November 4, 2005
Article Submissions - What To Know BEFORE You Submit Articles
If you're even remotely serious about doing business online then you have no doubt heard that it's critical to a websites success to have lots of incoming links into it.
Now there are two popular ways to go about getting links into a website. Buy links. And exchange links.
Buying links is just as it sounds. You pay a link broker or a website owner to post a link to your site. You don't have to mention them on your site at all.
Or you can do the reciprocal link method where you exchange links with another site. That is, you and the other webmaster agree that you will each post a link to the other person's website on your site. Essentially, you've traded or exchanged links with each other.
Both of these methods fit within the main intent of the Internet. that is, a massive interlinking of websites that share commonalities with each other.
But there is another way to get links into one's website. And that way is to write articles that have an embedded link to your website and have other webmasters freely post your articles on their websites.
But in order to do this method effectively one has to write a fair number of articles and have many of them posted at many different websites.
And to do this effectively one needs to submit their articles to many different article directories like http://www.ArticlesandAuthors.com so that other webmasters can find their articles.
But the good thing about all this is that software like Article Submitter Pro exists to do the vast majority of the article submitting to several hundred directories for you.
It's a wonderful piece of software that to-date has saved me hundreds of hours of effort. Seriously.
I had previously tried submitting articles a couple of years ago and I gave up in frustration because it was too hard finding the article directories, cutting and pasting my articles, logging in to the directories, and hoping that I didn't get an error window that made me start all over.
But with Article Submitter Pro one has pretty much all of this taken care of for them. One can click here to be taken to the developers website to learn about all the advanced features it has since this article can't do justice to the vast amount of features this software has.
But as with any automating software there are some minutia and details that are worthy to know before delving into intense use of a process such as article submissions.
And I only learned about these details through usage of Article Submitter Pro over the last couple of months and through already obtaining almost 1000 links to my sites during that time. Cool.
So here are some of the subtle nuances you need to know about using article submission software like Article Submitter Pro, and with doing article submissions in general. They are listed in no particular order of importance. Just make sure you implement each of them fully before delving into submitting articles anywhere.
1) Make a specific text file of your entire article upfront. Include the entire article from title, by (your name), article content, signature line WITH URL link to your site, and copyright information.
2) Some article directories require submitting your article via an autoresponder. Make an autoresponder containing all the information mentioned in item one above. Test the autoresponder before using.
3) Make a text file containing all the information in item one above AND a <250 character summary of your article, all keywords you want to use related to your article, and the URL of your article on your website.
4) Make sure you have your article posted on a webpage on YOUR site before submitting to any article directory. Some directories grab your article from your website or want proof that it's there before posting it.
5) Have a login name and password that you can remember. You will have to create many login name/password combinations when submitting to many article directories. You'll have to have this information easily accessible somewhere.
6) Have a version of your article created in HTML formatting to accommodate some of the article directory submission policies
7) Do not, I repeat, do not go against the Terms of Service and Terms of Submission and the Submission Guidelines of any article directory. It's someone else's site and you're playing by their rules. Make them your friend and keep them you friend. If the directory says it only accepts Business-Related articles, and yours is about creating dress patterns then don't submit to them.
8) Be prepared to sign up as an author with many article directory services. This is better than being an 'anonymous' poster and in some cases offers you more editing options with your articles.
9) Read each directories article categories FIRST. This way you won't waste time submitting to a site that will outright reject your article. There are literally hundreds of directories to submit to. Just say 'next!'
10) Use only YOUR articles or articles that you have the copyrights to. Do not use articles you scraped off someone else's site or don't have the rights to. Play nice if you want to make money submitting articles to article directories.
Basically, if you follow the ten tips I've provided above, then you will be well ahead of the article submission game. You'll have ready before even doing your first article submission all the details in the right order to make your article submitting as seamless, and painless as possible.
And by submitting to an article directory like http://www.ArticlesandAuthors.com and using software like ArticleSubmitterPro you'll be well on your way to having many, many incoming links into your websites during the next few months.
Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'
(Author's permission is granted to share this full article with others. Just leave the signature line intact, please.)
Posted by Andre Best at 5:39 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2005
Article Submission Software
If you're the least bit serious about promoting your website(s) online then you have probably heard the recent cry that one's website needs links coming into it. Lot's of links. And without these many, many links one is the proverbial billboard in the desert waiting to be seen by those thirsty for sustenance.
Well after these several years that I've been on the internet I too heard the call and have followed the many internet bandwagons that have rolled into e-town touting the next 'latest and greatest' snakeoil software to get one traffic that they won't believe.
You know the cry... 'The kind of traffic your favorite web guru gets - and it'll only cost you $795 to attend this three-day conference to learn how to play with the big boys (and girls) online.'
Sound familiar? To most it will.
But after being e-dragged around the reciprocal linking millstone over the last several months in a valiant attempt to obtain many reciprocal link exchanges and closely monitoring all completed link requests I can truthfully say that that job in itself is a bugger to track and stay on top of.
Why?
Because for the most part one has to rely on one common denominator in that equation... people.
