Article Submission Software or Service, Which Is Better?

A lot of people wonder whether they should use an article submission software or go with one of the many services available that submit your articles for you. There are pros and cons to both. With an article submission service you simply send them your articles and sit back. They do all the submissions for you and, if they're good, they'll send you a report so you know where your articles went and when. Now on the surface, this seems like a pretty good deal. Your articles get submitted, you have nothing to do, and the back links start adding up for you. The price of some of these services also seem to be a bargain. In some cases, you can get up to four articles submitted for around $37. One or two charge a one time fee of around $120 and give you four or five submissions a month, while others charge per article. But there are some drawbacks. For one thing, if you're used to submitting a lot of articles every month, you'll need to hire a couple of services to carry you over. This could get to be somewhat expensive, and a recurring expense as well. Secondly, you'll have no control over where your articles are submitted. Many of these services submit via email to group lists and to individual ezine owners. The value of submitting to groups only comes if the group list members actually reprint your articles on their own sites, and your articles will only be seen on ezines if the owner has room to use it. With most group list members using "throw away" email accounts to keep from having their main email accounts bombarded with the hundreds and thousands of articles that get sent to them in return for the privilege of submitting their own, the chances are slim your articles will ever be seen, let alone used. And if hundreds of people are sending the ezine owners their articles, only the best of the best will ever see the light of day on any ezine, with most getting rejected and sent to the trash. Most ezines will contain no more than four or 5 articles per month, so you do the math. Now if we revisit the price versus the value of using an article submission service, things may not be adding up for you. Over the course of, let's say a year, you could be paying a couple hundred dollars to get your articles sent out to places that may or may not have any return benefits. On the other hand, you could get fifty to a hundred articles sent out in that year and really have very little to do with the actually leg work of getting them submitted. So to give you another perspective, article submission software could be more up your alley. When you use software to submit your articles, you get full control over when and where they go. Most, if not all submission software submit primarily to article directories, which means you automatically get the benefit of back links regardless if anyone else reuses your articles or not. Software comes with a one time price and is reusable any time you want to use it. No limit on the number of articles you can submit, or when you can submit them. The big drawback is you have to do the work of submitting. At this point, any software that promises a one click submission to hundreds of article directories should be dismissed because many of the article directories are now taking measures to block them by using security tools, like captchas, that require a human presence to get through. So yes, when you use a professional quality article submission software you have to do the work. But when you're done submitting, you know your articles have been submitted to the best places, in the best possible category, and formatted correctly so they can be appreciated for their content. So there's the choice. Just remember you're article submission efforts will prove to the world that you're a legitimate, expert source for information. You need to get it right so you'll be seen as such by the largest number of people possible.

What Should Your Article Be Linked To?

With more and more emphasis on good content, many article submission sites are frowning on product linking. Some are even now rejecting articles that have affiliate links in the bio box. So what do you put for a link? These days you have to be careful. The term "spam" has taken on a whole new meaning to include links to sales pages that aren't clearly marked as such. So for example, if you put "for more information, go to . . ." with some anchor text leading to a sales page in your bio box, chances are an astute article directory owner will catch it and perceivably label it as spam. The latest Internet trend is toward open source, so likewise free information is what brings ratings and rankings with the search engines. Organic pages filled with good, solid information rank high, content filled with sales pitches and affiliate links rank low if at all. So the article submission directories, in an attempt to stay in form, are now screening bio boxes for blatant linking to product pages, and in particular, affiliate links. What this means for Internet marketers doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It simply means that you have to focus more on "pre-selling." After all, you're goal in writing and submitting articles should be to first, brand yourself as an expert in your field, then second, to convince your readers of the viability of your expert recommendations. Thus this trend toward free and organic content can serve as a further opportunity to do this and actually add more clout to your position. Here's some ideas to accomplish this . . . Rather than pointing your bio box link to a sales page, link it to an article page on your site that lists other related articles. On that page put a link to your sales page, or list relevant affiliate links your readers can choose from. Mark them as advertisements just to keep pace with the trends. Alternatively, you could set up a blog through an open source blogging platform like Rtilcz.com, Wordpress.com, or Blogger.com and post 400 to 500 word articles relating to the products you sell. Link to the sales pages in the blogroll. Not only will this give you more "room" to convince your readers of your expertise, but you can then submit these article pages or blog posts to the social networks in order to drive more traffic and accumulate more readers. As we all move closer to the open source concept, it's definitely going to thin out the herd of would-be sales people using the Internet. Many won't be able to keep up with the requirement of updated fresh content, so they'll fall by the wayside unless they learn how to do it. But on the other hand, anyone who searches the web, whether through the search engines or on article submission directories will be assured that the content they're given to read will be from someone who has the knowledge and credentials to make a reasonable recommendation.

