Article Marketing: -- Choosing the Proper Category for Your Articles

When I started my own article directory, I was a bit overwhelmed at first at the number of articles and topics there were out there. I spent quite a bit of time arranging my directory, and adding categories that could narrow down someone�s search when trying to find something on a specific topic. I also became a quick study on all facets because I need to know a little bit about a lot of topics. I was also quite amazed at the number of authors out there that didn�t take the time to place their articles in the proper category. How are customers ever going to find your information, if you put it in the wrong category? Say you sell widgets on the internet and put your article in internet marketing. The websites that pick up all the articles in internet marketing will have your articles listed, but you will be missing your target audience, and the website that picks up the content from the widget category, will not have your content on their sites. You will have wasted all of your time writing the article.
This goes for article directory owners as well. Anybody can buy a domain name, install a program and start looking for articles. If the articles are not in the proper categories, then webmasters and Ezine publishers are not going to use your directory for its content because it�s not trustworthy. They need content that exactly matches what they are looking for. Close enough doesn�t count. Just because it contains the word widget, doesn�t mean the article is about widgets.

Here are some examples of how to properly place an article in the proper category.

Article Title: How to sell Acne related products to teenagers.
Now you may think that this is a no-brainer, but you�d be surprised by the number of authors and directory editors that will get this wrong.
What do you think? Does it go into � a. Health/Acne, b. Beauty/skin care, c. Business/Sales, d. Parenting/Teens, or e. Marketing?
The answer is c. Business/Sales. The author is trying to teach you about sales�plain and simple. The article may contain the word acne, but that�s really not its main purpose.

I�ve written quite a few articles on home inspections. When I submit the articles to directories, many of them do not have a subcategory under Real Estate called Home Inspection. So I place the article in the next closest category which is Real Estate. You would be surprised at the number of editors that will change it to the home improvement category because it contains the word �home�. Home inspection has nothing to do with home improvement. But because they have not taken the time to educate themselves in all the aspects needed in being an article directory editor, they made the wrong decision�now multiply that by 10,000 articles and you will see that their directories will be basically worthless to webmasters and Ezine publishers. They are just going thru the motions.

Another aspect to this is writing an article that is over everyone�s head, including editors and then leaving the category choosing to the editor. If I scan thru an article, and come out the other side not knowing what the author is trying to convey, the article will get deleted, plain and simple. I feel if the author cannot educate me in the first few sentences as to the proper category, then he will miss the boat on educating his audience.

Article directory editors and owners mostly do this as a part time gig, so they have very little time to review and approve 200-400 articles per day. Making sure that you submit your article to the proper category will ensure that you reach your intended audience.
Here's another tip. The first words of your title can incicate which category it belongs. Bad example: Need Help? We can point you in the right direction. Help with what? What direction? What the heck are you trying to say?
Here's a good example:Sales - How to sell widgets to people with pink houses. You get the point. Be as specific in your title as possible.

If you use this advice, you will have no problems finding your target market.

The author is editor of ArticleStack.com - Article Submission Directory and a Niche article directory for home and related articles: Home Article Submission Directory.

Related Information of Interest:

7 Winning Tips For Article Marketers
1. Follow up with your readers.

For example, you could offer a subscription to your ezine or
you could offer a free email course in your resource box.

2. Use lots of white space.

Increase your article's white space by going over it for
sentences you can shorten and also paragraphs you could
break up into two or three shorter paragraphs.

3. Use numbered lists.

Use your numbered lists to convey points in your articles or
your steps in your "how to" article.

Numbered lists can also be used to create the content of
your article, like I did with this simple list article.

4. Use the word "you" a lot in your articles.

Make your writing feel more personal by using the word you a
lot within your article.

That way your readers will feel like you are talking
directly to them and you'll be able to better draw them into
your article's content.

5. Write to one person.

Choose a person such as a friend or spouse to write your
article to.

By doing this, you will naturally use the word you a lot
within your article, and your readers will feel like you are
talking to them one to one.

6. Offer an article announcement list.

Keep people up to date on your latest articles by publishing
an email list that announces your new articles.

