Using EzineArticles to Make Money with Hubpages
I have recently started actually submitting quite a few articles to ezinearticles.com. I've been a member of the site for over a year but hadn't done much with it. I couldn't really be bothered with all the trouble of writing at least 250 words of original content just for a backlink. There seemed like there were easier ways.
Then came the hubchallenge to make passive income - you may have heard of it! Court suggested that we submit an ezinearticle for every two hubs (each article can have two links you see), so I dusted off the old membership and submitted articles, and immediately got them rejected! I was fuming but I've learned a few things about ezinearticles over the last month or so, so I thought I'd share them.
EzineArticles is the Best Article Directory.
There are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of article directories out there. But Google seems to love only one - ezinearticles. How do I know? Because when I do keyword research I often find an ezinearticle in the top 10, never any other article directory, but ezinearticles - quite often. Ezinearticles has domain authority in the eyes of Google -google trusts the site and will rank the articles on it. Why? That's easy, each and every article submitted to the directory is reviewed by a human. They have standards! The standards are a little weird so I that's why I thought I would write this hub.
But the oddest thing of all, as far as I am concerned, is that people who find your article will click through on your link to your hub. And they may then even click on an ad! Seriously I have no idea why - but this happens - I seem to have a 10% click through rate from my ezine articles, that's better than just a backlink.
So What is an Article Directory
An article directory is article source for webmasters. Its perfectly legal for webmaster to reproduce your article (so long as the links at the end are included) on their site, and no its not plagiarism - its syndication. If you don't like that don't submit to EzineArticles.
The theory is that its good for the author because each new publication of the article gives them another back link. The reality is that most webmasters are either clueless or criminal and generally won't include your links. You can report them to their hosts, Adsense and God Almighty if you want - but its a complete waste of time. If you are worried about this - don't submit to EzineArticles.
So How Do You Submit Articles to Ezinearticles
Well to start off with its well worth reading the EzineArticles Editorial Guidelines they are pretty confusing though and I did read them and still got rejected so this is my guide to the important stuff! By the way this is a shorter version of what really matters when submitting articles to ezinearticles
Duplicate Content At Ezinearticles
Same as hubpages - even if you wrote it, they won't accept a piece that has been published elsewhere. Well that's the common understanding - but its not quite true. They will accept a piece that has been published elsewhere if you can prove that all copies out there are your work too. This is tricky if your content has been illegally copied.
So I keep it simple: submit an original article to EzineArticles, wait for it to be accepted, then you are totally free to publish the article elsewhere - but do it in that order.
Its Not a Hub, its an Article
Its just words people. No videos, no pictures, no helpful links to outstanding sources, just write words! They accept articles from 250 words to 5000, but really anything over about 700 words should probably be two articles. After all you are trading words for links - so do yourself a good deal! Bullet points, numbered points, sub-headings are all fine - but that's about as fancy as it gets.
Also they need to be stand alone article. Don't write a 10 part series, write 10 independent articles which stand alone. Or better still write 10 different articles on the same topic - more on that in a moment.
What You Can't Link To
You can't link to an affiliate link - link to your hub url - but don't include an affiliate tracker in the url. Don't link to your finest e-book affiliate offer - link to the hub which sells the same. Don't link to a "thin affiliate site" - that means the eBay sites you have with very little content, even if you intend to add some content. Add some content first then submit the article.
Be Careful With Your Titles
"Article does not deliver on the promise in the title" is the most common reason I've been rejected. Don't promise five frequently asked questions and write down six (true story!). Fix the article by changing the title on that one! Be very careful of using locations in the title. I got an article on Camping in Australia approved but a whole bunch about New Zealand lawyers rejected, even though the specifically talked about New Zealand law. This one is tricky and its an area of interpretation which will depend on the reviewer you get. I suspect that "commercial occupation" plus "specific location" is much harder to get approved than travel type articles.
From an SEO point of view have your keywords at the start of your article: use "Making Easy Money Online: Three Things You Should Know" NOT "Three Things You Should Know About Making Easy Money Online"
The Resource Box is Your Sell
Your resource box - which goes at the end of the article is where you can "sell" your hub or site. Although the TOS says you must include your full name I usually don't and haven't had a problem yet. If I am linking to a website I often just include the url e.g. http://lissowerbutts.com rather than a proper anchored link - that way when the article has the links stripped out by an unscrupulous publisher the site is still there.
