Showing You The Results Of Submitted Articles

Article Writing Basics - Manual Article Submission - Automated Article Submission

Continuing from the previous section, in this section I will be explaining some of the basics of article writing and discussing the main PROs and CONs of manual article submission versus automated (software) article submission.

The Article Title

When thinking of a Title for your article it is easy to fall into the trap of just naming what you see. For example. With a computer hard drive article you might make the common mistake of using a title such as "An Explanation Of The Hard Drive". What is wrong with this title is that it states the obvious. People usually associate an article as being a document that states fact via an explanation of the subject matter. So a better title would be "What Exactly Is A Hard Drive And What Is Stored Inside It?". This title questions the viewer as to whether or not they really know what a hard drive is.

With the title "An Explanation Of The Hard Drive" the viewer may skip past this article link (title) because they think "I already know what a hard drive is". Whereas with the title "What Exactly Is A Hard Drive And What Is Stored Inside It?", and more precisely with the authoritative word "exactly", you are putting the viewer's own knowledge (if any) of this subject into question. Now they should be a little more curious about your article and click on its link; even if it is just to clarify what they already know about the hard drive, to gain new knowledge or to see if you really are the authority.

So when thinking about your article's title think "What Question Can I Ask?". "What Problem Can I Solve?". "How Can I Make People Curious". Do not blatantly make them curious just for the sake of it. Trying to be clever, as opposed to natural and sincere, will always catch you out. Words like "Secrets" and even "Tips" become a little tiresome for the reader after they have seen other, rubbish, articles with the same title. So do not copy people as well, not unless their title and article content has been a sure winner with very high visitor numbers.

Remember. Although people look for articles that contain knowledge, advice and answers to their questions, problems and doubts it is the title they see first and not the article content itself. So you must have a title that is of the authority. A title that poses a question, expresses an answer and/or makes a factual statement (i.e. What Is.... How To.... The Best Way To.... and Did You Know That Only 52% Of....) and above all a title that grabs attention.

My title "What makes a computer slow?" is okay but if I wanted to make it more headline grabbing I could of used "What makes a computer slow?....Even When It Is Brand New?". It is these kind of attributes that are the deciding factors for a clickable article title. With so much competition from other article authors these days your article title, and article content, has to stand out from the crowd.

The Article Content

With article content you have to make sure that it lives up to all the hype of your article title. Meaning. It has to answer the question(s), solve the problem(s), crush the doubt(s), review the product(s) and so on posed in your article title. Sticking with my hard drive article as the example. In the first paragraph I have answered the two questions posed in my article title - What Exactly Is A Hard Drive And What Is Stored Inside It? And this is what you need to do.

Sum up if possible the answer(s), product(s), problem(s) or whatever in the first paragraph. Do not worry too much about paragraph length (mine are usually between 5 and 7 lines long) because the interested viewer will still read your article regardless of its paragraph lengths.

In your second paragraph try and give the viewer a golden nugget. Information they would not know unless they were an expert like yourself and/or a piece of information (or website link) that would take them ages to find in normal circumstances. This kind of thing is what makes you the authority. A resourceful, credible, worthy person.

Another good gesture (tactic) is to offer a FREE E-Book to entice them onto your website. This is normally done via your profile/bio page. Giving out expert information is what can bring in an audience - Don't be old school with the stupid attitude of "If I tell you all my secrets I will be out of a job".....People will get to know your "secrets" anyway via articles! and the net ("Mumma's Secret Recipes" are public domain now).

In general you should try and leave out any technical terminology (jargon) and explain things in an every day language. If you are a cookery expert for example do not think people reading your article can under-stand your fancy cooking words. Technical: Vegetables and/or fruits on a bed of bread, top with a creamy white sauce. Simplified: A salad sandwich with mayonnaise!

Also make sure you are up-to-date with the latest fashions/technologies/etc, especially with these things changing every six months or so. And read up on the latest gadgets or whatever, if necessary, even if you are an expert (nobody will know!). Basically. As long as you know your stuff you should write your articles freestyle, with honesty, with value and for the human viewer (not for the search engines).

By freestyle I mean; off the top of your head, how you like, thought by thought, idea by idea, piece by piece over time. Create your own ideas and writing style in other words and do not rush your article. That way your article will form a natural shape/style instead of a fake, robotic, formulated, scripted shape/style. Also emphasize the benefits, if any, of your service(s)/product(s) to the viewer but do not hard sell to them. The only thing to sell in your article should be your website link, if anything at all.

Handwritten/Pre-Written Pay-For Articles

If you are not a natural writer and need articles for your own website, blog, newsletter or whatever (but not necessarily for submitting to article websites) you can employ an article writer to write articles for you. However. This can be quite expensive and run into hundreds of US Dollars, depending on the number of articles you require of course. $5 upwards for pre-written articles and $30 upwards for handwritten articles tend to be the standard rates at this time.

