of your website after the "link:" part).

Also, make a note of your traffic and your search engine ranking for your keywords. You can find your search engine ranking for your keywords by typing your keyword or keyword phrase into the Google search box and seeing where you show up on the results. Are you at #1, #50, #300? Make a note of it.

2) Make an article submission schedule.

Decide how many articles you will submit a month–remember, we recommend submitting between 1 and 8 articles every 30 days. In order to have the maximum impact with your articles, we suggest that you stagger your article submissions, with no more than 2 per week submitted on different days.

Pick a submission goal that you can stick with over the long term. Mark dates on your calendar when you'll write and submit articles.

3 ) Start submitting!

If you're a member of SubmitYOURArticle.com you'll be getting a lot of marketing bang for your buck. We have an extensive distribution network, the vast majority of which consists of publishers and web sites who have directly requested to receive content from our members. Due to our editorial controls, we have a reputation for quality content that continues to attract publishers to join our network. So, every article you submit will reach bunches of targeted quality publishers.

If, however, you are not yet a member of our service, no worries you can just follow these steps and submit to a directory of your choice–we've put together a list of several article directories in case you need some suggestions.

Now, that's just one directory you're submitting to, so your results will be limited, but every little bit helps! Many of the most successful article marketers started out submitting to just one directory and then graduated to using our service, so it's just fine if you'd like to start off manually submitting articles.

4) At the end of 4 months go back and check your traffic, your backlinks, and your rankings for your keywords.

Now, I just said to check it in 4 months, and that actually might be the best way to do it, but what I do is I check these stats every month–I just picked a particular day of the month (for me it is the 15th), and on that day I make a note of all these stats.

Warning–If you do check your article marketing stats every month, you will likely not see big results the first few months. I just do it so I can see exactly when the change occurs. I am committed to doing article marketing over the long term, so there is not a chance that I'll throw up my hands and say, "Ugh, this is taking too long!" and then quit.

If you think you might be tempted to quit after not seeing results the first few months, then you might want to not look until you're 4 months into it.  Just a thought!

I hope I've impressed on you that one of the best things you can do to ensure your article marketing success is to have a long term frame of mind–don't do it for a few weeks or months and then throw up your hands and stomp off frustrated.

The results are usually not to be seen right away–it takes several months for Google and the other search engines to reflect changes in your backlinks and such, so if you're at all skeptical about whether article marketing can work for your website, please commit to doing it consistently for at least 4 months, knowing that ideally article marketing is an ongoing type of thing, something you do continuously throughout the life of your website.

Related resources:

The Ultimate Guide To Article Marketing 

I think it's safe to say that we've all been there–

You've just finished writing your article.

You're excited to get it submitted and out to the publishers.

You login to your account at SubmitYOURArticle.com and start entering your article into the article submission page (or you go to an article directory to manually submit your article there), and lo and behold you're asked to fill in the Resource Box field.  At this point many folks think:

"Doh! I forgot about that part. It's just a little author bio–no biggie. I can just come up with a Resource Box on the spot and get that part out of the way so I can finally submit my article."

Then, as I have done in the past, and as many others have done and are still doing, you throw together a Last Minute Resource Box and proceed on your merry way toward the "submit" button.

HALT!!!!

STOP!

Wait a sec!

Little do you know that you've just sashayed over perhaps THE most important part of your article submission–and it's not even part of your article!

Let's look back at the 3 main reasons why you started article marketing in the first place:

• To build inbound links to your website

• To get the word out about your website, bringing widespread exposure and an increase in long term targeted traffic.

• To establish yourself as experts in your niche.

All of these goals are intricately tied to your resource box, that little 450 character "author bio" that folks often throw together at the last minute.

Let's put this in perspective–that is like designing a high performance car, one that is a work of art on the outside, with all the upgrades on the inside. You are going to be so proud to be seen in this car–you're imaging everyone "ooo-ing" and "ahhh-ing" over it and looking at you as you drive past!

You've only forgotten one thing.

The engine.

You see, it can be the most gorgeous, luxurious car in the world, but if you forget to add an engine it will just sit in your garage gathering dust.

It's the same with your articles–they can be well-written, articulate, clever and informative, but if you don't take the time to craft a really powerful resource box your article will just be sitting in your garage, and the effect will not be what you were hoping for.

