Liane Bate

I have been writing original articles for my online business for the past ten months or so, and for various reasons a few of them have been rejected by some article directories. I know it can be a bit of a downer when you get an email saying that your article has been declined, but whenever this happens you should not feel like you’ve written a terrible article. Sometimes it’s only a minor change you need to make, and other times, it requires re-wording parts of your article. This article discusses some of the reasons that articles get rejected and how to format your articles correctly so that the directories will accept them.

Your article naturally starts with a title. This title has to be captivating enough for someone to want to read more. I like my titles to suggest a problem that people are having which my article will attempt to solve. When people have a problem they seek answers, so if your title grabs their attention, they may be more inclined to read the article. Remember that it takes time and energy to read an article, so make sure you create a killer title.

I have only had one article rejected because of my title being too short. Some directories will request more than three or four words to make sure your title has meaning. Other directories will reject your article if the title is too long. You should also get your articles accepted if you capitalize only the first letter of each word rather than capitalizing all the letters. Colons, exclamation marks, and question marks appear to be okay, but other forms of punctuation in the title will probably cause an article to be declined.

The body of your article should contain original content written by you, or by a ghostwriter. Your article will be rejected if there are too many articles circulating on the net that contain similar or identical strings of text, that are plagiarized, or clearly not your own works. I have had articles rejected for this reason, even though I have written my own original articles every time. I have had to write the editor and tell them it is my own work, after which they have accepted it.

As far as the actual content goes, you could have your article rejected if it sounds more like you’re trying to sell your readers your own products or services rather than providing useful information that can help them. I have written articles - without the intention of them coming across as sales pitches - that have been rejected, and I have had to re-word them. Some article directories will accept them, and some won’t. My latest article before this one was rejected by one directory because it sounded self-promotional, which again was not my intention, but this is something you have to watch out for. Since your article is not a sales pitch and is not self-promotional, you do not want to include any affiliate links within the body of the article.

Articles may be rejected for being too short. I have had a few rejected for this reason, and the solution of course is to add another paragraph or two. In general, I would suggest keeping your articles no shorter than 600 words to avoid being rejected. I have written some that were 550 words and that just wasn’t enough! In addition to this, I have had an article rejected for the paragraphs being too long, making it hard to read, so I had to go back and make more paragraph breaks. If you keep your paragraphs to three or four sentences each and then make a new paragraph, you should be okay. I think 600-800 words for an article is ideal, but I have gone over that without any problems before.

When you submit your articles to an article submission service or directory, be careful with punctuation when you copy and paste your articles from a word processor such as Word. Many of my articles have been rejected because the apostrophes, ellipses, and hyphens will show up funny in the article submission service, and I have to go back and delete that punctuation and re-type it in so that it shows up correctly in their system. In addition to punctuation, make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. Do a spell-check and have the article proofread before submitting.

Another reason your article may be rejected is because you have not selected an appropriate category for your article, or have submitted it to a directory that does not relate to your topic. You may do this by accident when selecting a category for your article, or you may use an article submission service that submits your article to an irrelevant directory. I have had emails saying my article has been rejected because of “0″, which I think means it is not relevant! I don’t think it means my article stinks, but sometimes that’s what a big zero feels like!

Finally, at the end of your articles you have the opportunity to add information about yourself in the author bio-box, or resource box at the end. This can include a link to your website or sales page, but some directories do not allow affiliate links or sales pages in their author bio-box. In these cases, I have opted to add my website URL and my blog URL only. Where affiliate links are acceptable, I would add them, because this is your opportunity to promote yourself where you can!

Hopefully these article-writing tips will help guide you to successful article submissions where your articles are easily accepted without any extra hassles. As you can see, I still struggle with formatting and wording my articles correctly, so maybe it’s just a part of the whole learning process! It does get easier with practice though!

Â

Link

Categories: Random Rant, Great Ideas, Deep Thoughts, Productivity Tools, Blogging Strategies