Article Marketing can be a challenging task if you don’t keep a few things in mind while doing it. Remember this is not a race and consistency will pay off more in the long run that burst work (i.e. you would be better to submit one article per day, than 30 no and wait a month to submit 30 more).
ArticleSnatch.com has over 800,000 approved articles, and well over 100,000 that aren’t approved. Below you will find some tips to make sure that your articles end up in the approved pile as well as some tips that can help those articles get more traffic.
1) Article Title – the article title is the first thing a viewer sees and has a lot of impact whether or not they click on it. Too short and you have not given the reader enough information, too long and the opposite is true. Aim for 65 to 90 characters and be descriptive about what your article says. If your article is about great vacations, then “great vacation” would be the worst title ever, but “How To Have a Great Vacation With Your Family” might be better.
2) Article Length – often times people ask us how short can an article be, or what is the minimum length of an article. I think those people are looking at the approach of writing articles backwards. Instead write the article to say what you want it to, then stop and check the length. Articles below 250 words (and this might change) are denied automatically. Articles under 300 words are more likely to be removed with less scrutiny. The sweet spot is really closer to 400 or 500 words. But again, don’t add filler to just stuff your article and make it longer.
3) Article KeyWords / Tags – When you submit an article you can put several keywords in the keyword box. It is best to use keywords and keyword phrases with less than 3 words (or 4 words if you have to). Keywords should not include common words (and, or, if, the, to, etc) and they should be descriptive of what the article is actually about. When the topic pages are built, the words in the article tags/keyword section are factored in, but more importantly , the content of the article is also factored in. So tagging an article with google, when its about canon cameras probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Try to find 5 to 7 keyword or keyword phrases that best describe the article.
4) About the Author / Resource Box – These 500 characters at the end of the article are a great place for you to shine. This is the part where you want to write a bit about the author as well as a call to action. 3 properly formatted html links are allowed, and you should always use all three. One of them should be your domain name and with no anchor text – other than the domain name. For example http://www.articlesnatch.com/ would be a good link to include. The reason for this is that if someone decides to use the article on their site and they don’t include your anchor text links (which they are required to), then at least someone reading the article can still contact you.
Nofollow/Dofollow resource box links – this was put in place as part of a plan to recover from a strong Google Filter. But it is by no means permanent, if your account currently has nofollow links in the resource box, and you have submitted more than 5 articles, email webmaster AT articlesnatch DOT com, include the email address on the account and we will be happy to review the account and remove the nofollow. This is in place to discourage fly by night spammers and those looking to promote inappropriate topics on the site, while pushing the better, stronger articles to the top. Since this was implemented, traffic is up, indexing is up, indexing rates are up.
5) Links – Policy used to dictate that links were only allowed in the resource box, however that has changed. Before October 2009, the links in the body of the article were filtered out and not displayed. Now they are allowed. However, stuffing an article with lots of links, would still be a spammy technique and likely would get your account shut down. So while this is allowed and encouraged, it should always be done with the viewer in mind. Ask yourself first, will this help my reader? If not, then don’t include it. The links in the body of the article are currently nofollow and will likely stay that way.
6) Formatting – If you write your articles in Microsoft Word or similar word processor, it would be best if you first copied the article and pasted it into a plain text editor, then copy it again and paste it into ArticleSnatch.com, this will prevent any of the formatting issues caused by Microsoft. MS Word often inserts characters that can’t be properly stored in the database, and this can cause other functions of the site to break. MS Word is also the number one reason why links in the resource box get broken. We are looking to implement a new editor when you submit articles to help fix this issue.
7) Category – picking the right category also improves the likelihood of your desired reader finding the article. Not only are the RSS feeds of each category distributed widely, but it makes it easier for a reader to find what they are looking for. If you are using a software program to submit articles, just double check and make sure that the articles go in the right category. If you fail to pick one, it will be put into the Uncategorized category along with all the other misplaced articles. Additionally when we review your account, if most of your articles are there, we will ask that you fix it.
Building Links – An integral part of any successful article marketing strategy should be to build some links to the articles that you are submitting. While to some this may sound odd, the more links to the article you wrote, the more chances there are for people and search engines to find that article. Some easy way you can do this is to use a social bookmarking tool like – http://www.OnlyWire.com – which allows you to store your bookmarking accounts there and then use one tool in your browser toolbar to submit links to several sites. Another idea is to use RSS aggregators to distribute the feed of the category which you submit to, topic feeds and your author feed. Most of these feeds are all linked at the bottom of the article with the rss icons. To read more about RSS aggregation check out TipJar – this explains how to do it, etc. Remember the RSS feed that is for your author profile, there is a snippet from the article as well as your resource box. That’s why it is even more important that your resource box include the links you want it to.