For some unlikely reason, known only to EzineArticles, although you can do normal links in the body of the article (outside of the first three paragraphs), using a WISWIG editor, you have to use code to link in the resource box, and yes its the resource box where the links are supposed to be. It works like this - this code:
<a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Article-Writing-Software-guide"> Article Writing Software</a>
will give you Article Writing Software
Oh and don't get all excited about doing normal links within the body of the article - they are no-followed unless you are a platinum status author - which I am not, which brings me to the next point
Turnaround Times - Patience is a Virtue At EzineArticles
For normal people we start with basic membership level and then get "promoted" to basic plus status after 10 submissions. I am basic plus and it takes about 6.5 days to get my articles approved, the turnaround promise is 7 days. Revisions take about 3 days. They don't work (US) weekends. I believe that if you get elevated to god-like Platinum status then you get turnaround time of a couple of days. I haven't got there yet - I will let you know if I make it! I suspect it may take even longer to get your first submission approved but I can't remember - it was too long ago.
UPDATE: I finally got platinum status after nearly 80 articles! The change in turn around times is noticeable - I now get articles approved within 48 hours. It really is worth being careful with your first 10 submissions and getting upgraded sooner rather than later.
Only One Account Per a Human
You can't have more than one account at ezinearticles - if they find that you do they will ban you. Instead you can have what is called "alt authors" - I have several different names associated with my EzineArticles - Lis Sowerbutts is one of them. The others match a couple of other HubPage authors I also have. The pictures, names and stories match. On the Internet you can play out all your multiple personality disorders!
8 articles from 1 each in 7 Minutes
- How to Write an Article in 7 Minutes
A video and e-book which explains not just how to research and write an article fast but also to use the same research to make multiple different articles from the same information
Writing Multiple Articles
I was amused that several people complained in the forums about not being able to come up with 100 different ideas for the hub challenge. I now expect the same people are wondering how you come up with multiple articles on the same topic. To be honest this is why I've been ignoring EzineArticles for a year. I find it hard to come up with unique new articles on the same subject. To promote a website I want around ten articles for each keyword- that adds up to a whole lot of articles. I've tried using spinners - they don't work well enough to get past humans- and they are even more boring than writing! I've tried re-writing PLR content -that's somewhat more successful - but equally boring. This product suggested that there was an interesting, and quick way, to create unique articles. I was interested and skeptical!
Well the e-book was a bit of duh moment - I suspect anyone who's been to journalism school would know the trick already. But basically it gives you formats which you use to take the same basic information and present in 8 different ways (including the original).
Well I can't say my eight articles took 7 minutes each - it probably worked out more like 14 minutes each - but I was still pretty pleased - especially for some types - like the "story" option I had to stop and think about how to punctuate dialogue because I don't think I have written any since school! It was significantly less boring than other approaches that I use - but I'd have a couple of caveats. You need to be either a fast typist (I am) or competent with voice recognition software. And you really need to sit down and do all the articles in one sitting - otherwise you lose the benefit of the flow.
Here are my eight articles from one. I can't link here here because of the hubpages linking rules.but you will find them from my EzineArticles author page.The first article is the original and I have highlighted the variations - I wasn't too worried about length - I vaguely aimed for 300-400 words for the variations.
- Making Easy Money Online: Three Things You Should Know (532 words)
- Online Passive Income -Is it Legit - Five Frequently Asked Questions (402 words)
- Do You Have the Skills to Make Money Online - Take This Quiz to Find Out (407 words)
- Online Income - Beyond the Hype A Step by Step Guide (433 words)
- Want to Make an Online Passive Income? Use This Check List to Get Your Business Started (418 words)
- Want to Make Quick Easy Money Online? Avoid These Dumb Mistakes (328 words)
- Making Passive Income Online - A Story (458 words)
- Making Online Income - A College Student's Guide (358 words)
Update on Changes At EzineArticles October 2009
According to ther blog EzineArticles have "declared war" on Affiliate Marketers - particularly those that publish multiple articles which have only "just" been re-written -they migh pass copyscape but EzineArticles editors are picking them up - and rejecting them.
I have had several friends lose their Platinum status and be downgraded to "Basic Plus" again.