One important thing to bare in mind here is that someone could easily copy that article off your website, blog, newsletter or whatever; so think carefully about this approach. Although you normal find author on article websites you can also find them on the internet as freelance writers and copyrighters for example.

Be Patient!

An article is like a door-to-door leaflet. Some people will contact you straight away (via phone or email normally), some people will throw your leaflet straight in the dustbin (either because they are not interested in your product(s)/service(s) or because they do not like "Junk Mail") and some people will keep your leaflet until they or someone else they know can benefit from your product(s)/service(s). And this applies to each of your articles as well.

Some people might look at all of your articles (now or later) whilst others might only look at none, one or two (now or later). Some people might even want to bookmark (save/favorite) your article pages and then look at them later. This is what internet marketing is all about. Promoting your website, individual web pages, articles and so on whenever and where ever you can. So while you are waiting for something to happen to your articles, in the meantime, go and promote your website elsewhere.

How Much Time And Money?

With the results from the previous article section, and article results in general, you can see that in reality you would need to manually submit at least 10 different articles a week to as many as 50 different article websites per week to make it worth your while. Or put another way. 40 different articles in a month covering 200 different article websites. Sounds a lot but in reality that could be done at 1 different article a day, over 40 days (of course), submitting to 5 different article websites a day.

Manually submitting 1 different article a day, to 1 different article website, should take you about 10-15 minutes (if that). So times that by 5 and you are looking at 50 Minutes minimum and 75 Minutes (1 hour, 15 minutes) maximum, per day for the next 40 days. It is not that much time really - You could sacrifice your 1 hour lunch break, a 1 hour evening tv program, etc if you really want your article submissions to work for you. Saying this. You could be sacrificing more than 40 hours of your time, which is a week's wage, which is fine if you are doing it on company time but not so good if it is on your own time. You have to ask yourself "Am I dedicated enough to sacrifice that amount of time and expense?".

You can get around manual submission by using an article submission tool of course, but these cost money and still demand your time to initialize/set-up (copy and paste) each article. And a pay-for-submission service, even at a rate of $1 per article submission, would still cost you $200 (approximately £133) and submission time. However. Regardless if these solutions work out slightly cheaper or slightly more expensive than your sacrificed 40-50 (minimum/maximum) manual submission hours, you still need to consider a few things:

1) Have I got enough article material of my own to submit? And if not, do I really want to pay for enough written articles?

2) What is enough for me? Do I really need to be writing a book load of articles? And wouldn't those articles be better placed in my own website or blog?

3) Is it worth even entertaining article writing/submission?.....with poor viewer numbers and more precisely poor url clicks.

I cannot answer these questions for you simply because my results (in these article sections) more than likely will differ from yours. You will need to carry out similar submission tests like I have done, Manually And Without Spending A Penny, to test the water. That way you will know if it is worth your while investing in some article submitter software, a monthly subscription fee and so on.

Although some of the answers rely on the outcome of your free testing, together with your time and money budgets, you also have to be realistic and remember that article submission is "just another jigsaw piece in your advertising quest".

The Feedback (Results)

Testing your own article submission results is very important. As with any marketing campaign it is a case of trial and error; seeing what works and what doesn't. Meaning. Rearrange your article titles, keywords and content, if need be, until you find your articles getting the attention they deserve.

Years ago I used to design leaflets for new companies and sometimes helped them to deliver the leaflets door-to-door. This was because I wanted to know what their feedback was, both in the office (customer phone calls) and on the street (people reactions, opinions, etc), so that I could then rework the leaflet's Design, Call To Action, Prices and so on.

In other words. I was not afraid to experiment design-wise, ask the public what they thought of the leaflet and what services they thought would improve the business. And it is exactly the same with article writing and submission. Test out an article's title for example with one article website, change it if need be and then submit it to another article website. Remember, the competition is fierce these days and the market is flooded with article content similar to yours.

By viewing other peoples articles, to see why they get so many viewer results, and doing other research you should begin to see your own results flourish. Finding a gap in the market also helps! Do not think your article content has to be "matter of fact" to enjoy popularity; Sometimes it is the writing style that wins an audience.

With my article test results I am happy in the knowledge that while they may have poorish viewer results and very poor url/website clicks (known as CTR or Click Through Rates), I am assured by the fact that other people are using my articles in their own websites/blogs - This can mean they do better in those website/blogs simply because they are searched more by the search engines.

On top of this; The actual articles from within the article websites are, and can be, indexed by the search engines too. Remember, my results are only from the article websites directly, and not from search engine results and other people's website/blog results. So be assured that your own articles will more than likely be indexed/used elsewhere, hopefully with better exposure results.

The key factor surrounding this whole scenario is the link or association between you and the article. Meaning. You must check who is using your article(s), by searching the internet, and make sure that person acknowledges you as the author (by way of a link). If they do not, write to them with a complaint. Unfortunately. One of the downsides of article writing is that there will always be someone who steals your article without putting up an author link and/or an author acknowledgement.