From My Desk to Yours – 2nd Edition
By: Penny, EzineArticles Managing Editor
Welcome Back! Today I’m going to share some more helpful tips for getting your articles approved the first time and to also give you a little insight into what’s been happening behind the scenes here recently.
Receiving notification that your article has been rejected by our editorial team is never a fun experience. You want your articles approved and available to the public as soon as possible – we understand that. We want to be able to approve your articles the first time, too! Unfortunately, the bottom line is that any article that doesn’t follow our Editorial Guidelines cannot be approved for publication.
So whether you’re new to EzineArticles or you’re a well-seasoned Expert Author, it never hurts to brush up on our Guidelines. Here are 3 tips to help you follow the Guidelines and improve your chances for first-time approval for your articles.
3 Tips for Getting Your Articles Approved on the First Submission:
- Don’t Get Promotional in Your Title or Article Body – Putting your name, product’s name, or website name/URL in either of these fields makes the article promotional. Instead, use these areas to provide quality content that draws your readers in. If the reader finds value in your article, chances are better they’ll consider visiting the links provided in your Resource Box.
- Sort Your Links – Self Serving links (SS links) are links that you own, or have a vested interest in. Non-Self Serving links (NSS links) are links that you do not own, but you provide in your article as examples or references. Use these link guidelines to increase your chances of article publication:
- All links should be “Below the Fold,” meaning no links can appear in the top half, or first 3 paragraphs, of your Article Body.
- Your article can contain no more than 4 links – 2 SS links, and 2 NSS links.
- Place one SS link in the Resource Box and one in the Article Body or place both in the Resource Box.
- Use appropriate anchor text with SS links to make them non-promotional.
- Place NSS links wherever you like in the Resource Box or below the fold in your Article Body.
- Use Good Grammar – Good grammar leads to a positive reader experience. Although some people have a strong understanding of English grammar rules, many others still struggle. Having someone else proofread your article is always a good idea. Beyond that, it takes time, practice and attention to detail in order to polish your grammar skills to a reasonable level. For some great tips, check out the August 24th blog post “Grammar Tips for the Article Marketer” – and spend the time to read some of the 160+ comments for additional tips!
We want you to be a successful writer and to help you build your brand and credibility.
Though to be totally frank, it helps us as well because the less time we spend on reviewing unacceptable articles, the more time we can spend reviewing and publishing the rest. In the end, this leads to quicker review times overall.
On another note: I’m sure most of you have noticed that we’re a bit behind on reviews. Know that we are working very hard to eliminate the backlog and now see the light at the end of the tunnel. We should be back on target in the next week or two and back to delivering the speed and accuracy that you are accustomed to. Thank you for your patience.
Oh, and use these tips … and keep submitting quality original articles!
If you’re a seasoned Article Marketing veteran, what tips would you give for getting first-time approvals? Share those tips with the rest of us by leaving a comment.
Danielle,
Technically, it’d be SSL and NSSL… but I’m not sure we want to create a vocabulary here because SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and that’s confusing.
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Suggest that you contact our member support team and ask them specifically what our issue was with that article.
September 18, 2009 at 8:16 AM[Reply]