So, how are you supposed to craft your resource box to get the most bang for your buck with your articles?

Great question! Here are a 7 Simple Resource Box Guidelines that'll take you from "What?" to "Wow!" in no time…

1) Give a little bio info.

In it's heart, your Resource Box is really an "author bio". This means that in your resource box you should include at least a teensy bit of info about yourself and not make your entire resource box a commercial for your website.

Why do this?

Some publishers are super sensitive to authors using their resource boxes for strictly promotional, link-oriented information. For some publishers, when they encounter a resource box that appears does not have any info about the author, they trash it in a heartbeat! So, let's oblige them and our readers–do include a little info about yourself in your resource box.

2) Give a single link.

Yes, I know it's oh-so-tempting to put a link in your resource box to every site you own, but please exercise some restraint! You have very limited space in your resource box, and you'll see much greater click-through success if you include one link and spend the rest of your space convincing the reader to click that link. Pick one site to drive traffic to, and include a link to that website in your resource box.

For more info about using a single link in your resource box, see this article Making Your Resource Box…Work!

3) Test out your link!

Seriously, after your enter your article and your resource box, go to the Preview page and actually test out your link. This is one area where you don't want to fall victim to an unfortunate typo!

4) Ask readers to click and tell them why.

What have you got to offer them?  Why should they go to your website? You must lure them in!

Tell them to click and give them a reason why, and you will improve your chances of getting more traffic coming to your site through your article readers!

5) Customize your resource box to your article.

The idea is to capture a reader's interest in your article, give them excellent educational info, and then build on that momentum in your resource box.

What were you telling them about in your article? How can you build on that info to tweak the reader's curiosity even more?

For more detailed info on how to customize your resource box see these posts:

3 Secret Tricks To Luring Readers Back To Your Website

How To Make Your Resource Box Sticky (And Get Those Click-Throughs!)

6) Remove punctuation after your URL.

Did you know that adding punctuation immediately after the URL, such as a comma or a full stop, can create problems on certain web sites when they automatically convert the URL into an active link?

Yes, it's true! 

So, rather than doing something like:

For more information on how to submit your articles automatically to thousands of potential publishers, go to:http://www.submityourarticle.com.

Remove the final full stop, as follows:

For more information on how to submit your articles automatically to thousands of potential publishers, go to:http://www.submityourarticle.com

7) Try putting your text URL on a separate line.

I do this for all my text resource boxes because lots of times it's preferable to put your URL by itself on a new line, so that it stands out better to increase click-throughs, and to avoid any possible problems with individual publishers if the article is wrapped incorrectly when published.

Here's an example:

Find out more about how to publish articles for profit online with the popular free ecourse, available at: => http://www.takanomi.com/publish-articles.php

These tips are very simple, and considering that your resource box is only 450 characters (with spaces) max, formatting your resource box to accommodate all of these guidelines should be a snap.

I've actually found that it's much easier to craft resource boxes by sticking to these guidelines–it makes it so I'm not tempted to go off on a tangent or to overlook one of these crucial areas.  I also write my resource boxes before getting to the "Enter Your New Article" page–I write my resource boxes at the same time that I write my article.

I use Article Leverage, so I create 5-10 resource box variations before even getting to the "Enter Your New Article" page. It helps big time! That means that when I'm finally on the page where I'm submitting my article, all I have to do it copy and paste, and PRESTO–I've got a killer resource box! 

If you're not a member of SubmitYOURArticle.com yet and would like to join, we'd be happy to welcome you–you can sign up here.  

Photo credit: Blue & Red Ferrari 

This is Part 3 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

Remember how we said that when you're article marketing the first person you need to please is the publisher?

That's right–lots of times when we're trying to accomplish goals for our business, our focus is on ourselves and what we can get out of a situation. We try to get what we want first, thinking that if we don't then we may be left out in the cold.

Well, article marketing doesn't work like that.

In order to accomplish your ultimate goals with article marketing, you need to first please 2 other groups of folks–

1) The publishers and

2) Your target readers 

Now, let's embark on a very educational daydream. Let's take a journey into the mind of a publisher…

*****

You have a quality article directory or other type of website. Your goal is to publish quality articles that your target readers will find useful. You establish a list of guidelines to help you stick to publishing quality content only, and you review each and every one of the articles that is submitted to your website to be sure that it meets your standards. 