You could also announce your new articles by RSS to
publishers and webmasters that like your writing.

7. Let your affiliates use your articles to earn
commissions.

Make your articles available to your affiliates to publish
on their sites or in their ezines with their affiliate links
in your resource box.

You'll be able to successfully raise your profits by turning
your articles into an effective promotional tool for your
affiliates.

Ken runs the Net Pro Marketer where you'll find informative articles on business, marketing, and ezine publishing. Browse through the articles or submit your own at: www.netpromarketer.com

The Benefits of Submitting Articles for SEO
There are millions of businesses in the world. Similarly, there are millions of web sites being used to promote each and every one of them. Some get lucky enough and always appear number one in search engines. However, most get archived in the last places customers will ever look for in a search engine. Clearly, luck can not be everything when it comes to giving your business the attention it needs. It�s a good thing there�s always SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the only way to go if you want your ads and web sites to stand out in the internet. SEO compliant articles will inevitably hit the right keywords at all times. This procedure comes from the meticulous task of picking out most probable keywords people from all over the world use in search of corresponding services. Through hitting as many keywords as possible, a certain website raises its ranking in various search engines such as Yahoo and Google. With this higher ranking, customers gain more accessibility to the site. As we all know, it is indeed very rare for people to check out web sites in the latter pages of search results. That is why articles need to be optimized by inserting the words with most hits in terms of customers� random typing preference probabilities. Through search engine optimization, a web site will earn higher in the engines and remains there as long as it is kept properly maintained. SEO companies also see to it that their clients are always on top of the results page. As such, you are guaranteed continuing surveillance of your site�s ranking day in or day out. They also have keyword generators which can spare you from the laborious task of assessing which key words need to be hit and which ones are futile to include in the article. It also allows writers to hit the taste of the masses which access the internet. Companies can now focus writing attractively for the keywords which sell the best. Other services rendered by sites can now be dissolved if the web isn�t showing an interest for it, therefore eliminating deadwood in the business. With this wonderful innovation in web writing, each article will surely be given ample attention in terms of engine optimization and accessibility. The purpose of advertising and syndication will be fulfilled, instead of stagnating in a dark and shady area with abysmally low ranking positions.

Sandra Adams writes search engine related articles.To get free articles to display on your own site, please visit www.articletrader.com

Article Marketing for Search Engine Traffic
There are sites on the net that serve tons of traffic everyday. Traffic you wish you had, right?
The web is made up of billions of links, much like a spider�s web but on a larger scale. Search engines spider the web looking for new content to add to their massive databases so they can rank how relevant it is to particular search phrases.
What are the search engines looking for?
New content! In order for any search engine to provide relevant results to their visitors (so their visitors will repeatedly use them) they must provide the best results possible for every search performed on their site.
The best search engine gets more traffic and more traffic means more advertising money for them - so search engines have to be up to date to stay competitive in their market.
The big sites on the net, people, who have page rankings of 5 upwards, obviously serve a ton of visitors per day, provide search engines with a mass of links to follow and index. That�s why they go back to the big sites more often than the little ones.
High traffic, very popular sites are visited by the search engine robots more often than sites with little traffic. Some large sites are visited by search engines as much as 2-4 times per month.
How can article marketing increase your search engine traffic?
By submitting articles you can get links from these high traffic sites. Furthermore you can optimize your articles with your search terms to get high rankings for that particular page. This would otherwise take weeks on a new site as oppose to a well established one such as this.
Each of these sites will have its own resource area, at the end of the article, writers include a bit of Author information on where to find out more about them. Place your website link in here and bob�s your uncle the search engines will find your site through that link.
The more articles you submit with your website link in them, the more pages on the net you have pointing to you from high traffic sites and the better your ranking and link popularity.
Many good article sites these days create RSS feeds for each category. This provides an additional opportunity to market your site and article to people who subscribe to the feeds.
Start submitting your articles today. You will be amazed at the results they yield.

Richard is the Publisher of Articleprobe a Free Article Distribution and Submisssion Service. Set up your account today and start submitting your articles to Articleprobe