Being in the right place, in the right mood, at the right time, could be key to your article writing success.

We often hear about athletes and other competitive individuals getting into “the zone” before a competition. “The zone” is really nothing more than a frame of mind that focuses all of our energies, both mental and physical, on the task at hand.

The techniques that help get these people into their zone are as varied as the people themselves. For some it’s a routine, born of superstition and experience. For others, it’s a place or a smell or a sound that gets them psyched up.

Believe it or not, writing articles is competition, too – with yourself. Every time you sit down to write you’re competing with all of the other things in your life that are fighting for your attention. If you can’t put yourself into a zone that focuses you completely on the article topic at hand, your writing is going to suffer – both in quality and quantity.

Ways of putting yourself in “the zone” can be broken down into (3) broad areas:

1. Routines – These are the little rituals you repeat every time you sit down to write. Maybe the first thing you do is get a cup of tea in your EzineArticles mug. Then you go to your writing room and shut the door. After that, you put on some music that suits your topic. Then, and only then, do you start writing.
2. Locations – Surround yourself with the environment of your topic and simply let the environment inspire you as you write. For example, if you’re writing about car audio systems, why not sit in the passenger seat of your car with your laptop and jam to great tunes while you write? Or write about great cuisine from a table at your favorite sidewalk cafe.
3. Triggers – Triggers engage your other senses to positively influence your writing. Imagine writing about how to make a great loaf of bread while the smell of fresh baked bread wafts through the air. Or writing about competitive swimming from a poolside table with the sounds of splashing water in the background.

If your topic doesn’t lend itself well to one of these techniques (downhill skiing, for example), consider taking part in the activity and then writing immediately afterward while the experience is still fresh in your mind. Remember, EzineArticles does not condone the writing of articles while participating in dangerous activities. We don’t want you to end up like Jane in the cartoon!

We do, however, condone doing whatever it takes to safely channel your energies into producing high-quality, original articles. So spend the next few minutes thinking about your article topic areas and then try to come up with something you can do or someplace you can go that will put you in the right frame of mind for each of those topics.

Now put your ideas to the test. Did psyching yourself up have any effect? Did an inspirational location help you get into “the zone?” If so, learn from the experience and use it in other areas of your life. If not, try something else.

Either way, come back here and leave a comment to tell the rest of the EzineArticles family what worked … and what didn’t.

It’s important to be bold. It’s important to emphasize your words. But it’s more important to not emphasize all of them! If you do, then you’ve done nothing but make them less important than they were.

Using bold, italics, quotation marks, parenthesis, ellipses and other punctuation or affectations are all interesting ways to set off important information. In fact, using them can be beneficial to your search engine results.

• Italics – Italics are used for emphasis, but search engines also look for italicized words, so place important, searchable phrases or book titles (for example) in italics.
• Bold – Making a word or phrase bold also signifies to search engines that it is important. Bold shows-off your main points or your big idea. Use bold or italics to offset a new paragraph or introduce a new idea.

  However, if you make an entire paragraph bold, you run the risk of not only losing your reader – but losing your search engine ranking too. You don’t want to nullify everything you have written by making everything important. Of course all of what you have to say is important, but let’s face it, some of it is a little more important!

Yes, how you are viewed by a search engine is very important, but your readers are more important – they are, after all, the people who click on your links – or your ads – buy your products and services and link back to you. Put the readers’ comfort first and you’ll be successful.

It’s okay, even advisable, to incorporate emphasis into your articles. Just remember to keep it simple. And if you’re going to use bold or italics, be sure to be consistent throughout your article and emphasize words that are also in your title or meta descriptions. This will help Google and other search engines see the trees in the forest, as it were.

Do you have other ways to make your articles easier to read and understand? Leave a comment and let us know about them!

Sometimes writing is easy. Not always, but once in a while the words just flow and you find that you have typed a brilliant article that runs 800, 1000 maybe even 2000 words.

It’s tempting when the words flow this easily to either keep writing or to publish your masterpiece right away. But wait! You may be missing even more potential views with your haste!

Before you send that article in – or keep adding to it – read it. Have you covered more than one area of your niche in this article? Is it possible that there are one, two or even more hidden gems within that would make great articles on their own?

It’s tough to know just how long of an article is too long. You don’t want to bore your reader, but you want to be thorough. You also don’t want your article to be so short that your reader isn’t entertained or informed enough to come back for more.

Why turn a long article into a few shorter ones?

• Shorter pages look easier to read. WIRED News did a study some years ago about scrolling down an article compared to clicking to the next article in a series and found that most readers thought the article that required scrolling was longer – even if it wasn’t.
• More articles create greater traffic and click-thru opportunities with about the same amount of effort and writing.
• Most web readers don’t just read a page and turn to the next like a book. Rather, they scan, then read what interests them, then click on a link, maybe go back.