Reviewing each and every article takes time.

Some of the articles you read and you're like, "What was this author thinking?", and you throw the article in the trash. With some of the articles you say, "Now this is what I'm looking for–this one gets published". 

Imagine that each article that gets submitted to you shows up as a piece of paper on your desk that you need to review. You are one person, and you only have so many hours in the day, so there is a limit to the number of articles you can review each day. 

If the stream of submitted articles is reasonable, then life is good–you're building content on your website, and you're not giving yourself an ulcer trying to keep up with all the articles.

But, if somehow the stream of submitted articles starts to escalate dramatically, things start to get a little hairy. All of a sudden, your desk is covered in paper. With each day, the piles get higher and higher until you finally say,

"STOP! Stop the influx of articles–I can't keep up with all this!"

And then you notice that it isn't that you're getting tons of folks submitting articles, but that there are a few folks who are submitting tons of articles. Some folks are submitting 10 a week, or 30 a month, or 20 all in one day. Eeek!

You start to read through these articles and pretty soon you say,

"Ugh! I wish this person would give me just a few well-written articles instead of bombarding me with bunches of sub-standard ones! It takes time to write a decent article, and I want them to spend their time giving me quality, not quantity.

That's it–I'm just not gonna accept articles from this person any longer. Whenever I see their name on an article, I'm immediately trashing it–I don't care what it's about. They've worn out their welcome at my website. They're killing me over here!"  

******** 

Pretty dramatic, huh? Well, this isn't far from the reality of what a publisher goes through.

You have to keep in mind that when you submit your article, it doesn't get published immediately–work has to be done on the publisher's side before your article makes it online.

As an author, it's in your best interest to develop a good reputation with publishers by NOT bombarding them with tons of articles in a short span of time. Timing is everything, and establishing a great relationship with publishers is a MUST in order to experience lasting benefits with article marketing.

This is a long term endeavor–so don't burn your bridges, k?

So what is a healthy article submission schedule that will inspire publisher's to give you a bear hug?

At SubmitYOURArticle.com, we recommend submitting no more than 8 articles every 30 days.  In order to have the maximum impact with your articles, we suggest that you stagger your article submissions. We suggest no more than 2 per week submitted on different days.

Here's the insider secret–some top internet marketers will submit only 1 or 2 top-notch articles a month and get very satisfying results.

While it's not in your best interest to inundate the internet with tons of articles all at one time, it is extremely effective to consistently produce quality articles and trickle them out over the long term.

Here's how that works:

The more quality articles you write, the more websites will publish your article online. The more websites pick up your article, the more inbound links you'll have coming to your site. The more inbound links you have, the more long-term targeted traffic you'll have. The inbound links and steady traffic will improve your search engine ranking, which will then, in turn bring you even more traffic.

Also, the more articles you write over time, the more you solidify yourself as an expert in your field.  Publishers will start to know who you are and be more likely to choose your articles for publication. Readers will also get the feeling that you really know what you're talking about. After all, you've been consistently publishing valuable articles on your area of expertise over a span of time.

The benefits of article submission increase exponentially over time.

So, this is one of those cases where it's in your best interest to take the "less is more" approach. Of course, if you can write 8 top-notch articles a month and space them out appropriately, go for it, but don't feel like you have to go to those lengths in order to see great results from doing online article submissions.

This is Part 2 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

Who would have thought that article marketing could teach you how to be less self-absorbed and to put other people's needs before your own?

Sounds like a pretty profound teaching coming from an internet marketing technique, huh? 

But it's true–when you're submitting your articles, you need to remember that there are 3 players involved whose needs must be met:

1) Publishers

2) Your target readers

3) You 

Notice the order of these players–there are two groups of folks that come ahead of you, but don't fret that your needs are going to be left out in the cold. Actually the cool thing is that if you aim to please the first two groups on this list, you will in fact be meeting your own needs in a spectacular way.

You may think that in order to meet your own needs with your articles that you need to shove ahead of everyone else and create articles that are all about you, you, you (or your business, website or products), but that is totally not the case.

