So you have decided to article market. And you should. To help you get off to a good start, here are some serious errors I see come through every day by well-intentioned (or not) article marketers that you MUST avoid.
1. Choosing the incorrect category: This makes the writer seem lazy and unprofessional, and significantly reduces the number of people who will find and read the article. An article in the wrong category will be ignored by the browsers of that category, and will never be found by the people looking in the right category!
2. Writing ads instead of articles: Don’t do this. People who read articles want information, not a sales pitch! For goodness’ sake, we get enough of those already! Sales pitches will give the writer a bad name and get them labeled as a spammer.
3. Poorly written articles: Proofread and edit. If your writing isn’t strong, work with a local writer’s group or find me on FB. Submitting a poorly written article is the same as scribbling over your affiliate website with a black marker. It looks and sounds unprofessional and people will avoid your work in the future.
4. Treat your readers with disrespect: In other words, write an article that puts them down, insults them, or attempts to get them to make a decision through reverse psychology. Say Bye Bye Bye to your readership the second you go down that path. In a modified version of what Yoda says in the Empire Strikes Back: Once you start down that dark path, forever will it destroy your destiny!
5. Spam a directory to get backlinks. This is a strategy employed only by the very new, or the perpetually ignorant, but it happens every day. Every SEO expert and search engine staff will tell you, completely honestly, that a search engine will only count one link from a website back to your website. So even if you have 1000 articles on ArticlesAndSuccess.com, all linking to the same affiliate page, a search engine only counts ONE link from that url! 1000 articles WILL drive a huge amount of traffic, but ONLY if they are well written and make it clear that the writer is truly an expert in their field. a 1000 bad articles will get you completely ignored, and one backlink to the search engines. (That’s an awful lot of work just to get one backlink!)
6. Ignore the Terms of Service (TOS) — This will get a writer banned and, in some cases, in legal trouble! I generally give my authors ONE warning to read the TOS. This is more than fair since they are in both the sign-up e-mail, and the e-mail received after the sign-up process is completed. (The confirmation email, and the welcome email). If they break them after that series of warnings, I ban them. As a directory owner I hate spam, as a successful internet marketer I expect everyone to follow the rules, and as an honest and ethical person, I have zero tolerance for rule breakers.
7. Ignore the submission guidelines: See #6. The same rules apply.
The TOS and Submission Guidelines, if properly followed, will HELP any article marketer have a larger audience, establish a good reputation, and enjoy more success. Because writing articles must be done with the same level of professionalism as any other aspect of internet marketing. It needs to be people-centric, follow established and widely accepted protocols, and set the writer up as a trustworthy expert.
