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by: David Petrich
A good ezine writer can become a star in their field when widely
published. Those who provide great content and who make it easy to
publish can escalate their writing careers. Organizations who
publish quality content in trade for publicity can achieve maximum
exposure if they follow some simple guidelines.
As an ezine editor, my job is to filter and present interesting and
compelling content to our visitors. I frequently visit the free
article web sites and find a wide variety of article ideas. Often, I
am disappointed. - Many articles have sound merits, but are either
poorly written or formatted in a manner that is not compatible with
our page layout." The latter is the most frustrating reason to
reject articles. - "It may have been a great piece of writing, but
the author chose to clutter it up with excessive self-serving ad
copy and URLs."
A good article is one that takes an objective view of a subject.
This approach will better engage the reader, as it possesses a
higher degree of believability. Just like in verbal conversation,
the listener (reader) backs away in a defensive posture when someone
is being pushy. The reader is less likely to believe all that is
said because they detect an ulterior motive of the author. For
example, biased, one-sided reporting has less value to the reader
than detailing a rational argument addressing both sides of an
issue. -Even if the author is clearly biased, they can still address
the subject from the reader's point of view.
The reason why most profit-based ezines will publish your article is
to build traffic. Just like print magazines, readership drives the
business model. - The more readers, the more advertisement exposure.
Most ezines are in business to provide a service to advertisers.
This is widely true with most print magazines and newspapers as
well.
Ezines generally hope that your article will have a ready made
answer for someone conducting a specific internet search on Google,
Yahoo, MSN or other search engines. The text of your article will be
indexed into these search engines so that the public can find your
article. With Google, their page order ranking system is forever
changing. The Google system for instance, (today fielding the
majority of Internet searches) is based on "degree of relevance".
Google measures relevance not only by the specific content in your
article, but also by the related subject matter on the host ezine
web site, as well as the number of links pointing to the page and
host site. That’s why your article may rank higher on one site over
another based on the specific search criteria. Just remember that
the search engines are getting smarter every year. They are getting
better at detecting quality over quantity.
Here Are Some Do's and Don'ts From a Ezine Content Editor's
Perspective:
Write a Good Lead-in:
Make sure the first two lines of your first paragraph are very
appropriate to your subject. Write catchy descriptive titles: no
more than 65 characters. - (You will notice that there are about 65
characters that show up on the title line of a Google search result
page). Try to write like a news writer. - Most important information
up front, with the supportive data towards the end. Your whole
article should be generally written with this rule in mind as well.
Be Original.
Have a unique perspective on your topic. Too often I see very
general subjects that will never stand out from the sea of content
on the Internet. - And thus never come up when searched. If you are
going to spend the time to write something, try to narrow the focus
and answer a specific topic for a specific reader. This approach
will allow you to "work and turn" or tweak the article with a
different angle and different audience with little effort. -
Resulting in more exposure with less work.
Don't Write a Blatant "Advertorial".
Don't write overtly self-serving advertorials unless you just want
your articles to only appear on the come-get-your-free-content web
sites. Remember, your articles will have the best chance of being
seen if it is associated with other similar content.
We all know the reason why most people are writing and distributing
free content, but don't make it so obvious that you loose
credibility with the reader. Intelligent readers will know when they
are being "sold to" and will stop reading before they get to the end
of your article. Most quality ezines (ones that readers respect and
come back to), don't want to publish a pushy sales pitch. -It will
just make their readers not want to come back. There are a lot of
ways a good writer can cleverly disguise their motives. The easiest
way is to be complete, truthful and objective so that you gain the
trust of the reader. Put your sales pitch on the your page link in
your byline. This way, readers will be more ready to accept your
sales pitch since they specifically requested information about your
product or service.