Targeting Local Searches With Article Submissions

Unless an article directory is designed to be specifically for one place in the world, you might think it unlikely that you could use your article submissions to target a high listing in the new local search results many search engines are now offering. But as unlikely as it may seem, it's actually quite easy to do. No longer relying solely on meta tag data, the search engines now index the entire piece of content to find relevance. Placing an article into a relevant category on an article directory, and adding in a specific location within the body of the article, mentioning it once in the title and three or four times within the body, will alert the index bots that your article is about "X" in that location. To use an actual example, a person in the real estate business recently made contact asking how to get a leg up on his competition's web presence by using articles. His business location was not what you'd call the most desirable to relocate to for most people in the world, so his goal was to target his most likely potential customers in his general vicinity. Using articles, he discovered that he was getting listed on the search engines for terms like "real estate," "buying a home," etc., yet he was getting no where close to his competitors in a search for his specific location. So a little redirection was in order. The first step was to list all the cities in his territory, making note of some of their highlights like landmarks, hot spots, their entertainment levels, safety rating, etc.. Then he could write an article to submit for each city, bringing out the better qualities of each. These articles would then be linked, through his bio box, to pages on his site that got further into depth with information such as population, ethnicity, property values, schools, and pictures. Finally, those pages would link to other pages on his site that got into the actual house listings for each specific city. Doing it this way, he built a flow of information that led his readers from simple curiosity right down to seeing what was available to buy. He also created an incredible flow of relevance that the search engines were bound to pick up on. And because he was writing and submitting articles about specific locations, the search engine would naturally begin listing his articles in searches for those specific locations. And by using different key highlights for each city's article, he could also target a variety of different categories offered by the article directories, broadening his relevance factor. The key to the whole thing was for him to focus less on his business of real estate and more on location. It shifted his expertise and made him an authority on the place rather than on selling houses, which naturally would have a greater appeal to those in the early stages of relocating. Likewise, this change of focus also had an effect on the terms his articles listed for in the search engines, and so he began getting the targeted visitors he had hoped for. And you can do the same thing whether you're promoting a local band, a restaurant, an event, or anything else you could think of. The article directories you send your article submissions to will solidify your articles into relevance for the thing, but mentioning location within your title and body will direct the search engines to the place.

Making Your Article Headline Shout

Article submission is all about attracting attention. You want people to see your article headline and immediately feel the need to find out what it says about it inside. But where do you draw the line between building interest and out and out deception? There are several variables you'll want to keep in mind when you design your headline to announce your article. First and foremost you want to keep your headline in line with the relevancy of your key phrases within the article. Anything beyond this will throw off its search engine rankings. Getting some serious "hang time" for your articles means, not only getting people's attention over a few hours with an initial broadcast, but you want to create a presence that'll last for some time. So keeping the search engines happy is paramount to achieving this goal. This in itself helps to keep things honest. You won't get much longevity with an article about "dog kennels" if your headline reads "Britney Spears Does It Again!". If your article is about "dog kennels" then your headline should be also. Now this may seem rather elementary, but you'd be surprised how many authors think only about short term results and forget about the relevancy issues that are so critical to the search engines' functionality. Good search engine placement comes from having a relevant headline, relevant content, on a relevant web site. If you do a search for any keyword, you'll see the listings with the highest ranking all have the keyword or key phrase in the title, in the first paragraph of the content, in the last paragraph and to some extent in the url. Scroll down a bit and you'll see all the sites that didn't take heed of this fact. Another variable would be your target audience. If your writing about a specific topic, you'll already be gleaning the interest of people who'd be seeking information about it. So really, you only have to concern yourself with standing out among other articles geared toward your intended readers. If you know your topic, which you should, then chances are you can come up with something "catchy" to highlight for a headline. It's possible to go beyond "About Dog Kennels" and still maintain a good relevancy factor. Here's some ideas for coming up with a good headline . . . Look through the reference material you're using for your article and draw out the most informative parts. Identify things that may not be common knowledge, or some new element that isn't already spewed out over the web. Run your keyword to find out what others are using for headlines, and try to make yours more interesting. Check some of the sites that show the latest trends to see if your topic is among them. Add some of this "late breaking news" into your article and choose a strong idea from that to create your headline. Do some research on related forums to find out the most asked question some may have about your topic. Build your headline as an answer to that question, or you could fall back on the old reliable "How to . . ." intro that tends to grab people. Visit places like Yahoo! Answers to see if anyone wants to know specific things about your topic. Read some of the answers too. You might find a really good line or two in there you can use. So as you can see, there are all sorts of ways you can make a headline stand out without getting too flashy, or being downright dishonest about your content. Remember, poorly thought out headlines might get some attention if they're flashy enough or are designed to draw a large generic crowd. But its relevancy that will bring you the visitors you're really after and will get you some decent longevity with the search engines. Yes, article submission is all about attracting attention, but you want the right attention from the right people too.

