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How to get your article DECLINED when submitting to MOST Article Directories

Let's not kid ourselves here.

The reason why Article Directories have become so popular lately is that they are the latest trend in marketing. Promoting anything–be it yourself, your website, your blog(s), an actual product you're selling, or just your insightful rants and raves–article marketing is the way to go. It's a great way to promote whatever it is you are interested in.

Article Directory owners take the job of providing useful content to visitors very seriously. I, personally, have made a promise–publicly–to provide QUALITY content to the webmasters and eZine publishers that come looking for such. That means I READ EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE that comes across my virtual desk–yes, I do! Having to decline anyone's work breaks my heart, but it is a necessary evil in this industry.

So, if you want to get your articles accepted, read on. Of course, if you have already read the SUBMISSION GUIDELINES, then you won't need to read any further.

Right?

Your articles will be DECLINED for the following reasons:

*Links in the body of your article, the summary or the title.
This really should be a no-brainer. Quality content means an article that is informative and educational. If you sprinkle links to your "whatevers" in the body, summary or title, you're telling the world, in effect, that all you really care about... wait for it... is making sales.

Every good salesman out there will tell you not to strong-arm your customers. Don't blast your links in their face. Don't try to cram your product down their throats! Simple as that.

You don't like being strong-armed, do you? Neither does anyone else. For that reason, I will decline your article if you post links in the wrong places. The only place for links is in the "Resource box" (some sites call it a "Bio box").

* Poor grammar or excessive spelling errors
I'm not a complete tyrant. I won't reject your article for a FEW misspelled words. But if you just can't spell, use a spell checker before you submit your work to me. Please.

As for grammar, I am a whole lot tougher on that. Because of the promise I made to provide QUALITY content, it is imperative that you be able to get your ideas across in an understandable fashion. That's why grammar was invented. I will decline your work if I can't understand it. If you are not comfortable with your ability, get some help with it. Heck, email me. If I've got the time–and I usually can make time–I'll be happy to help.

* Hard breaks in the text.
If you feel the need to hit that "Enter" button and force a break
in the lines you're
typing just because of the constraints of your word processor
you will end up with funny looking paragraphs when
you submit.
Kind of like the one I just typed.

Actually, that's not true. You'll get rejected. It doesn't look good to have paragraphs full of half sentences. Directory owners want our pages to look neat, clean and crisp. Professional.

If you must use a word processor, format it for 60 characters per line. Otherwise, use a text editor, like Notepad. Use hard breaks only when you actually want space, like between paragraphs.

* Speaking of paragraphs...
If I get another article that is one long run-on paragraph... actually, that's exactly what compelled me to write this article!

The thing is, no one will bother to read your work if it's all in one big chunk. It's a mind trick, really, but the same amount of text, broken up into paragraphs of three or fours lines each, will make the reader feel that reading will be easy, since it's so "short". And if they are the type to just "scan" through an article, they will definitely read more of your work when it is formatted this way.

Make it EASY for your readers, and they WILL read!

* And finally, the NUMBER ONE way to NOT get your article declined:
READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES and follow them! :-)

These are only a few of the reasons why articles get rejected, but in my experience, they are the most frequent reasons. Article Directory owners have a LOT of work to do. They are not only reading and accepting/rejecting your work, but they are also busy trying to promote the directory–for YOUR benefit! As you know, the more people that read your work, the better off you are, right? They don't have time to re-format your work, correct your spelling or re-write your grammar. So, please, make it easy for the Directory owner to accept your work. Follow the guidelines.

Contributor's Note

Kitfanc, aka CJ John, is the Owner/Operator of QualityArticles.com, where your articles get published and read by the entire world!

I agree entirely, so much time and effort is wasted when a user submits content that is not in a comprehensible form of English or written with suitable grammar. Unfortunately all too many people pay so little or no attention to grammar and/or punctuation these days, making their content appear at best somewhat amateurish.

Thank you! Yes, it's unfortunate that the more obvious earmarks of an amateur are not as easily seen to the "author" as they are to the public.

Now, in defense of some, I know that English is not necessarily one's first language. If you are trying in earnest to write (or re-write PLR) articles, and I can see or sense that in some way, then--at Quality Articles, I personally will try and help with minor editing. If you want me to do some minor editing on your work, after you submit it to QualityArticles.com, feel free to send me an email.

ONE last word about my skills as an editor... I can spot an Article Spinner article a million miles away. People, please, STOP using them. When I got an article that contained THIS line: "...and the armpit of your efforts will be external to your process."--this issue became an important one to me.

'Nuff said?

Thanks for reading!

After reading your article, I hope it will improve my submissions. I'm not a good writer but, I have a lot of concerns in my country I would like to express. Thanks

Oh, you are more than welcome. And thank YOU! As the owner of an Article Directory, encouraging people to write good quality content for the Internet is my driving force! If you need some help, come see me at ArticleWritingNews.com

Thank you very much! I appreciate your comment! I'd love to invite you to come check out all the similar articles I'm writing at ArticleWritingNews.com If you sign up to my RSS feed, you'll have immediate updates without the hassle of emails everyday!

This is good information for anyone posting something on line. Anytime I visit a website that is one long sentence, I quickly leave it. It's just too hard to read.

EXACTLY!

If people are SERIOUS about writing and/or marketing, they need to cater to their readers and make things as EASY as possible for the readers. That's why I decided to create the blog, ArticleWritingNews.com to help with that problem.

Thanks so much for your comment!

Excellent comments! It's amazing to me how few people here on Qondio seem to proofread what they submit. Only about one in five intels I screen are free from mechanical and grammatical errors. That's why I wrote an intel with hints on how to proofread and fix common errors. I did not, however, realize how important paragraph formatting is. Sometimes you don't realize until you preview your work that the program you used to write your article messed up your formatting when you pasted it into a form for submission. I will have to check out your site.

barbsbooks Aug 24, 2009 19:34

This article made me smile, I own a couple of article directories and I must get a dozen articles a day that are all on one line and between 400 and 800 characters long.

Why do people waste their time submitting articles on a single line? In some cases the articles themselves are actually quite impressive and well thought out, but just end up rejected because of the lack of simple formatting.

mrkay Aug 26, 2009 10:30

What a great article - extremely useful for anyone publishing their work to article directories
.
I nearly always stop reading if there are too many spelling mistakes, or poor grammar and/or punctuation on a website, blog or article.

Thank you too for the link to your article directory. I shall certainly have a look at it.

Atalanta Lloyd-Haynes Dec 26, 2009 07:33

Thank you very much for all of your advise in this intel.I'm a newbie to Qondio and article writing and you can bet that I'll be visiting your website very soon.
Have a Healthy, Happy New Year and beyond.
Frederick

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