9) Pen Names – After you create your account, you need to create at least one pen name to submit articles. The pen name you use is what will be displayed on the article where it says “By: Name”. That is also linked to your profile page based on that pen name. As you might be able to imagine, the more articles under the same pen name, there more links there are to that profile page. So it is better to submit more articles under one pen name than it is to use separate pen names for each article. Some authors like to keep unrelated subjects on different pen names. Choice is yours. Also while you are logged in, click on “edit profile” and select the pen name profile to edit, here you can can add 5 links to sites of your choice as well as a 1500 character blurb that you want to appear on this profile page.
10) Appropriate Topics – articles that you wouldn’t want your five year old child to read, probably shouldn’t be submitted. If your article is about gambling, adult things, online pharma, illegal activities, hate, knock off items, etc – please don’t submit it. When we find articles about these topics we simply ban your entire account. So please don’t submit them in the first place, if you have already, please login and delete the articles.
11) Other Spam To Avoid – Avoid duplicate submissions, so if your article looks the same or similar to another one we have, it might be removed without notice. Avoid duplicate titles or similar titles. Also if you spin articles, consider stopping, but till you do, don’t submit two “spins” of the same article to the same site. It benefits no one. Keyword stuffing and poorly written articles are also frowned upon and will be removed without notice.
If you have any questions please ask, either here in comments, using the contact form or by email. Our staff is here to answer your questions and help you be successful in your article marketing efforts. When you leave comments below, please remember that the name field is for your name and not a keyword.
That’s a very useful and informative article. I will bear all those points in mind when submitting articles to Article Snatch and similar sites. I think that keeping the article concise and to the point, with between 400-500 words is a good tip. Another good one is to format the article in notepad before submitting it. Thanks, that fully clarifies the best practices of article submission.
clearly you missed the part about not using keywords in the name part of the comment.
I own a real estate blog and I used to spend over 45mins a day deleting comment spam, it was very annoying. The more I highlighted not to use keywords in the name of comments the more I got them, the amount of thanks for the information comments were dumbfounding, If only those commenting could read etc. Good luck to you all at article snatch, you provide an excellent service.
Wow sorry to hear that. we normally have to delete a few that were left by people who don’t get it. but the rest are all caught by wp spam free mainly – that stops most of the automated ones quickly.
Thank you for all this great information.
I will definitely be submitting articles to you.
On another subject, do you happen to have a do follow blog list that really is do follow?
All the lists out there that I have found all SAY they are do follow, but when I run them through a most basic detection tool, maybe one in ten (if I am lucky) actually are.
I realize that you will take the no follow tags off of the articles after I’ve submitted a certain number. But, with blogs, I would like to be able to get SOME credit if I take the time to comment.
Do you think that folks don’t know what to do to make their blogs do follow?
I can’t believe that that many people would list their sites as do follow knowing darn well they are not.
Joan
we don’t have a list – no – but our blog is dofollow.
I have articles in ezine articles and a few other directories and just found out about ArticleSnatch. I think the the above article says it all, in order to give you a clear understanding of proper submitting procedures, but no matter how clear you make things, their will always be those who do not abide by the rules, like the first commenter. It makes my stomach turn with all the comments on various sites that have a keyword in the name field.
Joseph
.-= Joseph Mancia´s last blog ..Ice Fishing Walleye Tips For Winter Walleye =-.
Very well writen and some good advice. I anly happened upon this by accident and have never used ArticleSnatch.
After I have posted I will look further into it…thanks
.-= Simon Seal´s last blog ..Many people want instant success!! =-.
I have to say the 5 articles limit is a bit daunting. I know it would not be a problem for mass article recyclers who turn out reams of copy every few minutes but I tend to produce one carefully written and thought our article about every 2 weeks and as a new registration, the idea of having effectively a two and a half month ‘nofollow’ ban from ArticleSnatch is enough to encourage me to post elsewhere. Any chance that you might reduce the time to review or introduce some other system?
Richard,
The reason for the 5 article standard, is because if we set it to 2 articles, you write two articles, we like them, remove the nofollow, then you submit 4000 articles about naughty adult related subjects and linking to bad parts of the internet and it damages everything.
Instead by waiting till we can see 5 articles from you, we can get a better feel for whether or not the author is a real person like yourself or a spam bot. Then if they are spam bot, we just leave the nofollow on and determine whether or not the author is a good fit for the system.