Article Submission Isn't Just About Back Links

There seems to be some confusion about what article submission is all about and what it's used for. Apparently some people are using the process for the sole purpose of getting back links. Though this is part of it, there's a lot more here than meets the eye. Make no mistake, all back links are not created equal! Really, if all you want is back links, then perhaps you'd be more interested in posting comments on other people's blogs, or in forums. Articles serve a much higher purpose. The main reason why you'd want to write and submit articles is to create content that's informative. You want people to learn something about your topic they can actually use, but even more importantly, you want people to learn something informative about you. Syndicating articles then, is about 10% creating back links, 35% providing usable information, and 55% presenting yourself as an expert in your field. Here's why . . . When you create a back link, its added to other back links pointing to your site. If your target market isn't inundated with authority sites all ranking well on the search engines, then those back links will count for something. So they're good to have as a boost to search listings. But you really want to do more than simply list higher in the crowd. You want to stand out, right? In this day and age you can't rely simply on search listings to get clicks to your money pages. There's too much competition. So then you have to count on people actually reading your articles on the article directories, in the social arenas, or on other sites where your article was grabbed for reuse. Thus whatever you write to gain back links should also be of good quality. A good quality, informative article is more likely to get a reader to appreciate the material, which in turn will add to the likelihood they'll follow through and click your recommendation link. Which is ultimately what you want! So if you can teach them something, or at least put a different perspective in their mind, then you've increased the selling potential of your recommendation. And if you can do so without coming off "pitchy," then you're way ahead of most article writers. In fact, there's no rule that says every article has to lead to a product page. You can simply write to inform and offer free advice. This is actually where it gets really good and how you get into the remaining 55% bracket of article use. When you present good quality information without a "catch," you're lining yourself up with the sole purpose of why people use search engines and rummage around article directories in the first place. They're looking for information that won't cost them anything, but will give them the knowledge they're looking for. Now most marketers will dismiss the idea of spending all that time writing articles to merely give away as free information. But if you think about it, giving people what they're looking for will raise your appreciation level through the roof. The more people appreciate the information you provide, the more likely they'll be to buy from you. And so with the proper amount of market research and a little more elbow grease than most marketers put into their promotional efforts, you could have an avid following of people who you can then start making recommendations to. This is how you achieve an expert status and brand yourself as an authority. So while your back links may not compete with all those authority sites, your well written, informative articles will. Sure it takes time and much more work, but the end result will pay off in a big way. So when you think about article submission, put the idea of back links in the back of your mind as a fringe benefit. Work at branding yourself as an authority figure for your readers to reap the biggest rewards.

