How to Submit Your Articles for Maximum Exposure
Publishing and promoting articles online provides immense marketing opportunities to drive traffic, boost SEO, and grow brand awareness. However, simply publishing articles on your site limits that potential reach. Submitting articles to external publications multiplies the benefits exponentially.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore proven article submission strategies, directories to target, tips for acceptance, and promotion approaches to maximize the visibility, backlinks, and engagement your articles gain.
Whether you’re publishing articles for a personal blog, company website, client, or brand, following these best practices will dramatically amplify your online presence.
Benefits of Article Submission: How To Submit Your Articles
Let’s examine why article submission should be a key piece of your overall content promotion strategy:
Increased Brand Exposure
Articles published on established external sites expose your brand to new audiences you couldn’t reach alone, exponentially expanding your visibility.
Backlink Building
Quality articles on other sites earn valuable backlinks pointing to your website, fueling SEO and authority.
Lead Generation
Resource boxes and author bios allow for promoting your site, growing email lists, and capturing new leads through published articles.
Establish Expertise
Regular contributor roles publishing articles on authority sites in your niche showcases your knowledge, building trust.
Scalable Content
Article submission provides a constant stream of fresh, keyword-optimized content without added effort, scaling your influence.
Diversified Traffic
Articles send referral traffic to your site from diverse sources, reducing dependence on any one platform for reaching readers.
Memorable Impressions
Articles give readers an extended experience with your brand versus brief ads, deepening connections.
The cumulative impact makes article submissions necessary for website owners, personal brands, and companies seeking visibility, traffic, and mindshare.
Choosing the Best Article Directories: How To Submit Your Articles
The first step is identifying which article directories you should target for submissions. With so many options, where should you focus?
Here are the most important criteria to evaluate potential article directories:
Domain Authority
Prioritize sites with high Domain Authority scores, which signal valuable backlinks and prominence on search engines like Google. High DA sites confer more SEO benefits. Check Moz or SEMrush for DA scores.
Website Traffic
Look for established publications with healthy monthly visitor traffic in your niche – over 500K being ideal. Alexa and SimilarWeb provide traffic estimates. More eyeballs on your articles drive more website visitors.
Industry Relevance
Ensure the directory focuses on your specific industry categories and topics versus general interest articles. This results in engaged, targeted readers.
Content Quality
Review existing contributor articles for quality standards. Professionally published content signifies a more discerning curation process that enhances your brand affiliation.
Competitor Content
If competitors publish on the site, it’s an implicit endorsement. Model their example.
Editorial Alignment
Directories favoring informative articles over pure promotional pieces typically yield better results. Check submission guidelines for details.
For maximum amplifying effects, identifying the top 5-10 article directories matching these criteria ensures you reach qualified audiences that confer credibility.
Crafting Compelling Article Pitches
Once you research target publication options, develop article pitches tailored to each website. Compelling pitches convince editors to accept your ideas.
Elements of a Winning Pitch:
Attention-Grabbing Headline
Summarize the essence of your proposed article in a short, compelling headline that captures interest quickly.
Relevant Framing
Open the pitch by framing the article’s value proposition in the context of trends or current events that tie it to the publication’s editorial focus.
Brief Synopsis
Provide a short paragraph summarizing the article’s scope, main points, and benefit takeaways readers will gain.
Proof of Expertise
Quickly convey any credentials that establish you as an authority on the topic you are proposing.
Links to Past Articles
If available, share 1-2 links to your previously published articles highlighting your experience and writing abilities.
Close with Call to Action
Wrap up with a call to action sentence politely requesting acceptance of your pitch or requesting follow-up if they need any additional details. Offer to provide the full article upon approval.
Following this pitching formula tailored to each publication sets your articles up for success and acceptance right out of the gate.
Optimizing Your Articles for SEO: How To Submit Your Articles
To maximize search visibility, optimize articles submitted to other sites for on-page SEO. This boosts potential traffic to your site.
On-Page SEO Tips
– Include primary and secondary keywords throughout the article in a natural, non-forced way.
– Work keywords into title tags, meta descriptions, image alt text, internal links, and bolded sections.
– Include outbound links to authority resources related to your topic to boost contextual relevance.
