When Your Article is Declined
A few weeks ago, Jan, The Queen of Kaos, posted a comment asking if there were common mistakes that article writers make. She was responding to my Twitter and blog rants about having to delete so many articles and accounts each day.
One of the common mistakes made by article writers is, when an article is declined, to keep submitting articles that contain the same problems.
For example, a few weeks ago I declined an article because it was “keyword stuffed.” I understand authors want certain important words in their articles so their audience and the search engines can find them. But when you’re writing with keywords, it’s important to make them blend into your article, not stuff them in whenever you feel like it, regardless of grammar and whether or not it makes sense.
When I decline an article, the author receives a friendly email from me to let them know their article doesn’t meet our guideline, with an offer to help them fix the article, if they need it.
This particular author, though, disregarded the notice and a couple of days ago submitted several more articles with the same problem.
If an author isn’t interested in following our rules, I’m not interested in paying my staff to repeatedly decline their articles. So, I deleted her account.
When your article is declined, I’m very happy to work with you to resolve any problems. But continuing to submit articles with the same problems might eventually lead to your author account being deleted.
July 28th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Great advice to heed and take seriously. I had an article rejected and I wasn’t quite sure why. I found the problem and fixed it by reading their submission guidelines. I resubmitted and it was accepted.
Now…for someone who is busy, but still takes the time to offer her assistance only to be ignored deserves to get their account deleted. It’s kinda like the people who “post an ad and run” and when you tell them why their ad was deleted they say, “Please remove me from your forum.”
July 29th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Hi Denise, you answered my question very well and gave some excellent tips. I’ve looked and I can’t find the original post with your response, do you happen to have the link?
You have a wonderful blog and I will be spending more time learning from it, and also showing it to my daughter who is going to do some article marketing for me. Hoping to submit some articles soon :0)
July 29th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Jan, I’m glad you found them helpful! Here’s the link to the original post:
http://wahm-articles.com/blog/?p=471
I’ve also edited today’s post to include the link. Thanks for politely pointing out my oversight.
How exciting that your daughter is going to do your article marketing! You and your daughter might also want to visit the new WAHM Articles forum, where you can find a lot more article writing and marketing tips, and also get answers to all your article marketing questions. http://www.wahm-articles.com/forum
I’m looking forward to reading your articles soon.
Sophia, people ACTUALLY say that to you? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when people behave so rudely online… but I still am. LOL They would get so much farther with a little common courtesy!
July 31st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
They really do Denise and while I was on holidays my moderator took care of one by sending a private message to the offender pointing him/her to the forum rules and he/she replied with “That’s unfortunate, please REMOVE my registration and profile from your site…thanks!” lol
Some people have no idea what forum etiquette is all about and probably think forum owners are just way too stringent. Post and run is like entering a room full of prospects, handing out your business card and leaving.