Article Quality Should Always Come First

Before ever considering the article submission phase of your promotions, you should condition yourself to only producing good, quality content. Ask yourself ahead of time, "would I want to read this?" Think about it this way . . . You're putting your name to a document millions of other people could gain access to. Are you sure these people will see you as someone who knows the facts? Or will you be seen as someone who's just trying to get back links with no usable information? All it takes is one bad article, and you've lost 90% of the people who see it. But had you put a little more research and effort into what you produced, those 90% could have become avid followers who would be ready to buy whatever you recommend to them. You also have to take into account that there are billions of documents posted all over the web. Making your's stand out takes more than simply slapping some words together, or using an article spinner. You need something that'll make people say, "aha!" Obviously, with all these documents already existing, this doesn't mean every article needs some sort of revelation no one knows about. After all, most useful information is no doubt already available, unless of course you discover a new trick or technique. But it could be the way you present your material that creates the "aha moment" and gets people to appreciate your approach to the subject at hand. Avoid distractions like improper spelling, sentence structure, and run away side thoughts. Some people are sticklers about this and will get annoyed when they find it difficult to follow you. And for goodness sake be sociable. Write like you're talking to a friend. You have some valuable information you want your "friends" to see, so present your material like you mean it! Being a useful contributor to the vast amount of information on the web is the only way to gain recognition for your article submission efforts. So spend the extra time to write for quality and you'll be rewarded with the full benefits the Internet has to offer.

Article Submission and Your Expert Status

Every time you go through the article submission process, you should be laying the foundations for building up your reputation as an expert in your field. Above all other types of promotional tools, articles are the best way to do this. It takes some work to accomplish, but the end results can be phenomenal. When it comes to article promotions, it's true there's a lot of competition out there. But if you read some of these articles, it's not hard to see that many would-be authors really aren't particularly interested in being viewed as an expert in their field. Their main goal is to throw articles out over the web in hopes of creating back links for their money pages, so they're indifferent as to whether anyone reads them or not. This practice of submitting shoddy, poorly written, overly spun material is like attending a high class, formal dinner and filling up on a cheap bowl of potato chips. It kind of misses the more exquisite aspect of the gourmet surroundings. Let's suppose you write an article and spin it a hundred times to build your back links. Let's also suppose you did a great job spinning the article so that each version actually make some sense unlike most spun articles. Now let's further suppose your article is very interesting and for a highly sought after key phrase. What happens next? You start attracting visitors who also see your content as interesting material! But what happens when they go to see more of your work on the subject? You may have come off sounding like an expert when they read your first article, but when searching for more info from you and only finding the same information worded a hundred different ways, they may suspect you've produced all you can on the topic. There are some people who'll buy just about anything on the market, but most people tend to seek out recommendations from others in the know. In other words, they look for expert advice before they open their wallets. Does your content show you as having that expert status? Can your readers follow you through a breakdown of the pros and cons of products you're recommending? In reality, you're far better off to write a series of four or five articles that present your argument for or against something, than to write one article and spin it a hundred times. By creating a logical series of articles, you: 1. Show readers that you know a lot more about a topic than one article can contain 2. Provide fresh, unique content 3. Creating a following of people who anticipate your next recommendations. Yes, you want people to click on your bio box link. It's what turns article submission into the money maker that it is. But if you expect people to really pay attention to what you recommend, you must prove first that you're a person who knows what they're talking about. So work at becoming an expert in your field, and you'll see how much better your article submission efforts will become.