(3) tips for breaking up longer articles into shorter, more effective traffic-building ones:

1. Answer the question! A lot of times, when we are looking for a quick answer online, we often get a lot of other information we don’t want or need. Make your article answer the question you would want answered. Then make the next article answer the next question.
2. Focus on providing short, scannable content, but don’t leave out the nuts and bolts, so that you can appeal to this type of reader.
3. Provide links to more information. You’re article should stand on it’s own, but there is always the need for more information for some people – so provide them that information. Don’t feel like you have to keep it to yourself. You don’t want your reader to feel like you’re the used car salesman who won’t give a straight answer to your question!

You’ll be surprised at how many more article ideas you get simply by breaking up larger ideas. If you’d like to discover more about the concept of article sets, check out Chris Knight’s article titled Article Sets – How Authors Can Produce More Quality Articles in Less Time.

Next time you write a really long article, break it up into two or three smaller articles. Compare the performance of the three smaller articles to a long article similar to the original. You might be surprised to find yourself with more traffic.

Has this concept worked for you in the past? Leave a comment to share your experience with the rest of the EzineArticles community.

Last week we introduced our new approach to broken link detection and began notifying members if we found broken links in any of your existing articles.

The response from our members was huge… and much greater than we had anticipated. Since then we have been working diligently to address this overwhelming response.

I’d like to share some of the challenges that have been created and help you better understand what will be happening in the next few days.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…

• The email we sent to members stated that we would be unlinking your links in 48 hours if no action was taken. This is incorrect and we apologize for the error. We will recheck and then unlink your dead link in 35 days (but would like you to fix it within the next 48 hours).
• In the past 48 hours we have received over 10,000 article re-submissions with your corrections. Wow! We had no idea our members were that fast!
• We’ve received over 2,000 emails to our Member Support Team providing us with a heads up. This is great! It shows that a good user experience is important to all of us!
• When you fix a dead link by editing your article…your article will be re-reviewed with today’s standard of article review and not the standard that was used on the original date your article was first accepted. Sorry, we don’t grandfather any article which means any article edited must pass today’s standards (that are always just a slight bit higher than previous years standards).
• When you delete an article you will notice that your links will still show as being invalid in your Article Diagnostic Center. We are aware of this and are working on a resolution.
• We sent out 2 emails to every member with a confirmed dead link – one went to your email address on file and the other was sent to your EzineArticles Member’s Inbox. These emails were identical. You can disregard one email if you have already addressed the broken link(s).
• If your Article Diagnostic Center shows no links to be invalid, you can trust that this is correct!

In addition, we’ve had to create a series of new internal tools to help our team support you.

All of this has, unfortunately, put us into a backlog both in Member Support and article approvals. We will be working on this diligently and our editors are dedicated to investing the overtime necessary to get us back to normal approval times.

Our goals are to make the invalid URL/link Article Diagnostic System:

1. More user-friendly & predictable
2. Bullet-proof accurate (that a dead link is in fact dead/invalid)
3. Increased speed on the review process
4. Increased member support response speed & accuracy

We appreciate your patience, feedback and attention.

You’ve probably noticed that this cartoon has no caption. We need your help in coming up with the perfect one. Submit a funny EzineArticles-related caption via “Comments” and in one week we’ll pick our favorite.

If yours is selected, you’ll not only receive the accolades and adulation of the EzineArticles community, you’ll also receive this fine EzineArticles mouse pad.

Plus, we’ll recognize your accomplishment in a future blog entry.

So get your thinking cap on and submit your best caption in the comments (one per customer, please). Maybe you’ll become the proud owner of a useful, yet stylish, EzineArticles mouse pad!

Oh, and keep submitting those articles! =)

Now think about what specific quality most separates the truly prolific and successful article marketers from the rest of us mere mortals.

Is it their writing talent?
Perhaps…

Is it their expertise in their niche?
Maybe a little…

Is it their marketing experience and education?
That could be part of it…

Is it their obsession?
YES!

Without a doubt, it is the obsession to be writing and submitting a constant stream of high-quality, original articles that drives the incredibly successful EzineArticles Expert Authors to do what they do.

From the moment they wake up in the morning, to the moment they fall asleep at night (and even while they sleep!), they’re constantly conceptualizing, writing or submitting new articles to add to their inventory. They know from experience that more articles = more sales. As a result, they are forever obsessed with publishing more articles.

Do you dream of incredible numbers of qualified visitors coming to your website? If so, then you need to become obsessed with writing and submitting as many articles as possible every single day. Only through this commitment to obsession will you ever rise to the level of the article marketing elite.

So let your obsession begin… NOW! =)

Congratulations to Jan Ferrante for supplying the winning caption for today’s cartoon. She received a stylish EzineArticles mouse pad and other goodies for her efforts. Watch the EzineArticles blog for more Supply the Caption contests in the coming weeks.

Don’t you wish there were ways to harness the power of these spontaneous ideas so they happen just when you need them most?

Actually, there are.

