Here are some more faults I’ve seen with submitted articles that can get them rejected.

Problems With Pen Names

Should you submit your articles to the different article directories available, you will more than likely find that these allow you to have a username, which you use to login, and at least one pen name, which are displayed as the articles author. Now, I’ve noticed a few problems here.

The first problem is usually caused when you already have an account at an article site, then join an article distribution service such as iSnare. The submission service will generate you a new account, and sometimes, if the pen name you use with the submission service is identical to an existing one at the site, you may end up with a blank as the distribution services pen name, as the duplicate is rejected. This means that the ability of search engines to spider your articles is significantly reduced, as there are no links to “Author Details or similar pages. Some directories will decline your article should this happen.

Next, putting your site URL as your pen name is usually not appreciated either, so just don’t do it. In addition, many directories will reject articles written by something other than First Name Last Name, so, although rules do vary from site to site, it’s unlikely that any will object to a pen name of, e.g., “John Smith”, whilst will reject or delete articles by “mysitename.com” or “The Internet Marketer. Just remain with a standard name, even if it’s not your real one, and you will avoid any problems like this.

Poor Use of Article Rewriters

You may not have heard of services such as these, or you may use something along these lines without knowing what it is. There are a number of variants around, but what they all have in common is that they are designed to take an article, and create a number of different versions of it. The differences may be only slight, but the concept is to make a variety of “different” articles to avoid duplicate content filters.

Now, there is nothing wrong with doing this, but there are wrong ways of doing it. If the spinner replaces words or phrases with variations, for example, “In the beginning” could also be phrased as “To start with”, after doing this for an article and producing a number of variants, read each one through to make sure they still make sense. It’s quite easy to produce gibberish if you don’t, and most decent article directories don’t like to publish gibberish. If an article needs tweaking, do so manually. Far better to make sure you spend a bit of time now on the article, then having to fix it after rejection.

Next, if you generate a batch of 20 different articles, submit each article to a different site. Therefore, 20 articles to 20 sites. Or submit them to batches of sites, one article to 10 sites, the next to another 10 and so on. Do not submit all 20 versions to the same directory. That will probably just get them rejected, and you may lose your account for annoying the directory owner.

Submission conditions, and what an article site or directory will accept or reject do change, sometimes fairly substantially, from directory to directory, but if you are cautious, you’ll get much fewer articles rejected.

Today’s lifestyles and modern homes incorporate not only functional and decorative kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms but also bathroom suites. Advancement and innovations in the design and functionality of modern home appliances are such that even bathrooms share in the benefits and improvement greatly.

From the once lowly outhouse of old to the one-bathroom house to the small but wonderful powder room, today’s houses have advanced to having more than one bathroom and least one bathroom suite. This gradual transformation from having a simple bath room to having a bathroom suite in most of today’s houses is reflected as well in TV programs that are dedicated to one specific area of the home and the bathroom.

Watching home improvement programs will give you a lot of ideas on how to create your very own bathroom suite that suits your personal taste and preference. It is not surprising any more that most of today’s bathroom suites rival the comforts of the bedroom or the living room since most people seek comfort and relaxation whenever they use their bathrooms.

Today’s homeowners have a broader selection of bathroom suites to choose from, ranging from contemporary and traditional designs to modern and futuristic versions. You can decide to make your new bathroom suite minimalist, traditional or Victorian. With imagination, creativity, colour coordination and planning any homeowner can achieve a clean, inviting, comfortable and refreshing atmosphere as the ambience for a bathroom suite.

If you are planning to upgrade your current bathroom and turn it into a bathroom suite, there are plenty options at your disposal. You can either choose to rummage at antique stores to get period pieces or buy modern but traditional bathroom equipment which you can combine or mix and match to achieve old world ambience but with modern amenities that can turn your old bathroom into a suite. You can choose to install either a claw-foot tub or free-standing tub which includes whirlpool jets and other modern amenities that will surely make your bathroom suite look old world with very modern.

There are several options people can choose from when planning to build a bathroom suite. You can browse several sites on the Internet dedicated to the refurbishing and remodelling of bathrooms and choose the style that fits your budget requirements. If budget is not an issue, then building a bathroom suite becomes less of a problem. The only constraints would be space and plumbing issues which may pose a problem.

Whichever way you decide to go to have your own bathroom suite, the best way to go about it is to check out home improvement centres, ask people who have bathroom suites who did it for them and best of all, search for easily modifiable plans on the Internet to keep your costs down and have as much fun in building it and at the same time avoid unnecessary costs.

Today’s households incorporate a bathroom suite where you can relax and unwind as you go about your personal cleanliness activities. Mix old-world style with modern amenities for elegance and flair!

Article marketing can be a great way to promote your site and product. Unfortunately, many articles these days are written solely for the links they have in their resource box, and are poorly written for actual reading. The content may be fine, but it’s not really readable. Here are some steps you can take if you want to improve the chances of your article being approved by the article directories.

