Freelance Writers, Make your Articles Work For You!

Submitting articles to publications is a surefire way to increase traffic to your site. It will also raise your profile as a writer and lead to new business leads and freelance assignments.

Every Wednesday, I send out 5 articles to different magazines and publications. It’s hard to determine which are the most effective, but one thing I know – when I stop submitting the articles, my site traffic goes down!

So, here are a few tips when submitting articles:

1.    Make sure you have the full rights to publish the material. DO NOT submit material if you have already assigned exclusive publication rights to another person or organization.

2.    Avoid promotional type articles. Don’t disguise the real source. If an Editor receives a product review this is not balanced or appears to be ‘slanted’, they will be suspicious and reject it.

3.    Write your article on a topic that relates to the main readership. Don’t write an article that you think they SHOULD be interested in. I know this sounds obvious…

4.    Don’t criticize a product without backing up your opinion with facts, quotes or research.

5.    Use graphics to enhance your article. GIF or JPEGs are the best for web publications. Learn how to reduce their size, if possible. Try to stay under 15K.

Tip: Finally, confirm if you retain ownership of the material.

Many publications do not require exclusivity, which means that you can also publish the article on your own site. Be warned, some publications wont let you do this!