Don't Write About Something You Don't Know
Put some meat into your article. The reader should walk away with
something useful. I see a lot of articles that are simply a
regurgitation of widely known information. As a publisher, I will
remember your name and avoid your work if it is sub-standard,
inaccurate, or immature. Expect excellence in yourself. If you are
writing about something you don't know, do the research and become
an expert. Your goal should be to give the reader something they
probably did not previously know about.
Don't Overstate Your Keywords.
Redundancy can be boring to read. I often review articles that make
such an obvious attempt to repeat specific keywords or key phrases
that the writing is almost useless in conveying the subject matter.
Search engines will detect and reject this belligerent abuse of the
Internet and so will most readers. It is best not to make a
conscious effort to boost keyword count in your article. Your
subject is what it is. It will be recognized as relevant when your
keywords and phrases are found in a natural, common and organic
manner.
Don't Write Over the Top of Your Readers.
Write in plain English (or French, German, Japanese, etc.) so that
your target audience will quickly understand what you are saying. If
you are presenting a highly technical subject, work from the lowest
common denominator. If your lowest common denominator is a lawyer
from Harvard, then your writing can be a bit more complex than if
your audience includes high-school dropouts. However, technical
people enjoy easy reading too.
Please Check Your Spelling.
If I see blatant spelling errors, I will also assume that the author
is not credible and reject the article. If I get to know your name
as a writer who does not check spelling and grammar, I will avoid
looking at your articles. Most editors don't want to waste time and
spell check your work. More importantly, some of the free article
distribution sites specifically state that the articles cannot be
altered. Don't let bad spelling and grammar keep you from getting
your work published.
Keep you Bio Brief and to the Point.
You want your bio to be short and to the point. Your URL link should
be aimed at a specific page that supports the purpose of your
article. I reject a lot of articles because the bio reads like an
in-your-face advertisement. This is fine if you do not want to see
you work on high quality sites. It is best to keep the URL's to a
minimum (no more than three). You can always make a special
destination page for your article and place all the copy and URL's
you want. Eliminate redundant copy such as "come visit our web site"
or "click here for more information" And don't make clever
formatting like "F-R-E-E N-E-W-S-L-E-T-T-E-R" or "LOWEST PRICES!!!"
unless you only want your article to appear in low end ezines and
spam sites.
I once had an e-mail complaint from an irate writer who wanted their
article formatted with a lot of "all caps" statements and to stand
out from other writers. I quickly e-mailed her back with a short
note: "No problem. It's fixed!". She emailed later complaining that
she could no longer find any of her articles on our web site. My
point is that there are a lot of cooperative writers out there and
it should be looked as a cooperative effort between the writer,
publisher (and yes, sponsors) to deliver compelling and worthwhile
content to the reader.
I review countless great articles with incompatible bylines; as a
publisher, I want to respect the wishes of each writer by including
all information they provide. Too often, I reject articles because
the writer feels it necessary to include excessive information about
their services or products. The worst thing is pushy sales pitches
and cute call-to-action statements that were all the rage in those
1970's marketing seminars. As a reader, I find this barrage of ad
spam to be confusing clutter that is a distraction and worse, a way
to discredit the article information I had just read.
In the long run, you will find your efforts to have the most value
if they are published on web sites offering cohesive and quality
subject matter to a specific audience. When your article is
published along with other articles within the same subject
grouping, it stands a much better chance of being found and read. It
is important for you to get good quality links from your ezine
articles so that it builds relevance for your target web site and
cause. Make it easy on us editors by making your great writing easy
to publish!
About The Author
David Petrich is senior editor for http://www.JustChange.net
-an ezine dedicated to helping people to accomplish positive
changes in their lives. He is also a copywriter for
http://www.JDEZ.com - a manufacturer of chic yoga apparel for
men and women. David has more than 25 years experience in
helping businesses with market communication strategies. (c)
2005 D. Petrich. (This article may be freely published on your
web site provided it is left unchanged including the authors
bio with clickable URLs. This article may not be used in
conjunction with SPAM email.)
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