How it is “supposed” to work is simple…

1. You write an informative article about something.
2. Your article contains an “Author’s Resource Box” which includes links back to your site.
3. You submit the article to major article banks for publication.
4. IF it gets published, other interested webmasters can then choose to reprint your article on their site.

The principle is solid… they get good free content to publish, and you get links back to your site.

However the current practise of over optimising for SEO (search engine optimisation) purposes is not so good.

Consider an excellent article on “Lower Back Pain Relief” written by a Chiropractor…

It’s packed full of really useful information on what can cause lower back pain and some simple methods on how to relieve it.

Normally, it would be a great article for many webmasters to syndicate on related sites, except for the trend to over “optimise” the article for SEO purposes.

In other words, the title of the article has now become:
“Lower Back Pain Relief in New York”

And the actual content of the article includes the words “New York” and the initials “NY” scattered throughout.

And because webmasters are not permitted to change the content of any articles they reprint, the article is practically useless to those who may have wanted to syndicate your otherwise useful content!

Why is it useless?

Well most webmasters want “generic” content about their niche… they almost certainly do NOT want it optimised for a specific location like “New York” or anywhere else!

Another one just across my desk… a useful article on “Athletic Injury Safety Tips” which has been ruined for syndication by including multiple references to the city of Pittsburgh and “Pittsburgh Chiropractor” in the title and body of the article.

So BEFORE you go putting any specific location, product or brand in the title of the article you are submitting for publication on the major article distribution networks, ask yourself if it is likely:
1. to be accepted for publication on the article network site, and
2. that others will be less interested in reprinting your article on their site.

In other words…

Keep the SEO to the Author’s Resource Box – that’s where it belongs! Your link in the resource box with the correct anchor text will have much more useful SEO benefit than stuffing the keywords into the body or title of the article.

It will also mean more people are likely to actually reprint your useful information.

Stephen Spry runs an article marketing service called Latest Articles where you can submit your original articles for publication, and find free articles for syndication on your website.

There’s no doubting article marketing is a highly effective tool for building links and generating long term traffic for your web site… but that’s assuming you DO it right, and your articles actually get picked up and used on other sites.

Apart from the more obvious errors like poor punctuation, grammar and spellin’ mistooks… the following seven critical article marketing mistakes will not serve you at all well in your endeavours:

1. Relevance

Writing about one thing, while your resource box and link is to a totally unrelated web site. e.g. an ice cream article contains a resource box and link to a wedding web site. While one of my favourite writers does it all the time (it suits his niche) I’m wondering if it is necessarily a good idea?

Also mixing content within the article is also not good – i.e. heading and intro is about computers, and then you flip to using capsicum spray to thwart off bad guys!

2. Keywords

a. Keyword Order – NOT putting your MOST important keyword FIRST in the list means your article could be categorized incorrectly when auto-submitted to article directories.

For example, an article about “credit ratings” could get filed under “blogging” because of these keywords:
“blogging, finance, credit rating, banking, money, investment, marketing, tips, reviews, save money, economy, budgeting”

b. Poor selection of keywords to accompany your article – this includes using keywords which are not at all related to the specific niche the article is written for. For example:

* an article on exercise has these keywords:
“health, fitness, exercise, home, family, consumer, internet, advice, general, articles, all, etc”

* an article about a specific plant has these:
“news, plants, landscaping, guides, fruits, tips, hobbies, information, reference, culture, backyard, house, life, education, leisure, Gardening, gardening”

c. Implanting extra niche relevant keywords into your list when they aren’t specifically related to or mentioned in the article itself is also not a good idea.

e.g. writing a “cheap travel tips” article and packing the keywords with world destinations or other travel related keywords that don’t fit the theme of that article.

If you can’t figure out appropriate keywords for your artcile, try any of the free online keyword tools for help!

3. Your Headline

If your Headline does little to entice people to “do” anything with your article, it’s just not going to work!

So concentrate on headlines that:
- will attract attention and get read;
- will get your article published and selected for syndication; and
- are useful for creating backlinks to your site

While it’s nice to get your primary keyword in at the start of the headline, if it doesn’t read well or make sense… then change it!

And don’t forget…

Your Headline Must Be Written Using Proper Letter Case

In order words… the first letter of each word should be capitalized. Don’t mix it up, and don’t do it all in uppercase!

4. Too Self-Serving

If your article blows your own personal trumpet in every paragraph, it’s simply NOT going to get picked up for syndication, and is even less likely to be read from start to finish.

Publishers don’t mind linking to you with a related author resource box, but will not come at running full page “ads” for your business.

Try to make the article content more “generic” and therefore more useful to your readers… And if they like it, they will click through to your site.

5. Using Multiple Pen Names

This tactic involves using different author names for different articles in a niche, yet linking to the same site from the resource box.

Why do you need to use different author names? Don’t you want to “build a reputation” as an expert?

If you MUST do it, then please use different keyword combinations so they don’t smack too much of laziness!

But if this tactic isn’t a sure indication that you’re an article marketing spammer, I don’t know what is!

While it’s annoying having to delete your items, no matter how good your content or web site might me, most content publishers will not really want to link to you as something just doesn’t seem right about your business practices.

Alternatively, submitting multiple variations of what is essentially the same article, with different headings and content slightly spun to make it different, is also not recommended.

6. Linking To Your Site In The FIRST Paragraph!

If you are allowed to include links within your article, the first paragraph would be the WORST place to put one!

Since this is used as an “intro” to the article… it’s extremely pushy to ask your reader to do something so quickly. From a publisher’s perspective, that particular link must be removed to make your article useful.

Speaking of first paragraphs… make these at least two to three sentences long. Often article submission software will use it as an “extract” to display on search pages, so make it useful for those purposes too.

7. Ineffective Linking To Your Site

How many author resource boxes do you see which are not very imaginative in the linking they do back to the author’s site, linking only to the home page all the time?

Mix the links up for different articles by linking to different pages on your site. Use different keywords/anchor text as well for better SEO results.

Finally, whether you are using article submission software or other “automated” services, or submitting your articles manually to article directories, please remember that a human will probably be making the decision whether to include your article on their site.

At the “better” article directories, Latest Articles included, all submissions are moderated by staff.

These “good” article directories will never automatically publish all articles received. They maintain their “reputation” by moderating all article submissions before publication.

On such sites, your published articles will get much better link value than if they were associated with spammy article directories.

So make it easy for the moderators to approve and publish your article by avoiding these critical article marketing mistakes!

That’s the most important step in getting your article syndicated far and wide… and creating lots of valuable links back to your web site!