Article marketing is actually one area where you can be quite gracious, putting the needs of others first, all while knowing in your heart that to please your publishers and your readers you are actually doing yourself a good turn as well.

But let's go through these players just to be sure you know the reason why you're in the #3 spot:

1) In order for your article to get published on any website it must first pass muster with the publisher.

You might not have thought of it before, but when you submit your articles, whether you're doing it manually or through an automatic article submission service such as SubmitYOURArticle.com, it is not a given that your article will be accepted for publication. 

It is 100% up to the individual publishers if they will publish your article on their site, and the best publishers screen each and every article that is sent to them.

What do you think they're looking for when they're screening?

Well, most quality directories have guidelines that they adhere to, and they weed out any articles that don't fit within their rules. There are a number of guidelines that most publishers use, but one that is super important pretty much across the board is that quality publishers want educational articles that will bring value to their readers. 

This means that they don't want articles that are promotional or self-serving in nature–and a promotional article is any article where the author talks about his or her own website, business, products or affiliate products within the article body.

That is not an article–that is a sales letter, so don't even go there!

(The appropriate place to mention your own site is in your author resource box, not the article itself.) 

2) Your target readers.

When you write your articles you must take off your salesman hat and put on your expert hat.

What value can you bring to your target readers? What can you teach them? What advise can you give them? How can you help them get the help they need? 

No matter what your business is you CAN write an article that satisfies the needs of your target readers without mentioning your own business, website, products or affiliate products.

The truth of the matter is that when a person is reading an article, the minute they detect that you're putting your needs first, that you're trying to get something from them or sell them something, their inner RED-Alert alarm goes off saying: 

"Abort reading this article! Waste of time! They're just trying to con you and sell you something!"

And then they abruptly stop reading your article, which is not what you're going for! 

If you have a website, you're an expert in something. Make your goal to be to show your readers how well you can teach them rather than how well (you think) you can sell to them. 

The object when you're creating your article is to:

• Come across like you know what you're talking about
• Come across as unbiased, like you have nothing to gain from providing the helpful article
• Put the reader at ease and heighten their curiosity about whatever your topic is

3) And that leads us to YOU.

Yes, you're sitting in the last spot, but that doesn't mean you lose. You just need to realize that you WILL accomplish your goals if you write articles to please publishers and your target readers.  

So, forget about trying to write articles that are all about the specialness of you–sorry, but no one wants to read that stuff anyway!

You're doing yourself a favor by elevating the quality of your articles so that they reflect your expertise, your gracious sharing of educational information, and at the same time tweaking the curiosity of your readers so that they say,

"Hmmm, that article was helpful to me–I wonder if this author has any more useful info back at her website! Let me click the link in her resource box and take a peek!"  

For more detailed information about the best way to write a non-promotional article and show your expertise, please check out this post:

What is the best way to write articles to drive traffic back to my product website?

This update is actually the result of a contest we rean with members, and this winning idea came from James R Kobzeff, of ProAPOD Real Estate Investment Software.

His company produces real estate investment software for rental property analysis, allowing you to create cash flow, rates of return, and marketing presentations for investment properties at your fingertips in minutes.

As the winner of the contest, we also sent him a complimentary bottle of champagne.

Thanks to everyone else who entered, we had some great suggestions coming in that will also feed into future development of the site.

This is Part 1 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It! 

This has happened more than a few times:

Someone writes in to say, "I've been doing article marketing for the last 6 months, and I don't see any difference! What gives?"

Then I look at their submissions to try to help them figure out what the deal may be. Indeed, I see that they did start submitting articles 6 months prior, but guess what?

Over the past 6 months they submitted only 3 articles.

Hmmm, I wonder why their results are less than they hoped ?

The Solution 

There is a delicate balance with article marketing–submit too many articles and publishers won't appreciate it, but submit too few and you won't make enough of an impact on Google to see much of a difference.

The solution is to submit between 1-8 articles every 30 days (this is what we recommend at SubmitYOURArticle.com). 

That is a moderate article submission schedule, and if you stick within that healthy range you'll have the best chance of seeing optimum results.

I often tell folks that article marketing is a "less is more" situation, but don't take that too far and stop submitting entirely! You must submit a steady amount of articles (1-8 a month) to see lasting results.

