Metzler

Article directory submission services save writers the agony of submitting to hundreds of article directories by hand, and getting great links in the process.

The automated article directory submission services have their own learning curves though... and for article marketers in the know there are ways to milk thousands of links per submission instead of hundreds. In order to save you the headache often experienced by new article marketers who are just getting to know this article marketing service, here are the top nine tips for submitting your articles with Article Marketer:

1) Be Patient
There is definitely a learning curve for the Article Marketer service. Not so much in adding content into their content management system - that's simple enough. But if you're just getting started with Article Marketer you can expect a healthy number of rejections from their automated checker and then their follow up by-hand editor who does a final check before submission. Be persistent and keep checking back with the service to make sure that your article gets through the editorial gauntlet!

2) Use Multiple Categories
Selecting multiple categories for your article serves a number of benefits. For one thing Article Marketer's shopping your article around to thousands of directories. Not all of these directories have all of the categories listed on Article Marketer. By selecting more than one you're ensuring that you get a wider spread for every article. Further, by selecting three categories for your article you're reducing the amount of rejections you're likely to get. Pick what makes sense though - don't pick completely unrelated categories. Also - considering writing articles for more generic categories such as "free tools and services" and others in order to find maximum distribution.

3) Don't Link in the Body
Article Marketer states that they accept body links to common sites such as CNN, as well as multiple competing sites or multiple complementary sites. Experience shows however that if you're on a tight article marketing time schedule - which you should be - that you're far better off not concerning yourself at all with links in the body. Otherwise you'll probably see your article returned over and over with the same reminder that you should remove commercial links... even if there are no commercial links in your article.

4) Provide Useful Information
It goes - almost - without saying that you should be writing useful articles that will make your readers' lives easier. Obviously you're writing from a self-interest perspective but remember that your potential publishers have their readers' self interests in mind as well. Create resource articles that you think you would have found useful when you first began researching the topic of interest.

5) Don't Use "the sideways V" as Bullets
Article Marketer doesn't like what are commonly referred to as "carrots," which look like sideways "V"s. Since this article will be distributed with Article Marketer all of these carrots are removed. If you're going to do bullets with Article Marketer then you should use the "-" sign, or even a double "::" which looks nice too. There's very little html formatting permissible in Article Marketer so you should get comfortable with text only methods for indicating and emphasizing different sections in your article.

6) Compose in Text Pad So All Characters Publish
Often times word processing programs like Word or others create certain versions of certain characters that are unrecognizable by Article Marketer. Characters like the quotation mark, the ampersand and others will be corrupted by fancy-schmancy word processors so stick to the reliable text editor of your choice that will give you the bare bones of word processing and won't let you write yourself into non-distributable articles.

7) Don't Use Excessive Short Paragraphs
If you write for the web you've probably trained yourself to write shorter, punchier paragraphs. Perhaps even multiple paragraphs that are one sentence long. These types of paragraphs are likely to set off the "carriage return" filter that Article Marketer uses to keep article formatting within acceptable limits. Do yourself a favor and retrain yourself for longer paragraphs - at least for the sake of Article Marketer. At the same time, don't over do it. Keep your paragraphs to around 3-4 sentences each.

8) Excessive Capitalization
If you like to SHOUT SOMETIMES by using all capitals in your writing then you may have to work towards a different method for emphasizing your words. Break out of your all-caps habit and you'll find it much easier to get your articles through the Article Marketer system.

9) 2-3 Links In Your Author Bio
Not only should your author bio be a call to action that includes your website url spelled out with the http://www portion of your web address, but it should include two to three actual hyperlinks to your site or sites. Don't go overboard here, but at the same time, don't short change yourself. And be sure to include both the non-html and the html version of your author bio, and spell out your url completely in both of them.

Thom Kingsley took the 30 Day Article Marketing Challenge and set about to maximize links, traffic and profits through article marketing in just 30 days time. Read article marketing tips on his blog, http://www.MyArticleProject.com