I am still getting articles approved just fine with my new Platinum status the trick appears to be:
- write at least 400 words - why EzineArticles don't just up the word ilmit from 250 words I don't know;
- be aware that articles approved in the past may not now be acceptable - you might want to check some of your article back catalogue before an editior does;
- I still am having success using the "8 from 1" approach mentioned above.
More on Internet Marketing
- Third Tribe Marketing
Third Tribe Marketing is a membership site which I think charges too much for for too little..
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Comments
You answered all of my questions about EzineArticles and how it can be used for HubPages. This is such a well written, informative hub. Thank you for all your research here!
Thanks for sharing such useful information here.
I tried with Ezinearticles and my articles got deleted, maybe I'll try again :)
Thank you for your advice. I will try to act upon it.
I have one question though. As I mentioned that I am not into affiliate marketing, or any specific sort of genre. I have 80+ hubs on hubpages, ranging in a very wide area of topics; so what should I really write on ezine to avail the back linking benefits as well? Will I have to select a specific niche or I can write anything I want to (like we do on hubpages) without worrying about the niche? How the link system will work in the later case?
Kindly share your valuable opinion please.
Hello Lissie. Nice article, and quite informative too.
I was thinking about writing at ezine, but I haven't still decided it yet. I am not into adsense money or affiliate marketing. I am a freelance writer, who works for upfront payments. I was trying to strengthen my portfolio by having a 'glorious' ezine account. I am still confused about what other, and better, alternatives I have.
I've been thinking about submitting articles to EzineArticles lately. Is it still worth the time and trouble after the Panda update?
Interesting article..have written a few articles on eza and get around 10% click through. haven't linked to any of my hubs, but sounds like a great idea. I heard though that ezine articles got hit pretty hard with the panda update, is this true?
Thanks Lissie
Excellent write up, Lissie. Very informative - and I like the fact that you've come back few times to add updates to your article. Quick question for you and the entire audience: Is there a way I can re-publish my Ezinearticles here on HubsPage without them being rejected for Duplicate Content?
Many thanks in advance
Kodjo
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This article is a couple of years old. Is ezinearticles still useful post-panda?
Very interesting and useful. Thank you!
Hmmm - I'm new to all this, so this hub was of interest to me. Bookmarked!
I realize this is an older article. Update: You can publish articles on Ezine that have been published elsewhere.
Thanks for the great tips. You really explained everything step by step, which was very helpful. Rated up, useful, and bookmarked.
Another great Hub Lissie. I've had my issues with EZA in the past. But it's weird, after the so called crackdown, my articles started getting approved faster and I had fewer rejections...even though they were around 300 articles and rewritten several times!! Just goes to show it's really about which editor your article lands in front of!
I find it takes me at least 30 minutes to write a decent 500 word article, but I may be a bit more of a perfectionist than others. Every time I look at an article I have written, I find ways that it can be improved.
I found your point about anchored links interesting. I find that sites will often reprint my article and include my resource box, but the URL to my site will not be a clickable link, which means that anyone wanting to visit my site will have to go to the trouble of copying and pasting, and the article will not count as a backlink to the search engines.
This also is very helpful for me.
Thank you very much for sharing this article!
Interesting post thank!
I agree with truth2you. Unfortunately Ezine Articles seems to have a policy to censor articles based on differences of opinion.
One of their moderators also brought up the "no citizen journalism" nonsense, even when all I was doing was to quote the conclusions of well-reputed journalists featured worldwide.
This moderator proudly contested "we are no freedom of speech website". No kidding...
Ezine Articles is definitely the winner as far as article directories for getting your article on Google's front page and also for getting you traffic to your site. It is because they deliver such quality that they are able to garner such high respect from the article-reading community.
If their guidelines were lax and their quality bar was low they would be publishing a lot more junk. So yes, it is more difficult to get an article accepted, but that's what keeps the directory clean and keeps their respect up high so that they can give you good results!
It's worth it.
Angela
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Excellent read. I enjoy it from start to finish.
Really useful info.Another very good hub from a great hubber.Vote Up
Ueful and interesting. Thank you. I have an ezine account which has been dormant a while - will have to look at getting it up and running with the info herre and in Rebecca E's great Hub on this as well.
Thanks
Love and peace
Tony
Great article Lissie. I enjoy reading your hubs, and also the insights you provide over at the TKA forums.