9 Tips for Developing a Healthy Article Submission Habit  

Of course there are events in life that make it so we don't write as often as we had planned, but if you're finding that you are consistently not submitting articles even though you'd like to, here are 9 tips to help you get back on track: 

1) Set goals. Although I have been submitting at least 1 article a month, I recently decided that I wanted to take things up a notch. I've set myself a goal of submitting 4 quality articles a month. (There is nothing magical about 4 articles–your goal may be 1 article a month or 8–it's up to you!)

When I made the specific goal of submitting 4 articles a month, I was also inspired to plan how I would achieve that goal. I created a writing schedule for myself where I planned out which days I would write articles and which days I would submit them. I keep the schedule beside my desk so that when I start working in the morning, I know what I need to do. 

2) Get support and inspiration from colleagues. If you have this goal of submitting a certain number of articles a month to benefit your website and your business, you will have a much easier  (and fun) time of accomplishing your goal if you surround yourself with other folks who have similar goals. 

I know this sounds biased , but I strongly encourage you to participate in the community we have here at Creative Article Marketing–this place is all about learning, about trying things and sharing results, about getting inspiration when we are feeling totally drained, and about getting support for accomplishing our goals. 

We are a community of your colleagues, and we're eager to help and encourage in any way we can! Take advantage of this free resource! 

3) Get an accountability partner for your business and/or article marketing goals. Steve Shaw and I started doing this last month–he tells me his monthly goals and I tell him mine. We write them out, and then at the end of the month we revisit our goals and tell each other how we've done.

Believe me, actually stating your monthly goals to someone and knowing that you'll be telling them how you did in a few weeks will  really light a flame under your feet and spur you to find a way to make things happen!

I did tell Steve my article marketing goals, and you know I will find a way to be sure I reach them!

4) Schedule your time like a professional writer. I wrote a post on this topic a while back, and I cannot even tell you how much of an impact scheduling my time like a professional writer has had on my writing productivity.  The difference in output is amazing, and I find that I actually spend less time trying to write, and more time writing productively during the peak times of my writing creativity.

So definitely, read that post about scheduling your time like a professional writer, and also this one about learning to write first thing in the morning.  Yes, a trick of professional writers is to write in the morning (often very early in the morning) while their brain is still fresh and distractions are at a minimum. I can attest–I do write first thing in the morning, and it works!

5) Do timeboxing. Again, for many folks the reason why you haven't been submitting articles consistently is because of time constaints—writing takes too long, or being "creative" is not something that you think you can work into your schedule.

This is where timeboxing comes in–Timeboxing is a productivity technique where you allot yourself a limited amount of time to complete an activity. The human brain is a cool thing–when it perceives that time is limited, it kicks into high gear and maximizes its efficiency, helping you to do things within a shorter span of time than if you had no time limitations.

Now, you must be reasonable with this–it's unrealistic to give yourself 10 minutes to write a top quality article. If you're just starting out, give yourself an hour. Tell yourself–"I have an hour to write this article. After that, my time is up."

If you haven't finished your article first draft by that time, then the next day do another timeboxing session–give yourself 30 minutes to wrap things up with your article.

Seriously, this timeboxing technique works, and you can use it to help you maximize your efficiency in any aspect of your life (Chrismas shopping, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, work stuff)–when your brain perceives a sense of urgency, it will kick into high gear for you!

6) Write from a new angle. Sometimes habits can come back to bite us–we get so used to writing about the same old stuff in the same old way that we bore ourselves to tears! Try tackling a topic in your niche from a different perspective to shake things up and get those creative juices flowing. Or try writing in a different voice, maybe one that is more fun and friendly. Change the way you think of yourself as you relate to your target readers–Why not think of yourself as a trusted teacher who is telling them how to do something that they're confused about? That approach never fails!

7) Plan out a series of articles. This is one of my new article writing techniques–plan out a series of articles under a larger topic.

An example of a series would be something like this blog post series that we're doing right now–How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing. In the same way that I'm doing this series on this blog, I could also turn around and use my outline for this series for my article submissions. 

