How to Submit Articles Fast
Continuation of Lesson 12 from You Can Make
Money Writing
Now we look at how to submit articles fast. Why is fast article
submission important? It isn't, if you are just going to submit
an article or two and leave it at that. If you hope to use articles
as a regular part of your marketing plan for your website, though,
it becomes very important.
My first article took hours to write and an hour just to submit
it to one directory. Three hours just to get one article out
there! Now I spend less than an hour writing most articles, and
they are submitted to a dozen directories in about 15 minutes.
Here is why speed matters: In the last year, I've written
and submitted 300 articles to directories (don't worry - this
is abnormal, and you really don't need to write this much to
promote your websites). If I took a total of twelve minutes to
submit an article to each directory instead of the 90 seconds
it actually takes, and it took two hours instead of one to write
each article, I (and my wife) would have spent 825 hours extra
submitting articles in the last year.
That would mean an extra 27 of my 30-hour work weeks! Of course,
you won't be writing that much. Still, even writing and distributing
an article every two weeks (a modest goal if you are serious
about making a website a success), can waste an extra 40 hours
of your life each year if you are inefficient.
But don't worry. It isn't a matter of rushing or moving fast.
You just need to create a simple process or system for anything
that you repeatedly do. An efficient process makes article submission
more relaxing, not less so.
Fast and Easy Article Submission
Let's look at some actual examples from my article files,
so you can get an idea of how to organize things (but do it however
it works best for you).
I like to keep my articles in Notepad files. Any simple word
processing program might work for you. I actually write them
in an old page-building program because it has a spell-checker,
and then I copy and paste them into the Notepad files.
Find a systematic way to format everything that works for
you, and then stick with it. Here is an example of how my articles
appear in my files and why. The article body is abbreviated,
and the color added for the sake of displaying this example.
Notice that I have space between the title, the article description,
and keywords, and then a separator between those and the article
body.
...............................................................................................
Selling Land - Three Important Tips
Steve Gillman
If you are selling land, even if it
is just a small lot, here are some easy things you can do to
sell it faster and for a higher price.
selling land, land, real estate
...................
Selling land or small lots? Would you
like to get more for your property and sell it faster? Then there
are three important things you should do.
My very first piece of real estate was
two-and-a-half acres adjoining some...
(etc. this is where the article body
is)
Copyright Steve Gillman. For a free
<a href="http://www.housesunderfiftythousand.com">Real
Estate Investing Course</a>, a free e-book on how to save
money on your next home, and to see a photo of a beautiful house
he and his wife bought for $17,500, visit http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com
.
Copyright Steve Gillman. For a free
Real Estate Investing Course, a free e-book on how to save money
on your next home, and to see a photo of a beautiful house he
and his wife bought for $17,500, visit http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com
.
...............................................................................................
You'll notice that there are two versions of the authors resource
box. One has the link code in HTML, and the other doesn't. My
wife just uses the appropriate version for each directory (some
do not accept HTML).
I used to have two full versions of each article, the HTML
version with bold tags (<b>) around sub-headings, but Ana
tells me it is just as easy to quickly remove the few tags I
use within the article, so now we have just one article version.
Note that there is plenty of space between the parts, for easier
copying.
When you are submitting your articles, you'll have to open
and close (expand and minimize) your article file repeatedly
as you fill in the submission form. To save time on those forms
that require my name, you might copy the title and your name
together, paste it into the "title" box on the form,
then cut the name and paste it into the appropriate box. This
will make more sense once you try it - it means you have to open
and close the file one less time. This isn't a big deal, but
every little routine that cuts time makes a difference.
Note: Some directories may ask for a Subtitle. If the
title is easily broken up, like the above, I will just do that
(Title: Selling Land, Subtitle: Three Important Tips). Otherwise,
I just make one up on the spot (and make it interesting if you
can).
Then I copy and paste the article description into the form,
if that particular article directory requires one.
The keywords that are used in the article are required on
the submission forms of most directories, and are generally supposed
to be separated just by commas. A few directories ask for a space
after the commas: keyword, second keyword, third keyword. If
you are submitting to several that want them one way, and several
that require it the other way, you may want to have two lines
of keywords in your file - one formatted each way - so you won't
have to spend time inserting or removing spaces manually on the
forms.
When I copy the article body, I copy the resource box with
it. After pasting the article into the form, I cut the resource
box and paste it into the appropriate box on the form. Again,
this is so I open and close the file one less time. Look for
little tricks like this that work for you to speed things up.
This lesson continues with more on how to submit articles
fast here...
Submitting Articles Efficiently
Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money
Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters
on the home page.
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