With just a little digging, we uncovered (5) techniques that people use to “spontaneously” generate great ideas. Put some of these to use to help fill your article writing hopper.

1. Use Your Thinking Spot
   Winnie the Pooh has his thinking spot. John in our cartoon has his thinking spot. You have a thinking spot. Find your thinking spot and use it whenever you need to come up with new ideas.

2. Let Your Subconscious Mind Do the Work
   A day, week or month before you write an article, create the TITLE for the article. Let your subconscious mind create the entire article, or at least the main points of the outline of the article, so that when you finally sit down to do the article — it’s already pre-written for you.

3. Sleep on It
   Spend a few minutes before you fall asleep immersing yourself in your niche article’s subject matter. Then clearly define your desired outcome (i.e. create some fresh article ideas) in your mind as you close your eyes. When you awaken, immediately jot those ideas in the notebook you’ve strategically placed next to your bed.

4. Meditate
   If you don’t already meditate, do a little research to find a meditation style that works for you. Use the same methodology as we suggested for “Sleep on It” but instead of sleeping, meditate instead. When you’re done, you should find yourself full of fresh ideas.

5. Play with Your Ideas
   Many ideas are only half-baked. Before you act upon those ideas or dismiss them out of hand, try playing with them instead. Let them roll around in your head for awhile and collide with other ideas. In a matter of hours or days, you may find your ugly duckling idea has turned into a beautiful swan.

Personally, some of my best articles, blog posts, and business ideas come from either the morning shower, a relaxing moment in the sun or while in the business day with interactions with others (usually problem solving)… but I also find that if I’m in my favorite environment that I can dream up dozens of article ideas at a time on command from having done so for so long. The real secret is to capture the article topic & concept ideas on paper or whatever electronic device you have so that you don’t lose your best inspirations throughout the day.

Do you have other methods of harnessing the power of unbidden ideas?
We’d love to hear them! Share them with the rest of the EzineArticles community in the comments section.

You’ve probably noticed that this cartoon has no caption. We need your help in coming up with the perfect one. Submit a funny EzineArticles-related caption via “Comments” and in one week we’ll pick our favorite.

If yours is selected, you’ll not only receive the accolades and adulation of the EzineArticles community, you’ll also receive this fine EzineArticles mouse pad.

Plus, we’ll recognize your accomplishment in a future blog entry.

So get your thinking cap on and submit your best caption in the comments (one per customer, please). Maybe you’ll become the proud owner of a useful, yet stylish, EzineArticles mouse pad!

Oh, and keep submitting those articles! =)

There are two theories as to which article submission strategy is best:

1. “Big Dump” Submit all of your articles at one time to be released all at once.
   - This is the right approach when you begin with EzineArticles.com.
2. “Sprinkle” Submit them over time to be released over time.
   - If you’re a veteran Expert Author, there can be value in scheduling your articles for release over a period of time to maximize traffic returns.

One of the easiest ways to “sprinkle” your articles over time is to use the Scheduled Article Release Feature, which is one of the many benefits of EzineArticles Premium Membership.

Who is the ideal member that can really take advantage of the Scheduled Article Release Feature?

Because you want to keep fresh new articles going into your article inventory even when you are on vacation, away from their office, or because you want to save significant amount of time (it’s much faster to upload 10 articles all at once and scheduled them for release over time than it is to submit 10 articles, one at a time.)

Take a look at some of the article scheduling stats for last month:

• Total Articles Scheduled: 3,375
• Distinct Members using the article scheduler: 107
• Average Time Scheduled 2 days, 4 hours, 56 minutes
• Shortest Time scheduled 0 days, 8 hours, 8 minutes
• Longest Time Scheduled 79 days, 15 hours, 19 minutes

Wondering if EzineArticles Premium Membership is right for you?
Surf http://EzineArticles.com/premium/ to discover if the benefits of our Premium service level are right for you now.

Want another secret for increasing website traffic?
Recruit more Article Agents!

Imagine you had a team of tireless sales professionals whose only job was to drive traffic to your blog or website 24/7. Best of all, they work for free, they each cost you only an hour of effort to hire and they’ll continue working for months or even years before they run out of steam.

We call these amazing little workers “Article Agents.”

Think about it. Every article you have published on EzineArticles acts just like a highly-specialized sales agent working to sell you or your company to the Internet public.

Here are some resume highlights for a typical Article Agent:

• Available to work anytime, day or night, 365 days/year
• Requires no vacation, sick leave or holidays
• Will work for free
• Extremely focused on the niche client
• Capable of unerringly reciting the same story thousands of times
• Willing to educate, entertain and enlighten the prospect while also working toward the sale
• Works well with other Marketing agents – both paid and unpaid

Every time you submit an article to EzineArticles, it’s like recruiting another member to your sales and marketing team. And when that article’s accepted, another Article Agent goes to work for you.

So get to work recruiting, um, I mean writing, now! =)