Poorly Formatted Text

There are a number of ways an article could be poorly formatted, and will likely cause rejection.

The first is the use of hard breaks. This is where, at the end of every line, the return key is pressed instead of allowing the text to naturally wrap around onto the next line. As, in many cases, your article will be viewed at a variable width, depending on the resolution of the viewers monitor, this casues the article to look very poor.

For example:
This text has had the return key
pressed at the end of every line
which causes it to look poor and be
difficult to read.

Pre-formatted text. This is where the article text is posted between pre tags, which means the style and font of the text does not match the rest of the site. In addition, pre-formatted text doesn’t not wrap around on a viewers monitor, which requires the reader to scroll from side to side to be able to actually read the article.

No paragraphs. Here, the text is not broken up into paragraphs for the readers benefit. Instead, there is just a solid mass of text from the start to the finish of the article. This is unpleasant to try and read. Make sure paragraphs are seperated by a blank line between them. Just use one blank line, using more tends to make the article look disjointed.

Overuse/Inappropriate Use of Keywords

These are articles written solely for search engines, not for anyone to actually read.

Overuse and inappropriate use of keywords is where keywords are added that have no real relevance to the article. For example, you have an article called Advantages of Dedicated Webhosting, but instead, it is called Advantages of Dedicated Webhosting Texas. Why? What possible relevance does Texas have to do with the article? It’s not discussing web hosts situated in Texas, instead it’s a general article on webhosting that has added a keyword added to the title for the benefit of search engines.

An extreme version of this is where the keyword is added to a phrase throughout the article. For example, an article on Hair Extensions is called Pittsburgh Hair Extensions, and everywhere the phrase hair extension is used throughout the article, Pittsburgh is added in front of it. This makes the article pretty unreadable, and is also likely to get it rejected.

Adverts, or Self-Promotional Articles

I call these the “I’m good, me” article.

Now, articles are a form of advertising, this is true. However, they are also supposed to be informative. Certainly, write how something can benefit an individual, but generalize it. Don’t specify throughout the body of the article how your company can provide a benefit because it uses a certain process. Instead, write how the process/product/service is of benefit, then, in the Resource Box, state how your company uses/supplies it to others for their benefit. If you’re writing about, for example, outsourcing, don’t say “Our company name outsourcing can provide benefits for businesses”. Just say “Outsourcing can provide benefite for businesses” and leave the promotional blurb for the resource box. That’s why it’s there after all.

Insuffienct Content

At a minimum, your article wants to be at least 500 words long. That’s not really that long an article to write, so it won’t be that painful to do. A sentence or two does not an article make.

One way of ensuring that your articles will be accepted more often than they are rejected is by using such services as Article Marketer or iSnare. Yes, you will need to pay for them, but your article will be checked over before distribution, and you can simply copy the approved text for use anywhere else you wish.

In summary, write your article as if a human is going to read it. They may do, and even if they don’t, search engine algorithms are getting better, so poor content is increasingly unlikely to get good listings.

Submitting your website to the various online directories is an important part of any Link Popularity campaign. Whilst your traffic from many directories may be minor or irrelevant, relevant incoming links to your website will help in your overall search engine link popularity.

Other than Yahoo!, which is quite frankly beyond the reach of many smaller websites, paying for your directory submission can be a waste of money. You can get just as good a resultfrom submitting to free directories, or those that are free with a reciprocal link. If the directory is exceptionally good, the cost is low, and your directory ranking will be improved by paying a fee, do so if you wish. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend you pay for what you can get free elsewhere.

To start with on your submission campaign, in my opinion it is better to submit to those directories that will allow you to easily modify your listing. That way, you can correct mistakes and get your campaign down pat before submitting to directories that don’t allow you to logon and modify your submission, thus saving yourself from wasting or reducing in value your efforts in those directories.

What Directories to Submit To

The best are Search Engine Friendly directories (those that actually have your site URL listed at some point, rather than outlinks that are simply code). Some will ask for a reciprocal link, some will not. One list of non-reciprocal directories is at http://info.vilesilencer.com/. Opinion at the moment is suggesting that non-reciprocal or one-way links are better, although any relevant link is useful. Directories that encode their links are mostly useful for traffic if their Alexa Ranking is high enough. Directories that do not encode outgoing links will help your website’s Search Engine Ranking.

Choose the Relevant Directory Category

Most directories will have many categories you can submit your site to. Decide on the one that is most relevant, preferably a keyword that you are aiming for high search engine ranking in, and try to submit to the same or similar category in every directory, at least for your main page (also see Deep Linking below). This will increase the ranking of your site relating to the keyword chosen.

Deep Linking

It can be worth linking to other pages on your site other than your main page. Before doing this, make sure that the directory you are submitting to permits you to both submit URLs other than your home page (some only allow top level submission), and for the same site to be submitted to different categories (not all directories permit what are essentially multiple submissions of the same website). This will work especially if you have online tools or directories (such as your links page) on your site that are useful and relevant to add to other directory categories.

