Article Directories – Notes from the Field

As I go through the process of submitting articles to 25 different article directories (and reviewing the ins and outs of each of them) – I realized that one of the most valuable things I could share with my readers would be a single up-to-date report offering a synopsis of each article directory with all of the quirks and nuances spelled out in one place.

I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent so far gathering information, reviewing submission guidelines, opening new accounts (where necessary)* and submitting work to each directory – I figured my experiences with this could be used to save you some valuable time down the road.

*Note: I updated my list of article directories at the start of this project. I kept many of my tried-and-true, go-to resources, of course, but I did add a lot of new ones to the list. (I had deleted a number that used no follow rules, were challenging to work with or were too industry specific for this challenge).

As the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge unfolds, I am keeping detailed notes on a number of factors I plan to include in this report, including submission guidelines, policy re: the use of affiliate links and/or anchor links (vs. exposed URLs), length of time til approval and being indexed by Google, reporting and statistics provided (how many page views, publisher requests, etc…), and other details that will save you time and effort with your Article Marketing campaign.

For Example:

• Would you be interested in which directories review your work within 72 hours vs. the ones who tell you it will take 15 – 30 days?  (The 72-hour article directory actually had my work published – and indexed by Google – in less than 24 hours. In addition, they have a high Page Rank, allow anchor text links and are very easy to use). In my book, that makes them a great resource!

• Or, how about which ones will ONLY accept your first run work – meaning you have to publish with them FIRST before you can submit your work to any other directories? Missing this detail in the submission guidelines could get your account terminated.

• Or, which directory is showing non-functional links for a set of articles I submitted to them in June? They are showing as active and viewable, but when you click on the links, you get an error message that the page no longer exists.  My emails asking for clarification have been bounced back as undeliverable. This is actually a pretty high-ranking site that normally gets kudos for being SEO-friendly (but not if they don’t show your work!)

• Or, which directories are challenging to navigate and submit work to?  You would think that every directory would have a clearly marked “Submit Articles” feature on their site – but they don’t. In fact, it took me nearly 45-minutes to figure out how one site expects you to submit articles.  Frustrating! But, it is a high-ranking site and might be worthwhile for your efforts for a couple of reasons.

At any rate, I will launch this report at the end of the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge because I want to provide as much detailed information as possible in the report and this will allow me to compile data from a sizable submission list (nearly 40 articles) to 25 article directories. I should also be able to report on traffic and (some) back link results by then.

If you have additional suggestions for what you’d like to see covered in this report, just let me know!

Til Next Time,

P.S. I plan to offer this intiial report FREE to my email subscribers for a limited time.  Sign up today!