This helps me soooo much, because I have a plan that I'm following, a map that I'm using as I go throughout the month. When I sit down to write, I know what I'm supposed to be writing about. There is no dreading sitting at the computer, no wondering, "What should I write about?" It's all spelled out for me because I've pre-decided that for a particular month I'm writing a series of articles on a certain topic. 

Big warning: It is just fine to write a series of articles, but please do not put "Part 1" and "Part 2" in your article title or anywhere in your article body–each article in your series must be able to stand alone. So, anyone looking at your articles will be able to tell from your titles that they are on the same topic, but they won't be seeing Part 1, Part 2 etc.

The reason why we advise not to do articles that are in parts is that it decreases the chances of your article getting picked up by an ezine editor, and it also may decrease the likelihood of someone reading one of your parts that they find separate from the others. Just trust me on this–don't write articles that are continuations of other articles.

8) Conquer writers block. Sometimes we stop writing articles because we freeze up–we are just blocked on what to write! If you've ever had writers block, it is the worst feeling! A while ago I wrote a post about How To Conquer Writer's Block, so you may find that helpful. I actually wrote that post because I had writer's block, but after following the steps my creative juices started flowing again!

9) Just write! Have you ever heard of the term "theoretically productive"? People who are theoretically productive spend bunches of time trying to figure out the most efficient way to do things, but in the end they never really do what they were planning on doing. 

It is so easy for me to fall into that trap myself, and I could go on and on giving you tips for kick starting your article writing. At a certain point though, you just need to stop reading and start doing.

Sure, get your plans in place, create a schedule, map out a series, and then hit the ground running.

When you start you'll get your momentum moving in a forward direction, and you'll find that actually doing the writing is much easier than dreading doing it.

So, hop to it–start writing an article now!

If you're not a member of SubmitYOURArticle.com yet and would like to join, we'd be happy to welcome you–you can sign up here.  

Well, I have for a while now.

Every time the Olympics comes around I just get a surge of "I could do that!" enthusiasm, and all the sudden my brain jumps from the thought "maybe I should workout more often" to "maybe if I trained really hard I could be a world class athlete!"  

I know I have a wild imagination , but does anyone else all of the sudden feel like starting an intensive workout program when the Olympics comes around?

It's the thought, "Maybe I could really do this!" that gets us all excited and gives us the energy and drive to start something new. 

At the beginning we're all excited, with visions of being totally buff, or perhaps winning a gold medal some day Then we follow a program for a week, maybe 2 weeks, and one day we wake up and realize we're disenchanted with what we're doing, because…

• The results are not coming fast enough.

• We're not even sure if we're doing this "getting in shape" thing right.

• We see other folks getting major results with (what appears to be) minimal effort, and we think there may be something genetically wrong with us that we can't spontaneously morph into a superb specimen of the human form.

Little by little, lots of times without even realizing it, a bit of self-sabotage keeps us from fulfilling our true potential.

We get off the program, we skip doing things that we know we're supposed to do, we have unreal expectations for results, then we shake our fist in the air and think, "Ugh! This isn't working for me!"

I've said it before and I'll say it again, undertaking an article marketing campaign is a lot like starting a workout program…

In multiple ways, many times without even realizing it, we sabotage our own article marketing efforts by letting things slide, taking short cuts, having unreal expectations, and sometimes just not having accurate info on how to do things in the best way. 

But that's okay–we're about to get things straightened out!

Over the next few weeks we're going to be exploring 10 of the most common ways that folks unwittingly sabotaging their article marketing efforts.  

The purpose of this series is to empower you, so that you will have all the information you need to get back on the track to victory!

With each of the 10 posts, we'll go over what the self-sabotaging thing is, and then I'll tell you in detail how to overcome it! 

We can all do this!

This is article marketing–not the pentathlon .

It may not be realistic for most of us to train to become Olympic athletes, but it is entirely reasonable (and not near as difficult!) to learn how to do article marketing for maximum results. 

We'll be starting this series on Monday so be sure to tune in!

And also be sure to bookmark this post, because as I publish each part of the series I'll link to them here. 

1. Lack of Submissions 

2. Act Like a Salesman 

3. Bombard Publishers with Articles 

4. The Last Minute Resource Box 

5. Give Up Just As You're Getting Started 

6. Phone In Your Content

7. Slap On A Lackluster Title