Article Submitting: How To Study A Publisher’s Website

There are many websites that will host your articles on the
Internet. Some small, some large, some with guidelines, some
without, some support streams of topics, some have a limited
focus, some charge a fee and some are free.

With so many places to post your articles how can you maximize
distribution with the least amount of effort? You can do so by
being selective. Post your articles only on sites that support
your topic, have integrity, and have a win/win approach. Since
no two websites are alike. Here are a few features to watch
for when considering your articles for submission:

1. Search capabilities. When you are at the website is there a
search feature visitors can use to find a certain topic? If
the page or pages list articles one after the other down a
long page readers will not get past the first 20 names.
Actually they will not even read that many. Web viewers do not
have the patience to scroll through rows of titles trying to
find the right subject.

2. How user friendly is the website? If the article section is
buried inside a website and you have difficulty figuring out
how to submit your article you will want to consider
submitting your articles to this site.

3. What is the purpose of the website? Is that purpose
supportive of your article, topic, and purpose or detrimental?
Is it a sales page just trying to drive up search engine
optimization under false pretenses? don`t be fooled there are
many of them out there. Is the host of the website apparent or
nonexistent? Can you find a phone number or location -- city,
state or country?

4. Submission guidelines. Some websites stipulate a word count,
minimum, maximum or range. If your article doesn`t meet their
word count stipulations your article will normally not get
published. Take them seriously and take the time to read them.
More importantly find a system to track these. I have a rating
system I use with 1 being the perfect submission site on up to
15 being an absolutely no. I keep track of the no website
sites so that when I`m looking for new sites I know which ones
I have already reviewed.

Since website owners change, just as we do as we learn and grow
with our skills, guidelines change occasionally as well. I
recommend reviewing the guidelines either every three months
or at least ever six. Some sites have gotten sneaky and post
good guidelines and then change to "we have the copyright now"
sites when you are least expecting it.

There are also a few sneaky submission sites that are counting
on you not reading their guidelines. These sites stipulate in
their guidelines that upon submission the author gives up
their copyright on the article. Some are blatantly labeled
while others are hidden inside obscure legalize.

Some sites stipulate that you give them permission to use your
material in anything they print or publish. This means that
they can accumulate articles on a certain subject, and this is
their usual intention, put them together in an ebook and sell
the ebook. While some of you will not mind this and consider
it viral marketing there are some dangers in this. And this
author knows because this has occurred to her materials before
she became wise to the secret purpose.

5. Statistics. There are very few websites that provide reader
statistics. I love the websites that tell me how many people
read the article. I want to know if a particular topic is well
read. Many sites prefer not to post reader statistics. I
suspect it is because writers would see that there is a very
low count and submitting their articles. Voting on the article
is a nice feature, however, it is not really a vital statistic
counter. Maybe 1 out of 10 to 15 views will someone take the
time to vote. If the voting feature is remotely positioned
viewers never know of its existence. Even if this feature is
position well on the page -- above the article to let readers
know its there and immediately below the article -- readers
will rarely vote unless the article was awful.

Article hosting and posting is a joint venture -- view it as
such -- and you will maximize your time and effort.

Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.

Copyright 2001, SmallBiz Publishing.

BB Lee is Editor of SmallBizBits Newsletter. Join Our List Of
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