We know that having your article published on an article directory builds backlinks to your website and increases your exposure, but what are the perks of getting picked up by a publisher who puts your article in an ezine?
Well, think about it:
You reach the inboxes of a very specific target market. Most ezines are very specific in their topic and target market, so if your article is picked up for publication by an ezine you have the opportunity for your article to be emailed directly to people who are interested in what you're writing about (now that's a plus!).
You can reach people you might not normally come into contact with. People who read your article in an ezine did not have to do a search for your article topic in Google–they simply subscribed to a particular newsletter and then the newsletter containing your article showed up in their inbox. The reader did no work to find your article other than subscribing to the newsletter.
They can bring a dramatic surge of immediate traffic. Publication in a major ezine can bring a surge of traffic over a few days. Of course every time your article is picked up by an ezine editor your resource box is included along with a link back to your website. It depends on how big the ezine editors list is (it could be 50 people, or it could be 50,000) as to how much traffic publication in an ezine can bring, but even if the ezine subscriber base is on the small side, it's still exposure to a targeted readership, and every little bit counts!
Your article gets spotlighted attention. Most ezines are limited in length–they don't run on and on with hundreds of articles. Usually there are just a few articles in the ezine, so if your article is chosen to appear in an email newsletter you are pretty much getting the undivided attention of whoever is on that email list.
So, we know it's a cool thing to have your article be chosen to appear as article in an ezine, but is there anything you can do to increase your odds of being chosen?
Yes! Some of these tips may sound obvious, but I see a gazillion articles every day, and you'd be surprised how many folks write in such a way that their articles will almost assuredly not be desirable to an ezine editor.
- Keep your word length between 600-800. Most ezine editors are looking for articles within specific word counts, so you really want to keep that in mind as you're writing. The frustrating truth is that you can write a masterpiece War and Peace length article, but no matter how wonderful your article is it will not be picked up by an ezine editor if they have a 700 word limit. It's worth it to put on your editing hat and scale your article down to a manageable length.
- Make your article a stand alone article. In other words–Don't write articles that are continuations of other articles. For example: How To Decorate Your Bedroom, Part 1; How To Decorate Your Bedroom, Part 2, and on and on. Maybe the editor liked your Part 3 article but wasn't interested in the other parts. What then? An ezine editor knows that their readers will be wondering, "You've shown me Part 3–did I miss the other 2 parts? What's going on?" Having articles that say "Part 1", "Part 2", etc, decreases your chances of getting published in by an ezine, so don't do that if appearing in an ezine is your goal.
- Write ezine eye candy. "How To" articles, "Top 10" articles (or Top 5, or 7 or whatever), and "Helpful Tips" articles are ezine eye candy–ezine editors (and all publishers) love these types of articles that instruct, are straight to the point, and are easy to read (lists are easy to read).
- Think about what your audience wants to read. If you were subscribing to the top ezine in your niche, what type of articles would you like to see in there? Write that type of article.
- Craft an attention grabbing title.
- Proofread, proofread, and proofread again! Be sure that your article is grammatically correct with no spelling errors–you already knew this, but it helps to have the reminder. It seems like sometimes we are in such a hurry to get our article submitted that we forget that it may be picked up by a publication that is sent out to 10,000 eagle-eyed ezine subscribers. So, you want to be extra sure that you won't be embarrassed by (or that your article won't be overlooked by ezine editors because of) typos, poor grammar, arguments that don't make sense, etc.
- Write to educate, not to advertise. Do not make your article about your own business, website, products or affiliate products (duh, right?). Quality publishers are looking for educational, well-written articles, so let's give them that!
We're talking about making your article attractive to ezine editors, but if you follow these tips your article will be attractive to almost every type of publisher. Ezines are just harder to get into because the articles that are being published in them are limited, and ezines also have word count limitations and high writing quality requirements.
Martins Okosina
