Article Directory Submission Tips – Article Submission Guidelines

Article Directory Submission Tips: Article Submission Guidelines

There are a lot of article submission tips online, but most of it is for business purposes, and this article focuses on article submission guidelines: what to avoid when submitting articles to ensure your article gets published. A large number of articles submitted to article directories and ezines get rejected for various reasons, and here we will discuss the main reasons for rejection and how to avoid them.

Advertising

One of the main reasons your article gets rejected is advertising in the body of the article. You are generally allowed to post a URL of your website in the ‘Author Resource’ section of the article, but not within the body itself. Almost without exception, article directories require that articles be informative and provide useful information to their readers. In his opinion, that’s why readers use the directory and believe, correctly, that ads should be restricted to advertising services like Google AdWords and any directory submissions that ignore this will be rejected.

Never actively promote a product in your article or post your website URL or any active (clickable) links to it. It is permissible to mention two or three products as examples of those that can help solve a particular problem without actively siding with any particular one, but even that may result in your article directory submission being rejected depending on the directory.

You may review products, but you may not advertise or offer for sale the product you are reviewing.

regional relevance

Regional relevance is mentioned in Ezine Article’s ‘Author Guidelines’ and in the article submission guidelines of many other article directories. If you mention a region or place name in the title of your article, such as in “Using Alaskan Ice Making Services,” you should make sure that your article is directed at ice making facilities in Alaska and what is the best way to use them. Your article will be rejected if it can be interpreted as applying anywhere and not just the region mentioned in the title.

Therefore, in an article entitled “The Benefits of New York Massage Parlors”, you will have to explain why such parlors in New York will benefit you more than massage parlors elsewhere, and not just write about its overall benefits. The article should not have the same meaning if the place name is omitted from the body.

word count

Many directories have a minimum word count, and while Ezine Articles may accept a 300 word article, don’t expect Article Avenue or Article Rich to accept it. Many directories operate with a minimum of 400 or 500, but it’s best to stick with 500 – 800. Over 800 is fine if you have interesting content with headlines, but never write below 500 or your article will be rejected or readers will think you is trying to take advantage of them.

Article Summary

Many writers don’t pay enough attention to the article abstract: that’s what the directory uses to advertise their article, and this is likely to be the description in whatever Google listing your article gets. Please note that once an article is accepted for submission to the directory, it is published on its own page in the directory.

You won’t read this in any of the article submission guidelines, but it can be featured on Google in the same way as any other web page. Your title and abstract is what Google visitors using your keywords will see if they come across your search engine listing.

inappropriate content

Be sure to read the TOS before submitting an article to the directory and also read the article submission guidelines. Some of the content is inadmissible and will result in your article being rejected. Among them are articles on adult themes, gambling, some listed firearms and drugs. The directory may follow your links and if they also lead to web pages that offer such content directly or even through links included on your landing page, your article may also be disapproved.

Take care of your formatting

Some directories will reject your article if the numbered or lettered listings are not on different lines: for example, if ‘A subject 1:’ and ‘B. Issue 2:’ are not on different lines, your article will not be published. Excessive use of keywords will also lead to a refusal. For example, Ezine Articles will not accept submissions from article directories that contain more than 2% keyword density.

I know some SEO gurus will suggest 1% – 3% as ideal, but if they do then they are neolithic. That stopped when Google introduced its LSI (latent semantic analysis) algorithm that pays less attention to keyword repetition and more to the semantic relevance of the article’s syntax and vocabulary to the keyword topic. Now, you would do well to aim for 0.5% – 0.8% and focus on the relevant vocabulary.

There are many other article submission guidelines to be aware of when submitting to the article directory, but these are the most important to keep in mind and I personally, even as an article ghostwriter by profession, have been the victim of all of them. However, that was a long time ago!