Article Submission Using Article Submitter Pro

There are some fundamental rules to article submission that many people seem to either overlook or ignore. To make the most of your article submissions, and to get the best results, it's wise to reconsider these rules. I invite you to listen to this expert video first that goes into the standard deployment of articles to the article directories, what these directories require and expect from their authors, and how to prevent yourself from getting banned from using these directories for your article submission. I'll then show you how Article Submitter Pro fits the profile for the higher end article submission software, and in fact where it surpasses the following criteria. Here's the video first: In the video, she mentions that a good article submission software should do five things, namely: 1. Allow you to add directories to the software 2. Have independent logins for each directory 3. Be able to select at least 5 categories 4. Be able to automatically submit articles 5. Have the ability to skip directories that don't provide the proper category Here's how Article Submitter Pro fulfills, if not surpasses these requirements: 1. Allow you to add directories to the software In the video she mentions that most article submission software contains around 300 built in directories. Article Submitter Pro contains more than 1,300 preloaded directories. Plus it also allows you to add directories either singly or in a bulk grouping. The process is easy to add directories and consists of clicking one button, pasting in your list of directory urls, and saving. And finally, the software is updated automatically on a regular basis to add new directories and remove those that no longer work. 2. Have independent logins for each directory Article Submitter Pro utilizes RegAssist that brings you to each directory's registration page and assists you in filling the form. For most directories, you can choose the login and password of your choice, but for the directories that send you a special password, you simply have to retrieve it from their email they send and paste it in the provided box. The software will then store your login and password for each site and fill in the login form as you go through the article submission process. 3. Be able to select at least 5 categories This is one of the areas where Article Submitter Pro exceeds the requirements, and for good reason too! There are roughly 20,000 different category choices among the 1,300+ article directories. To limit the choice to 5 will in no way cover all the possibilities. Instead, Article Submitter Pro takes you to each directory's submission form and lets you choose the very best and most targeted category available. 4. Be able to automatically submit articles With Article Submitter Pro you just click the start button, your login fills in, click submit and go to the submission form, choose your category, check the formatting of your article in their form, and click submit. This process takes approximately 15 seconds per site and assures you that your article is submitted properly, in the best category, and formatted according to each site's requirements. With more and more article directories adjusting their format, and just as many adding the "captchas," you wouldn't want your article submissions to be any more automated than that. 5. Have the ability to skip directories that don't provide the proper category Because you visit each site as you submit, its easy to skip over directories that don't supply your category choices. Just click the "Next" button and you move on without submitting. The video also mentions that you want to be careful not to submit the same article to the same directories more than once. Article Submitter Pro uses Spam Preventer technology that will allow you to submit an article only once to any directory no matter how long its been since your first submission. This way you're completely safe even if you forget where you left off in the submission process. So as you can see, Article Submitter Pro meets all these requirements with ease. If your a professional marketer, author, or just an average Joe trying to make a living online or off, Article Submitter Pro will take care of the article submission portion of your promotions, and will do it right!

Article Submission and a Web2.0 Tip

A lot of people say that you should only submit articles to the highest ranking article directories, but here's a tip that'll put your Article Submission efforts into high gear for even PR0 directories. The idea is to submit to as many sites as you can so you have plenty of postings to work with. Then find directories that have posted your article immediately. These are usually the lower ranked sites with few article submissions on a daily or weekly basis. Locate a directory that already has your article posted and find the posting on their site. Open it up in your browser and submit it to a bunch of social sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. Not only do you get a back link for the directory, but socializing the directory post will bring you some immediate extra traffic and boost the value of that back link tremendously. Keep tracking your article as it gets posted on other directories as the days and weeks go by and you'll have multiplied the value of all these back links. So that when the higher ranked directories finally get around to posting your article, you'll already have some good search engine placement directing traffic to your money page listed in your bio box.

Article Submission Software

Article Submission is vastly different than directory submission or classified ad placement. It requires some professionalism and accuracy to be effective. As we've discussed on this site, precision of keyword and category relevancy is of utmost importance to article marketing, and so if you're going to use an article submission software, you'd want one that rates this fact as equally vital to your success. There are now several article submitters on the market. Though they all submit articles, some are better than others. A few seem to have been created by people who have no idea how to market with articles and are clueless about the value of relevancy and credibility. One, however, stands out among the crowd that emulates professional and expert marketing. Article Submitter Pro was created initially just about two years ago. I say "initially" because its one of the few submission programs that have followed the trends and the ever changing effectiveness of article marketing by upgrading along with the needs of its users. At the outset, Article Submitter Pro was designed to be semi-automated and has remained so for good reason. It was expected that more and more article directories and article directory scripts would come online that would require a flexibility when it came to submission form filling. So it was deemed crucial that the software would be able to meet the requirements of any type of script and still submit articles with the proper formatting. It was also suspected as time went on that category choices would become too fine tuned and numerous to be automated fully with the click of a single button. So while this creates more user involvement, it also adds a high regard for relevancy and placement accuracy which is the backbone of the article submission process. So because of all this, Article Submitter Pro can submit an article to any type of article directory regardless of the script they used, and can navigate the user to finding the very best category for their articles. These are two major factors that sets Article Submitter Pro above the rest. On a side note, the staff at Article Submitter Pro always seems to be present and willing to assist. That in itself is worth its weight in gold! So there you have it . . . 1. Automatic updates 2. More article directories preloaded than any other (1,300+) 3. Precision article submission and category targeting 4. Fantastic customer service