Whether a link is nofollow or dofollow, Google will still count and track the link, they will still use nofollow links for discovery. Believe it or not a mix of dofollow and nofollow links is natural. Instead of worrying about the links, take care of the read that is reading your article and the other stuff will follow.
Article Marketing works great over a long haul. Its not for the short term burst types, its for a long term strategy.
I’ve been a long tie user of ezine (you know who I mean) but they aren’t the easiest to work with. I am open to giving your service a try, based on the info above, but I do wish the name of your business was a little less, um, adult, sounding.
Thanks a lot for providing so fruitful information. The precaution required to take into under consideration while submitting the article is immensely useful. The tile should be neither too short not to long. There should be no delicacy and above all the article should original. If these criteria are met then the article is definitely going to be published. Thanks for sharing so nice information.
.-= sush´s last blog ..TestoRipped review =-.
I have not been considering some of these tips when writing my article, I will do something concerning it soon. Thanks for the tips cos they can also help when writing for other sites.
.-= Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..THE SECRET POWER OF SOCIAL BOOKMARKING =-.
@ ArticleSnatch Just wanted to post to thank you for your previous reply and for reminding me that I should be (as I am) in this for the long haul. Taking on board your comments, I guess it does make more sense for me to post articles to a site that is careful about spam.
Thank you for all this tips.
I was looking for some good article pages to submit my articles.
wow, this is a great article. i’m currently doing article marketing myself. and i’m really having a hard time. writing articles alone is so time consuming but it definitely beats spinning in the long run. i once used a spinner and the articles that came out were ridiculous. the best way to spin is to rewrite the whole article yourself. but it’s just so time-consuming. argh!
.-= Nova´s last blog ..Home and Garden, An Organic Lifestyle =-.
I’ve never submitted an article and article marketing is a completely new thing for me.Your guideline are definitely going to help me writing the very first article.I’ve just one question if i write article can i submit the same article to different article submission directories or is it not allowed.
Thank you for all of the great info. I was wondering about the dofollow and nofollow for article snatch. Every site has a different policy, it’s hard to keep up!
Sarah,
Really quite simple… after you submit 5 articles… send us an email with the email address of the account or a link to one of the articles.
Great points I love article snatchs service they are one of my favorites. Just play by the rules so you can get some nice traffic from your articles.
.-= Jason´s last blog ..Earn money online Money Making Tips =-.
Hi, thanks for this. I’m learning about running my website at the moment and this was a breath of fresh air – very useful and informative
It is really interesting and useful article. You really know the importance of article marketing in fact it is a tough job to written the passage and put all the required things as the information we provide through the article any of the topic, you actually help me by offer the impressive article tips which is going to be so useful to me…
Thanks a lot
Sara Brown
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thanks for the tips for getting articles approved – After approval I create an rssfeed of all my articles and then submit the feed at –
icerocket.com
lifestream.fm
feedage.com
friendfeed.com
feedagg.com
feedraider.com
feedfury.com
goldenfeed.com
feedest.com
rssmountain.com
I know there would be many more of these RSS directories where you can submit to. However I recommend not overdoing it.
This way I get backlinks to my articles and to articlesnatch.com
.-= Andy Forex´s last blog ..Forex robots – Forex trading robots =-.
Andy,
Every author gets an RSS feed with their articles in it and the links in the resource box included in the summary of each article. it is linked from every article once live.
Thanks for your share… Much appreciated.
I think if one person read this article masterpiece then i do not find any reason that anyone’s article will get neglected. the most important update in this articlesnatch.com is
“Before October 2009, the links in the body of the article were filtered out and not displayed. Now they are allowed. ”
I am very happy to read this !
.-= Naveen´s last blog ..Jiah khan hot song – Videos of Jiah khan hot dance songs =-.
Just found your site and read over this article. I can tell there has been a lot of effort put into creating your best practices with everyone in mind! I’ll be back to check it out a bit more soon. Thanks.
.-= Hayley Keen´s last blog ..A Network Marketing Internet Business And Your Gut Feeling =-.
I was not aware of OnlyWire.com and will have to sign up for it. Your article has some great tips!
Houston TX Mortgage
I won’t argue with you about your tips. Those are really good. But I though I should just make it very clear that one should always write texts for humans. Not just with the search engine in mind. You can’t say that enough I think.
Do you think you could expand on the building links post? I’ve never been very good at it and lately I only see resources that briefly touch on it. Perhaps you could write a post about it?
.-= Chris Guthrie´s last blog ..Cash Crate Review =-.
I’ll mark that down as to get some more ideas together.
Thanks for some good guidelines!
I haven’t started with this articlesubmitting-thing yet but i heard it’s a great way of making new visitors to my site.
