QC Process Update

On a daily basis prior to the QC internal process change we just spent the last 2 weeks making, between 1,000-1,500 were soft-rejected and put into one of 90 different problem article statuses that generated a custom email to the member to inform them of the issue to fix so we could accept their article.

Yesterday, we brought that number down from ~1200-1500 to 458 articles soft-rejected. Yes, that means we are catching 500-700 mistakes daily BEFORE they reach & touch our authors.

Listen in on a ~9 minute audio discussion between myself and our Managing Editor, Penny.

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 16, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Views 399 | Comments (5)

EzineArticles Members Who Pass On

Statistically speaking, enough of our members have now actually died that we receive a letter every once in a while from an executor of an estate asking what their loved one has in terms of an account and articles with us.

How we’re handling it: EzineArticles has a new membership level called “Posthumous” for when this happens. Technically we should have called the status “Deceased” but a few years ago an author had works queued to be approved, she was an American soldier killed in battle, and her works were published after her death… thus the proper use of the word “posthumous” or after death.

Scary thing is that I’m pretty certain a good handful of our members have died and we just haven’t been notified yet.

The lesson: If you care about your content after you’re no longer a carbon based life form, be sure to include in your Will what your wishes are in terms of what to do with the content you’ve spent a lifetime creating.

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 15, 2008 at 10:32 am

Views 401 | Comments (14)

Top 7 Tips Creates 8 Articles

Here’s a very simple article template that you can use to create (8) articles with less effort than you may think:

Two steps:

Step #1: Start with the Top 7 article template of writing an article with (7) tips, strategies or insights on any given topic centered around your core expertise. This is article #1 for you.

Step #2: Write an article expanding on each of the (7) tips you gave in the 1st article. This is article #2 through #8.

This strategy works because you’re addressing two very different audiences:

Your Top 7 Tips article gives just the strategies, tips and facts …FAST and with little more than a sentence or two as to why the tips are important. The other (7) articles you write that expand on each of the tips goes more in-depth on each strategy telling why, how, who else has done it, and gives more examples for those who want to better understand.
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 14, 2008 at 9:49 am

Views 1,503 | Comments (33)

Localized Niche Articles

Two years ago I wrote an article encouraging authors to write articles that were localized. Example: If you were a beach travel expert, you might write articles about each beach you’ve been to and why they are great, tips of what to bring along or how to enjoy each beach, etc.

Two months ago, I pulled that article because I saw that folks were abusing the concept by including local keywords in their article title, but then the article body didn’t offer any delivery on the promise made by the locale offered in the article title.

Effective immediately, we’re going to reject articles that mention a locale in the article title, but fail to deliver on something unique about the locale in their article body. Enough of this nonsense!

Key point: Whether you’re writing about a locale or anything, you must deliver in the article body on the promises made in the article title.

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 11, 2008 at 11:10 am

Views 430 | Comments (18)

Dabble vs Dominate

There are two types of article writers: Dabbler’s and Dominator’s.
Only question is… which one are you?

Dabbler starts out like this:

Dabbler on his or her way to market, niche, brand and platform Domination:

Dominator looks something like this:

You can do this level of saturation/domination AND still be proud of each of your articles!
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 10, 2008 at 12:41 pm

Views 1,504 | Comments (64)

1552 Articles In DRAFT State

In the early days when things were simple… this wouldn’t have happened.

In our attempt to master our craft and stay on top of things, we identified 1,552 articles that were previously live and accepted (ACTIVE state) on the site that are now in a DRAFT non-live state. 1,002 EzineArticles authors received a segmented mailing today notifying them of such.

Here’s how & why it happened:

• Author edits one of their live articles.
• He or she SAVES their edit or if they have AUTO-SAVE on (it’s on by default), our system SAVES their changes in so many minutes intervals.
• When a live article is SAVED or AUTO-SAVED, it is REMOVED from the live site and goes into a DRAFT status waiting to be RE-SUBMITTED for review.
• The author then fails to complete the action for whatever reason resulting in their previously LIVE article is now in DRAFT status where no one is going to act on it.

How to solve this problem from happening: Once you start an article EDIT, complete the action by re-submitting it.
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 9, 2008 at 5:53 pm

Views 438 | Comments (10)

Content Filtering

Here’s an internal report that shows how many articles our anti-duplicate & anti-derivative content filtering software deflected in June 2008 for EXACT MATCH and DERIVATIVE MATCH article submissions:

How to interpret this report:
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 7, 2008 at 11:55 am

Views 689 | Comments (22)

Free Article Writing Audio Training Clips

New Audio Training Feature: (Got 90 Seconds?)

The EzineArticles.com :90 Strategies Audio Training Series offers you quick tips and strategies for successful article writing and marketing with EzineArticles.com:

• Get Your Writing Process Flowing — 8 Simple Strategies to Get You Writing Again
• Your Article is Your Sales Agent — Spend Your Time, Not Your Money
• Article Title Guidelines — 6 Guidelines to Crafting a Successful Article Title
• Article Title Keyword Strategy — Keyword-rich Article Title Example and Explanation
• Article Title Length Strategy — Expand Your Title to Narrow Your Focus
• Article Title Promise Strategy — Use Your Article Title to Start Building Trust with Your Reader
• Article Body Formatting Strategies — 3 Tips for Article Body Length, Readability and Paragraphs
• Resource Box Components — 4 Elements of a Successful Resource Box
• Resource Box Strategies — Grow the Trust Relationship with Your Reader
• Resource Box Pitfalls — 5 Resource Box Components to Avoid
• Article URL Link Strategies — 3 Tips for Placing URL Links in Your Articles with EzineArticles.com
• Landing Page Strategies — 5 Tips for Successful Landing Pages
• Share Your Unique Perspective — No One Sees the World The Way You Do!

Listen online, download the MP3 or read the PDF transcription for any of the EzineArticles.com :90 Strategies in our Audio Training Series:
http://EzineArticles.com/training/audio/

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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 3, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Views 675 | Comments (7)

Images

Orlando Asks:

I’m just wondering why we can not add images on our articles. Now days, bandwidth volume or downloading speed is not a big deal anymore.

Great question here’s why we don’t allow images in articles:

• It has nothing to do with cost or download speeds.
• It has to do with a test we did a year ago where we tested image ads. The campaigns did well for us, but significantly cut down on the CTR (Click Through Rate) on the links in the Resource Boxes…essentially halving the traffic we were sending to our members.
• That means yes, we are forgoing image ad revenue in exchange for our members receiving the current high volume of visitors leaving EzineArticles.

Everytime I look back at which decisions helped ensure our growth rate, it was our decisions on what we didn’t do that kept the model in tact. Simplicity, speed, usability, & functionality/utility rules.

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 2, 2008 at 8:30 am

Views 460 | Comments (12)

New- Share Your Social Media Links

Exciting new feature that is part of your EzineArticles membership account: Ability to add links to your social media/networking sites!

Example: (my EzineArticles extended author bio page)

Benefit of this? Gives you the chance to use your exposure on EzineArticles to help you build new or reinforce existing relationships via various key social networking sites.

We’ve made the decision to support these sites: LinkedIN, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter & FriendFeed

Here’s the 6 simple steps on how to quickly add your social media links:
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on July 1, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Views 893 | Comments (22)

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