How To Get Your Articles Accepted On The First Try!

Copper Square Number 1
Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

When you’re doing article marketing it’s not just a matter of cranking out an article and then getting it published–most quality publishers will screen each and every article and decline the ones that are not up to par.

As we’ve discussed before, when you write your articles you need to keep the needs of the publishers in mind. After all, what’s the point of writing and submitting an article only to have it rejected when it comes before the eyes of a publisher?

At SubmitYOURArticle.com we try to help our members have the best chances of getting their articles accepted–this is why we have guidelines of our own that reflect common guidelines you’ll find at most quality publishers. Our editors will review your article before it gets distributed to alert you to any issues that may cause your article to be rejected when it reaches the publisher level.

That’s actually what this whole blog is about too–we want your articles to get accepted (hopefully on the first try!) and for your article marketing efforts to succeed!

So, when we notice an area where many people are slipping up, we try to go over it here so that you can adjust your articles to be more appealing to readers and publishers.

Articles The Publishers Want To Publish

I love getting insights from the publisher’s side. I was just listening to an audio from EzineArticles where they revealed the 9 top reasons why articles get rejected at their site.

Most of these issues are not new to me–as I said, at SubmitYOURArticle.com we also have editorial guidelines and professional editors reading each and every article, so we send back articles for a lot of those reasons too.

I thought the interview was really eye-opening, so I was inspired to put together a list telling you what you can do to have a better chance of your article being accepted on the first try with most publishers.

Now, at lot of these items are editorial guidelines at SubmitYOURArticle.com, but some are not. Publishers have differing ideas of what is acceptable and what isn’t, so our guidelines adhere to what most publishers will find acceptable. So, some of these items are just pointers of what you can do to make your article more appealing to some publishers.

If you’re curious about what the SubmitYOURArticle.com guidelines are, just log into your account and go to Support => Submission Guidelines.

(And if you’re interested in the editorial guidelines of any specific publishers, you can go to their website and read their requirements.)

Alright–without further ado, let’s go over 9 ways to make your article more attractive to publishers (and get it accepted on the first try!):

1. Make your article educational, not sales oriented.

It seems like we go over this all the time–your articles should not be promotional. “Promotional” means that your article has a sales element to it.

Every article you submit should be educational, and not designed to convince a reader to go back to your website or buy your products.

Here’s how to be absolutely sure your article isn’t promotional: Don’t talk about yourself, your website, your products or affiliate products in the article body and don’t link to your website in your article.

The appropriate place to talk about how wonderful you are is your resource box. In your resource box you should give your name, a short bio, a reason to click through to your website, and a link to your website.

You can show your expertise in the article (by providing valuable educational information) without literally promoting yourself in the article and saying “I’m great!” or “My product is exactly what you need!”, or  “I have a new class opening up soon, so please go to my website for more details”.

For your articles submitted through SubmitYOURArticle.com, if you are writing about a particular product, it must be done in a way that it is not apparent that you would personally profit through your recommendation of it.

So, here are some guidelines for you if you are writing about a particular product:

• Don’t mention the product in the resource box
• The URL may not contain the name of the product (for example buyproductxnow.com, or even myownsite.com/product)
• Do not include an affiliate link in the resource box for a product that was written about in the article
• Do not put any links to the product website in the article body.
• The article body cannot direct the reader to your website, either through providing your URL or through verbally telling readers to go to your site. For example, the author cannot say in the article body: “You can find more info on this topic at my site.” Or “You can see an example of this at my website.”

Your best bet is to restrict all mentions of your business, products, affiliate products, and website to your resource box.

For more info on how to write a non-promotional article, check out these posts:

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

Act Like A Salesman: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing

2. Limit your links, both in the article body and your resource box.

At SubmitYOURArticle.com, we have 2 recommendations about links:

*Use a single link in your resource box. Your resource box is a pretty small area, so you don’t have time to try to convince someone to go to 4 different websites. Instead, focus all of your energy directing readers to go to one website.