Thanks again, now i just need to open up pages (like word for mac) and start writing
.-= Billy´s last blog ..Comfort Hotel Jönköping =-.
It’s surprising how important these simple tips really are, thanks!
I m really glad to have this blog and this post also as it has reallt the best advices and tips for practices and i have been loking for such things. I wanted to know all tips for article as described here, length, title and all that. I would like to see such posts again and again.
This is all very useful information for a beginner like myself.
It’s just frustrating to see how low quality content often gets much more traffic just because of backlinking tricks.
.-= Bogdan Bocse´s last blog ..Leader or Follower ? =-.
A one excellent posts. it is correct that having exemplary article will get you to the top once you incorporate it with proper guiding in title, keyword, and the article itself.
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There are so many article submitter software which promised to submit your articles to thousands of directories in a push of a button. Does it really work? Is it considered spamming? Pls advice.
[...] spent a while considering after my last post. I discovered on the Articlesnatch.com blog that the reason they introduced nofollow tags was to “help recover from a strong Google Filter”. It may be that [...]
A great post Matt – one which helped me to get to grips with the significance of nofollow tags when it comes to article marketing. I will definitely be including a mention of the temporary nature of the articlesnatch.com nofollow tags in my next post.
Thanks also for the tip re RSS feed aggregators.
Good list. I’m new to article marketing and it really intrigues me. It’s a ton of work and I’m hoping it’ll pay itself off!
Chris´s last [type] ..Top Links
Article marketing works great for a very long time. It is not for short-term rupture types, its as long-term strategy.
McGonagall´s last [type] ..The process for preparing of DRAM factory can not be changed suitably Greater variable exists in the new productivity
How many links from one article site can you have before they start to loose their value? I realize there’s no set number or proof but I can’t seem to find a general agreement among webmasters about this.
Derrick@Fatherhood´s last [type] ..Dating as a Single Father
I’m not sure that there is really a set number, but rather its likely more based on a mix of links. so the more you have elsewhere, the more from any one source you can have. at least thats my theory. the more the merrier
Your articla persuaded me that article marketing is not so complex as it seems at first sight and that it is worth doing. I’ll keep your tips into my mind when i decide to deal with article marketing i my practice.
Yes, article marketing works as a long term strategy (or as a short to mid-term strategy when combined with other marketing methods) and I do agree that consistency is the most important success factor. It is not easy to be consistent but it really pays off.
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Great information provided about ways to promote your articles I especially like the information where you talk about no follow and do follow links. I think it is a must for any SEO company to realize that these links are very important to understand. I also have to agree that combining article marketing other proven SEO techniques can definitely provide a dramatic increase in search results and Internet presence.
Your information regarding article submission is too good.
But I need information from you; I know very well that you can help me.
When I am writing a article based on a particular topic which thing I have to take care, and after completed the article where I can check the article that the article is not copied from anywhere.
St. Lucia Hotel
Thank you for the tips. Although I’m not new to article writing, I realized that I was doing the tagging wrong. I always included common words (and, the, to, etc) so it didn’t look like a spam, but I guess I was wrong.
Thanks again
When I took a look at my article the links were not active in my resource box. Is it due to improper HTML code? Could you give me an example of the proper code?
Thanks.
Dave Dedrick´s last [type] ..Solar Fence Lights
there is a link to html tutorial on the submission page. but also proper link formatting is just html. if you would like someone to look at the account specifically email us or use the contact form.
Thanks for the very useful and interesting read. As someone just starting out with writing articles and trying to get exposure, I have found some very good ideas to follow up on.
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That’s a really good article. It does help. I am new to article marketing and I just made a checklist base on your article to improve my articles quality.
I have actually found that artilce marketing can be very effective when it is combined with other marketing efforts like press releases, blog commenting and even yahoo! Marketing. However, it is less effective when used alone. I think this is because more individuals are relying on it exclusively (ex. Ezines Articles) and it is a bit harder to get articles ranked (ex. Squidoo). But when combined with other methods, it works really great.
Thanks for sharing this information, Nice Article, Thanks again.
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Thanks for this explanation. I had originally discarded Article Snatch as potential article directory to submit articles to since it is nofollow, but as I see the reason for doing it and that links can be made “dofollow” after 5 articles, then I’ll reintegrate it into my list of article directories to write articles for.
Tommy,
glad to hear it – keep up the great work.
I’ve learned a lot from reading your articles, You basically lightened me on what are the proper things that I should do when I’m submitting articles on articlesnatch. So your tips are indeed helpful since I’m just new in this kind of stuff so I’m still in the learning process.