– Insert 1-2 internal links pointing back to relevant pages on your website.
– Format content cleanly with short paragraphs, subheads, and bulleted or numbered lists for scannability.
Properly optimizing articles signals search engines about the topic focus so they appear for relevant keyword searches, driving direct referral traffic.
Leveraging Resource Boxes
A resource box (a bio box) provides a short space to promote your brand and website. Maximize this prime real estate:
– Include a compelling call to action like “Visit our site for more tips” or “Download our free guide.”
– Link important keywords to pages on your website whenever possible.
– List your social media profiles with live links for readers to follow you.
– Use branded anchor text links pointing to your home page or popular articles.
– Write a short, benefit-focused description of yourself and what you offer.
– Close with your name, website, and contact info.
An optimized resource box turns one-off readers into ongoing site visitors, subscribers, and leads.
Promoting Your Published Articles
Don’t stop once your articles get published – actively amplify them for more eyeballs.
Promotion Tactics
– Share articles from your social media channels, linking to the publication website.
– Highlight articles in your email newsletter or dedicated email promos.
– Add new contributor articles to a “Recent Press” media page showcasing wins.
– Monitor comments and respond to any reader questions to further engagement.
– Repurpose articles into other formats like video summaries to expand reach.
– Track website traffic leads and sales generated by each article.
Promoting articles extends their shelf life, funneling website visitors over the long term versus short bursts.
Top Article Directories to Target
While article directories abound, these consistently rank as the highest visibility sources:
Medium
Medium is one of the top online publishing platforms, making it highly competitive but valuable for mass exposure.
Moz
Moz accepts submissions related to SEO, content marketing, link building, and web development.
Business 2 Community
B2C prefers articles on marketing, PR, HR, sales, and technology for its engaged SMB audience.
Lifehack
Lifehack publishes articles about self-improvement, productivity, lifestyle, and career development.
SitePoint
SitePoint focuses on web development, programming, design, coding, and computer tech articles.
Louder.com
Louder accepts music and entertainment industry niche articles from experienced contributors.
eLearning Industry
Focuses on online education, technology, design, and training articles.
ReturnHub
ReturnHub accepts articles covering e-commerce, customer retention, return reduction, and related topics.
Business Know How
Business Know How publishes small business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and business development articles.
LinkedIn’s long-form blogging platform is ideal for establishing professional thought leadership.
This mix of broad interest and niche publications provides ample opportunities to extend your brand’s reach through contributor content.
Submitting to News Aggregators
In addition to articles, newswires and press release distribution services offer another route to gain media placements.
Top options like PR Newswire, PRWeb, and BusinessWire push your content to journalists at major media outlets, including:
– Reuters
– Associated Press
– Bloomberg
– Yahoo! Finance
– Google News
– USA Today
– Chicago Tribune
Securing inclusion in aggregator content libraries expands visibility. Be sure to optimize press releases with SEO best practices for discoverability.
Keep in mind that aggregators are more for corporate announcements versus promotional marketing content. But timed strategically around company milestones, executive thought leadership or trending topics, newswire distribution can provide added exposure.
Article Submission Strategies to Avoid
While article marketing creates immense opportunity, less optimal approaches can backfire. Steer clear of tactics like:
– Automated submissions to any low-quality directory
– Publishing duplicate versions of one article across sites
– Link stuffing articles only for SEO with a minimal unique value
– Submitting to sites utterly irrelevant to your niche
– Promoting overly self-promotional or sales-focused content
– Failure to fully adhere to publication guidelines and rules
– Relying solely on article marketing without a diverse strategy
By avoiding these missteps and providing consistent value, your articles establish trust and credibility rather than being spammy.
Conclusion: How to Submit Your Articles
From increasing website traffic to building backlinks and amplifying brand visibility, article submission delivers outstanding ROI.
However, achieving results requires careful research into top directories, crafting tailored pitches, optimizing for on-page SEO, maximizing resource boxes for lead generation, and actively promoting your published articles.
Apply the strategies in this guide to showcase your thought leadership, connect with audiences, and grow your online presence and authority—regular contributor articles position brands as trusted go-to resources versus one-off advertisers.
What challenges have you faced with article marketing? What tips do you recommend to fellow marketers just getting started? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!