I finally realized that this tactic of getting traffic 'for free' and having it prove itself as viable was indeed true. Link-exchanges do work. But they ARE work too.
But with me being the type of person who writes with my eyes closed (literally), I was told by a couple of e-friends that I should pursue 'articles' more vehemently. I didn't know what they meant so what I did was find out about a couple of the bigger article directories on the Net and I submitted a couple of my writings to them. And then I promptly forgot about this process because it was extremely labor intensive.
And with me being a relatively lazy fellow at times I 'moved on' to other tasks that seemed more to my liking. And ease of use.
But after getting relatively burned out with this link-exchange stuff and dogging real live people to honor link exchange requests after I had 'nicely' place an unexpected link to their site on my site, I was tired of this whole process.
~~~~COMMENT~~~~
Yes, I know there are automated processes and software out there that will do this linking stuff for one, but again, I've also read how the SE's are 'onto' these tactics and reciprocal links aren't as effective as they used to be.
But they are still effective, that's why I still honor the odd link exchange request I get. I just don't spend all my time doing this anymore.
But getting back on track to the actual subject of this article...
~~END COMMENT~~
Back a couple of months ago, I somehow received an email about a new software program that would do 'article submissions' almost automatically.
But let me first digress somewhat and tell you what 'article submitting' is.
Article submitting may sound kind of formal and only for 'writers', but it isn't.
Essentially, anytime one writes something of extended length, even a longer webpage, they've written an 'article'.
Think about it. If you have a website that you've personally written, then you have written articles related to the subject of your website.
So, if your website is all about the best way to burp babies, then you have a whole bunch of 'articles' that you've written about parenting, specifically, burping babies.
What you can then do is submit these articles throughout the WWW and get yourself known as a baby burping expert.
But even more importantly, you can take each of the webpages you've written on your website and turn it into an 'article' - add a link BACK to your site in the footer of the article - and voila! you have written an article and ALSO obtained a link back to your site. And all this without having to hassle with e-chasing that non-compliant link partner to honor their link exchange with you.
Sound cool? It is.
Now, like everything else, there is a downside to all this article writing. It takes time to do.
First you have to have written YOUR OWN articles/webpages. And then you have to personally submit them to any of several hundred article directories floating around in cyberspace.
And of course there is the whole idea of you having the motivation to do this submission stuff too, so let me share a little bit of motivating statistics with you.
Remember how I mentioned earlier about having piddled with submitting a couple of stories/webpages I had written to several of the major article directories? Well, that was about 14 months ago. And remember how I told you that I did this and then promptly forgot about all this article submission stuff?
Well, over those 14 months since I did this, which by the way only took about one hour to do, I now have about 300 STATIC, incoming links to my site from those two articles being posted around the Internet. Yes, 300 incoming, not reciprocal, links.
And so what I did was after I received that email from someone touting this article submission software was to do some research on this whole article submission automation software process.
What I came out of this research with was that as of now there are two main article submission software programs that allow one to automate most of the process of doing this sometimes laborious task.
And since it is so repetitive and sometimes painstaking I thought that this would be one way to get me back into this process that I think is well suited for the way I like to promote my business online. With words, that is.
After much mental deliberation, and financial detailing I opted to go for an article submission software that was released during the summer of 2005. Besides it being almost one-third the price of the other main player in this article submittal software e-competition going on, it also appeared to have a lot going for it with a money-back guarantee and a manual and good developer-support.
So I bought it several weeks ago and have been using it everyday to promote several of my websites by submitting 'articles' I've written to the article directories included in the automatic submissions this software does for the user.
And to say the least, the results, so far, are extremely impressive.
One little statistic. Remember those two articles I submitted 14 months ago and obtained over 300 incoming links from doing so? Well, I've used this software to continue submitting them to other article directories included in the software program.
And now that 300 incoming links number now numbers almost 700. Yes, 700 incoming links from just those two articles. An increase of approximately 400 incoming links, in just five weeks.
To me, those are some GOOD results. Especially without having to chase other humans to reciprocal link with me, building link webpages, tracking linking emails, checking links, buying tracking software, and all that stuff that goes along with the reciprocal linking process.
Now, this article has gone on far too long already, so I'm going to write another article on the subtle nuances of this software since it does have things that one should know about, beyond the excellent manual that comes with the software. Essentially, I'm going to write about the many things one should know about BEFORE using the software so as to get the best results.
Now, these tips aren't going to be 'secrets'. No. Just trial-by-fire hints and tips that should enhance your article submissions and your results, if you follow them. And of course, if you buy the software to implement them with.
Enough rambling. If you don't want to wait for the next article you can go to http://www.andrebest.com/article-software.html to learn more about the software directly from the developer.
And if you want a good article directory to start doing your article submissions I suggest you visit http://www.articlesandauthors.com as soon as you can too.
Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com - Learn About Life From Another Perspective
(Author's permission is granted to share this full article with others. Just leave the signature line intact, please.)
Posted by Andre Best at 7:52 AM | Comments (3)