Article Submission and the Duplicate Content Issue

Over the course of the last year or so, a great paranoia has arisen over the fear of how the Article Submission of one article to too many places will cause Google to penalize you with their infamous "Google Slap." They attribute this to the duplicate content issue. But is that what it really is? According to Google, duplicate content happens when you publish the same text on every page of a single site in order to trick the spiders into thinking its extremely relevant. Period! This is the only reference Google makes to duplicate content. They don't want to catch you placing page after page of the same content on your site. Nothing more, nothing less. Submitting the same article to the 1,300+ article directories wouldn't be considered duplicate content then. Rather, having your content posted on all these sites would be considered "link popularity" and would increase the value of that content. Think of it this way . . . Each time your article is posted on a directory, Google considers that a yes vote. So having several hundred directories all saying yes to your one article is far better than having several hundred "spun" articles all getting one yes vote from the one directory it shows up on. Sure, having a thousand spun articles (if they're spun significantly enough) will give you that many back links. But the power behind them is the power of one. Having one well written article posted to a thousand directories will also give you a thousand back links, but the power behind that one article is multiplied and compounded by each site its on. So as you can see, duplicate content and article submission really have nothing to do with each other. The whole issue sure sold a lot of article spinners though!

Article Submission that Goes With the Flow

In the article, "Article Submission and Page Rank" also on this site, I mentioned there were benefits to submitting articles to all different levels of page rank. This article is an explanation of those benefits. Here are the facts . . . Article directories come in all forms and levels of page rank. There are many that are set at PR0 to PR3, but there are some that have achieved PR7 and 8 as well as PRs in between. These page ranks are determined by the number of articles posted on the sites, the content relevancy of the categories, the amount of site optimization the directory owner performed on the site, etc. The vast majority of all these article directories "hand moderate" their article submission intake, meaning that a human physically reads each article and determines: 1. If the article is of good quality. 2. If the article is relevant to the back link in the bio box 3. If the article is relevant to the category it was submitted into So it's no stretch of the imagination to come to the conclusion that article submission moderation can take some time. Thus sites with thousands of submitted articles coming in every day could take weeks if not months to moderate. Adding to that, some of the higher ranking sites have "expert author" status granted to their frequent members who get their articles moderated first. So if you're relatively new at this, or don't yet have expert status, you could wait quite a long time before your article gets posted and you start receiving the benefits of the back link. But all is not lost! Hand moderation can work toward a greater benefit than anything else when it comes to article submission and getting the value to your back links. As I mentioned, the more articles coming into a directory, the longer it takes to get it posted. But on the other hand, the less articles coming into a directory, the quicker an article submission will get posted. So by submitting to various levels of ranked directories, you can get immediate results from some, results in a day or two from other, more results in a week, and finally the maximum results within a month or two. Every posting on every article directory counts as a back link. A "yes vote" in a sense, because having your article posted on another site means the owner of that site deemed your content worthy of inclusion. The search engines consider this "link popularity" and use that as 75% of the determining factor for ranking the site the back link points to. So Google sees your article with its back link getting posted on a few sites to begin with, then more, and more, and then finally it gets picked up by the sites Google values the most. Hand moderation of article submission intake thus creates a natural flow, or as Google likes to call it, "organic." Your article appears gradually on all these sites over the course of a month or two and the benefits of your back links increases over this time. And the best part is, the gradually increase isn't a false "organic" either. Every article directory that hand moderates the article submission intake ofyour article is a legitimate view and positive vote for you. It can't get any better than that!