That is our friendly advice to you, but we do not have a hard and fast limit on the number of links you can include in your resource box–it’s up to you to decide if you’d like to use just one or two links.

*Limit your links as much as possible in your article body. Ideally, you would have no outgoing links in your article body, but if you must give a link to support the information you’re providing in your article, limit them as much as possible.

Of course all the links in your article body must be non-self-serving. No links in your article body may go to your own website (that takes us back to the rule about no promotional articles).

Publishers will have different guidelines about the number of links you can have in your article–some don’t care, while others will reject an article that has more than 2 links in the article. You should use your own discretion and limit your article body links as much as you can.

3. If you do include a link in the article body, put it after the first 3 paragraphs.

The reason for this is that having a link straight off in your article is distracting to a reader, and may lead them away from your article prematurely. If you’re going to include a link, you’ll want to put it after the 3rd paragraph of the article.

4. Your article title should describe what your article is about.

Duh, right?

The article needs to deliver on the promise of the title.

For example, if you’re article title is “10 Ways To Choose A Gym In New Jersey”, then your article should specifically address how to choose a gym in New Jersey (as opposed to just finding a gym anywhere). You need to provide information in the article that is specific to New Jersey if your article title specified that location.

If you have a general article about just how a person can choose a gym, then the solution would be to change the article title to something like: “10 Ways To Choose A Gym”

Write for your target market and provide value for your readers.

For more pointers on writing a great title, please see these posts:

7 Types of Eye Catching Titles

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

5. Go easy on the keywords.

So many times folks go keyword crazy and think that they’re helping their cause by jamming their keywords throughout their articles. If you’re thinking that this will appeal to Google, your mistaken.

Really, the best way to use keywords in your articles is simply to write naturally about your topic. If you’re writing about the topic of your website, your keywords will pop up in a natural sounding way throughout your article, and the article will appeal to both your readers and to Google.

So, don’t try to manipulate or outwit Google–that’s not necessary. Just write educational articles that will be of value for your target market. That’s what readers, publishers and Google are looking for anyways!

For more info about how to appropriately use keywords in your article submissions, check out this post.

6. Don’t include affiliate links in your article.

Now, that’s a editorial guideline we have at SubmitYOURArticle.com, and it’s one that you’ll find at many publishers. As we said before, it’s important that your article serve your readers and not be promotional, and putting affiliate links in your article makes it look like you have the objective of making a sale.

You may include an affiliate link in your resource box as long as it’s not for the product you wrote about in your article (which would make the article appear to be promotional).

7. Proofread, proofread, proofread!

Many times articles will be declined for the simple reason that they have typos and/or grammatical errors.

I think it’s just a matter of trying to write quickly, and a number of the most common errors are homophones (the words sound the same but they’re spelled differently), so they’re easy to get mixed up.

Ones to watch out for are there/their/they’re, wear/where, its/it’s, your/you’re

For more common grammar errors, check out this post:

The 5 Most Popular Grammatical Errors Of All Time (and how to fix them)

8. Test out your links before submitting your article.

Imagine how frustrating it is to go to the effort of writing and submitting an article only to find afterward that your links are not working! Take the time after entering your article to preview it and click on your links. Do they go where you want them to go?

9. Limit your anchor text to 3 words or fewer.

Anchor text is a hyperlinked word or phrase, and you would have the option of hyperlinking anchor text in your HTML resource box. Ideally, the words that you are using as anchor text should be your keywords or keyword phrase. You should not hyperlink your entire resrouce box, or an entire sentence, or words that are not your keywords. There are some publishers who will decline an article for having too many words in their anchor text.

And there you have it!

Now, these are some pointers for getting your articles accepted on the first try to most publishers. Some of these items are editorial guidelines you’ll run into at SubmitYOURArticle.com, and some are just a “heads up” so that you’ll be aware (items 2,3, 4, 8, and 9 are the “heads up” ones).

Tweet This Delicious Digg This Facebook Stumble This