Submit to Different Categories

If the directory allows multiple submissions, and your website is relevant in several categories, submit to all the relevant categories you can. This will increase the number of incoming links to your website. Again, carefully check the terms of any directory before trying this to make sure it is permitted.

Write Title

Write the title for your website. Try to include a keyword you are aiming for ranking in in the title, but make the use of it appropriate, don’t just bang a keyword in for the sake of it; you could get your site submission rejected.

Write Description

Describe your website in a way that will attract visitors. The length of your description will vary from directory to directory, but most will be under 250 characters. Some will allow up to 1,000 characters, and in those cases write the most comprehensive description of your site and its features that you can.

It is a good idea to write several descriptions of different lengths, say from under 50 characters for a brief overview, to around 150 characters for a fuller description, up to 250 characters for a yet more comprehensive listing, and finally a full description as previously mentioned for over 250 characters. Keep your listing pertinent to your website, insert keywords where relevant and appropriate, but do not just submit a keyword listing, as most directories will reject your submission.

Save all your descriptions in a text file, and just copy & paste into the descriptions boxes when needed rather than typing the same descriptions out again and again.

Choose Keywords

Again, as with the description mentioned above, the amount of keywords you can use will vary from directory to directory. Some will not give the option, some will allow you numbers of keywords, whilst others go by numbers of characters. Make a list of all relevant keywords for your site, from most important to least, and basically keep adding keywords until either you get to the bottom of your list (unlikely unless your list is really short) or you run out allowed characters/keywords. Check what keywords your competitors are going for if you need inspiration. This can often be done by viewing the source of a web page and checking the META tags. Again, save your keywords to a text file.

Keep Track of Your Progress

Keep a careful record of what directories you have submitted to, and your progress. It is far too easy to totally lose track of what you are doing, which does not help your linking campaign at all. The best way is by using a spreadsheet, such as Excel, to keep track of your campaign.

At a minimum, you need to keep track of the following: Directory URL, Directory Name, Date Submitted, User Login & Password for those directories that allow you to alter your details and Response (accepted/declined). Other categories can include: Directory Alexa Ranking, Directory Page Rank (this will be for the home page only), Referral URL (if the directory will improve your ranking for referring visitors) and any Notes.

If you are using the deep linking and multiple submissions strategies above, also keep track of what other pages you have submitted to each directory. Make a seperate entry for each URL submitted. For example, your spreadsheet columns could go as follows: Directory Name, Directory URL, URL Submitted, Referral URL, Login, Password, Alexa Ranking, Page Rank, Date Submitted, Response. I would advise keeping the list in alphabetical order, rather than order submitted, as that way you can check more easily whether or not you have submitted to a particular directory.

I run an article directory on my site, and I’m seeing an increasing number of articles being submitted, solely for the backlink given in the Resource Box. This is probably due to the increasing number of PLR articles and material that is becoming available.

Now, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this, I just believe that authors who are doing this are missing out on potential traffic and/or customers. Such resource boxes will only benefit their site rankings in any search engine that values incoming links.

Is this a bad thing? No. Where they are losing out is as follows.

Much of the traffic to my article directory comes from search engines, by people searching for information on a specific topic. Now, this user types in their keywords, clicks on the search box, and is given a list of related sites. They chose one, and are taken to the author’s article. They read the article about, say, snowboarding, think “This is interesting” and go to the author’s resource box at the end of the article to see what else they have to say on this subject. There, they find a link to a site advertising mobile ringtones. Is the reader going to be impressed, or interested in this? Not very likely. They want to find out about snowboarding, not personalize their phone. I believe one of three things will happen then:

The reader leaves the entire site in disgust.
The reader clicks on a link to a related article.
The reader clicks on a related Google AdSense (or similar contextual advertising) ad.

They don’t click the author’s resource link. That’s a potential customer lost, quite probably for good.

Yes, put a link in to your site in the resource box, but most article directories allow several links, so for goodness sake put a link in that’ ;s related to the article subject as well, and preferably put it in first, before you lose the customer.

“But my site doesn’t have anything to do with that subject on it!”

Then add something that does. Add an article directory, and have the resource box saying “To read more articles on this subject, click here”. Add a web directory, and have the text say “To view links to sites on this subject, click here”. Or simply go to ClickBank, look for related projects, and have a link to them, with the link saying something like “If you want to learn more on this subject, purchase this product”. Preferably, not a direct link to the product, but a cloaked or redirected one.

By doing this, you still get that link to your site that you were after originally, but, additionally, you have the chance to make money from the reader in a new way. A win-win situation. Plus, you don’t look like someone simply submitting purchased content on any subject merely for the sake of the backlink it will give you. A much more professional look. Isn’t it worth taking the time to make better use of your resource box?