Article Submission and Relevance

Article Submission and Relevance The entire Internet revolves around one thing, relevance. Every search engine strives to provide their users with relevant results, every new algorithm is created to enhance the relevance of each query. Likewise then, your marketing attempts, and especially your Article Submission, should be tuned to work in harmony with this relevancy quest. Thus when it comes to submitting your articles, the proper keyword choice then is vital to your success. If your market product regards to the arts, then your articles should be about the arts. if it relates to an Internet marketing tool, then likewise, your articles should be about how that tool will assist marketers in their endeavors to turn a profit. Now this may sound simple enough, but many would be marketers think all they have to do is shove some articles out into cyberspace with their product's page link in their bio box and they'll be heading to the bank. Every article submission you make should be completely targeted to the people who'll most likely purchase what you have to sell. The more targeted, the better your chances are of finding these people. This means you not only have to consider the theme of your articles and they're relevance, but also the placement of those articles in the best possible category each article directory has to offer. It's all about targeting, so if your product is geared toward "hobbies," where would you suppose people interested in hobbies would go looking for information? Sure, they'd click on the hobbies category on an article directory, or would find references to hobbies category posts from these directories in the search engines. Each article directory contains a number of categories. In fact, among the 1,300+ known article directories there are over 20,000 different category choices. So let's revisit the hobbies searchers for a moment . . . Some people love scrap booking. which is considered a very popular hobby these days. Some people think scrap booking is for kids and think of hiking as their hobby of choice. Now lets say you want to target the scrap book people. You might get away with submitting your scrap book article directly into the "hobbies" category, but then your target audience would have to scroll through pages and pages and listing after listing of articles about hiking and all the other hobby topics known to man. But what if the article directory had sub-categories? It may look like . . . Hobbies > Indoor > Scrap Booking Ah, then if you placed your article submission into that deeper sub-category, your target audience would be able to find your article so much faster ( not to mention appreciate it that much more for not having to hear everyone else rave about hiking). Definitely a plus in your column! And not only is your article submission easier to find by your target group, it ends up with a greater value to the search engines because it falls better into line with their quest for optimal relevancy!

Making Article

Making Your Article Headline Shout Article submission is all about attracting attention. You want people to see your article headline and immediately feel the need to find out what it says about it inside. But where do you draw the line between building interest and out and out deception? There are several variables you'll want to keep in mind when you design your headline to announce your article. First and foremost you want to keep your headline in line with the relevancy of your key phrases within the article. Anything beyond this will throw off its search engine rankings. Getting some serious "hang time" for your articles means, not only getting people's attention over a few hours with an initial broadcast, but you want to create a presence that'll last for some time. So keeping the search engines happy is paramount to achieving this goal. This in itself helps to keep things honest. You won't get much longevity with an article about "dog kennels" if your headline reads "Britney Spears Does It Again!". If your article is about "dog kennels" then your headline should be also. Now this may seem rather elementary, but you'd be surprised how many authors think only about short term results and forget about the relevancy issues that are so critical to the search engines' functionality. Good search engine placement comes from having a relevant headline, relevant content, on a relevant web site. If you do a search for any keyword, you'll see the listings with the highest ranking all have the keyword or key phrase in the title, in the first paragraph of the content, in the last paragraph and to some extent in the url. Scroll down a bit and you'll see all the sites that didn't take heed of this fact. Another variable would be your target audience. If your writing about a specific topic, you'll already be gleaning the interest of people who'd be seeking information about it. So really, you only have to concern yourself with standing out among other articles geared toward your intended readers. If you know your topic, which you should, then chances are you can come up with something "catchy" to highlight for a headline. It's possible to go beyond "About Dog Kennels" and still maintain a good relevancy factor. Here's some ideas for coming up with a good headline . . . Look through the reference material you're using for your article and draw out the most informative parts. Identify things that may not be common knowledge, or some new element that isn't already spewed out over the web. Run your keyword to find out what others are using for headlines, and try to make yours more interesting. Check some of the sites that show the latest trends to see if your topic is among them. Add some of this "late breaking news" into your article and choose a strong idea from that to create your headline. Do some research on related forums to find out the most asked question some may have about your topic. Build your headline as an answer to that question, or you could fall back on the old reliable "How to . . ." intro that tends to grab people. Visit places like Yahoo! Answers to see if anyone wants to know specific things about your topic. Read some of the answers too. You might find a really good line or two in there you can use. So as you can see, there are all sorts of ways you can make a headline stand out without getting too flashy, or being downright dishonest about your content. Remember, poorly thought out headlines might get some attention if they're flashy enough or are designed to draw a large generic crowd. But its relevancy that will bring you the visitors you're really after and will get you some decent longevity with the search engines. Yes, article submission is all about attracting attention, but you want the right attention from the right people too.