From My Desk to Yours – 1st Edition
By: Penny, EzineArticles Managing Editor
As the Managing Editor at EzineArticles.com, there are myriad different article-related issues that pass my desk every single day. I’ve often wished I could connect with all of you simultaneously to share all of the insight and nuggets of wisdom I’ve gained in the process. I believe that if I could speak directly to even a fraction of our members, the stories of my experiences would help you become better article authors and marketers.
For that reason I present to you today the first installment of a bi-weekly blog series titled “From My Desk to Yours”.
In it, I will share some of the most commonly asked questions and challenges I face on a daily basis. Some of these are SO common that I feel like a broken record (CD?) because I cover the same information over and over again. My intent is to share those “broken record” moments with you so that you might apply them to your writing and marketing efforts.
Trust me, if you faithfully apply the skills you discover here, you’ll significantly improve your chances of getting your articles approved the first time.
- COMMON QUESTION #1: How can you say my article does not deliver on the title when I clearly wrote, “10 Easy Steps to … – Part 1 of 2”, and I delivered all 10 tips in 2 articles?
ANSWER: Picture this: You Google, “How to write an Article”, and your search results pull up an article that offers “10 Easy Steps to Writing the Perfect Article”. You click on the link and begin reading only to find that the article provides only 5 outstanding tips … but hey, wait a minute … the title said 10! Where are my 10 tips?! So you look deeper only to find that you have to go LOOK for the other article in a pile of thousands to get the remaining 5 tips!
Now do you understand why your reader may get frustrated? Remember, your reader trusts you. Deliver your expertise in short (400-750 word) articles that are clearly written and deliver on your promise in the title. If your title says 10, then deliver 10!
So how do you fix this? Reword your title so that your article body delivers on the title’s promise. If you want to keep both articles separate, then do so, but change your title to reflect that fact. Instead of “10 Easy Steps to Writing the Perfect Article”, try “Article Writing – Steps to Achieving the Perfect Article”.
Here are a few Blog entries that we offered in the past that offer more insight to article parts:
- COMMON QUESTION #2: I don’t know why you rejected my article for being promotional. What’s the point of writing if I can’t promote myself?
ANSWER: If you’re trying to promote yourself, then the point of your article is to draw your readers to your site and shut out your competitors, right? To be the first in your niche to deliver the product or service to your market! Your readers don’t want an infomercial, they want information. They want to know that if they have a problem, you have the answer.
The best way to accomplish this is by delivering high-quality, unique content in every one of your articles. This content builds the kind of trust and credibility that keeps readers coming back for more. Share your knowledge with them and they’ll come back; it’s that easy. Save promotional jargon for the resource box.
Things that will get your article rejected for being over-promotional:
- Including your name in your article body. You don’t need to do this. Your name is already attached to the article.
- Adding more than one self-serving link in your article body. Save this for the resource box.
- Including your site name in your title, mentioning it in your article body, and then linking to it in your resource box. This tells us and your reader that you don’t care about what they want.
- COMMON QUESTION #3: y did u reject my artle. ur email sais grammer but i checked dunt se anythg wrong . pz approve know.
ANSWER: You think I’m kidding, right? Nope. This is a real question sent by a real member. And it’s not uncommon.
My point here is to check your work. If you are going to spend time writing an article, take pride in what you have written. Content that’s painful to read = no views = no traffic = no sales. You can’t expect to build site traffic and credibility if your readers can’t even understand you. Be sure your articles deliver crisp, easy to read content. Let them think about what you have to offer, not about what you are trying to say.
Tip: If English is your secondary language, have someone with a better command of the laguage proof your articles before you submit them. IT WILL HELP.
That’s all I have for this installment. If you have something you would like covered in future installments of “From My Desk to Yours”, please leave a comment to let me know.
I cannot believe that anyone would send you an email like #3. I for one put a lot of weight on proper spelling and grammar when I read articles or visit sites. While sometimes these are just typos other times it is that some people just do not understand grammar and/or forget to spell check. I think that sometimes authors/writers do not connect these two areas, and they really see how they relate to the overall credibility of the articles and of the author.
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