I stopped posting my articles on ezine because of their very heavy handed censorship as well as taking days to post my articles. There is another article site that always had my articles on the first page of a google search and that is Searchwarp.com They also had my articles posted in minutes rather than days without the censorship. After I posted an article on my blog I was contacted by a PhD psychologist who also took her site down with ezine articles. Take your business elsewhere.
Lissie,
This is really valuable info! I know C&M suggest using ezine as one of the linking options, but it seems like a lot more value should be placed on it after what I've read above. Thanks!
Hi Lissie, just stumbled across this Hub again.
I joined but didn't do much. I recently read that they WILL now accept duplicate content, in fact they positively encourage you to "repackage" your existing published articles - so long as they're your original work. Repackaging just means submitting them to EA exactly as is, so I don't know why they picked such a fancy word.
So I'm going to "repackage" a few of my Helium articles to promote my related sites/Hubs. May as well get some benefit from them!
Great Hub! I have published a couple of articles at Ezinearticles.com. After reading this Hub it's obvious I need to publish more. Thanks for the great information. Voted up & useful.
Awesome article. Love your writing style! Full of excellent information - enjoyed this and learned something too!
thanks a lot for the idea and the tips! and, all the comments written here have also gave me some ideas on how to utilize EZA better.
Sounds like a pretty good and decent article directory. I would take a look at it again.
Hi there, nice info, I have had problems earlier with Ezine but I think it's pass me now as I just managed to get my articles that have been published in my personal blogs before. I'm a bit surprised as the articles I submitted were pretty old, well I'm just trying out and since it's working well. I'll surely give more effort now
This is something ive been putting off, having read your hub im going to give ezine a go. Great information.
Ezine Articles is definitely the best site to use for article traffic. It's great for getting traffic and not just backlinks.
Well, Lissie, I'm certainly learning a lot from you. Seems as if I'm thanking you on every forum on the internet. I submitted 2 articles to EzineArticles this morning.
Excellent hub. I agree that ezinearticles is one of the most powerful article sites to build links. And there is somewhat less work involved than writing for HubPages or Squidoo.
Thanks for the very informative article. I still prefer HubPages and Squidoo for backlinks, but I will check out EA.
Thanks for the great article. I am going to sign up for EZine and see how that goes for me.
Cheers
Thanks Lissie. You are always such a wealth of great information. I think I signed up for EZine at some point in the long ago past, but have not done anything with it. Think I'll take another look at it now after reading your article.
Thumbs up from one of your favorite groupies...lol
Thank you! Very interesting. I feel as if I am learning a whole new language ~ and progress is, therefore, slow, I think.
Hopefully, with the help of all the informative hubs, I'll get there in the end. I'll bookmark this one :)
Great I like the 8 in one tip, thanks!
Good hub, very informative. Ezine Articles can be very precise in what they ask for and accept, but I have seen plenty of articles slip through their net that shouldn't have been published in the first place.
Most of the time though if you follow their guidelines you should get your articles accepted quite easily.
I have 4 articles on Ezinearticles, I am a basic member but all my articles were made live within 24hrs. Google likes new and informative articles.I use this to drive traffic to my photography website. You might also promote your hub using stumbleupon.com and networking.
Ezinearticles is an excellent resource. I've had some luck with a tiny bit of traffic coming from articles posted there.
Definitely worth a 100 hub score. Thanks for sharing the information so openly and generously!
Great informative Hub, Lissie. I started writing articles on Hubpages and eZines 2-3 weeks ago. I am writing on Haiti Earthquake and related topics and it seems that I am doing very well (as a starter) on eZines with traffic coming from Google Search, but not so good on Hubpages. It is an excellent idea to add a link to my hubpages inside the Resource Box or within the article. Thanks.
Liossie, I read a lot of your stuff when I first signed on and decided to come back because you always have some great information. I am on ezines for the links. Plus, they say you should write every day, so I just churn out something on a related topic for ezines. And they sent me a coffee mug!
Hi, This is a great Hub. I have just started hubbing in the past week and I am so glad I came across this one. The information is valuable and I hope to get going with Ezine once I am more comfortable with hubpages.
Cheers.
Hello Lissie
Thanks for this article.I wish I have read it months ago when I joined ezine. You cleared up a lot of things for me. The part about coming up with 8 articles from one topic is going to be useful. I am bookmarking this and will refer to it a lot. lots of clear explanations. one of the best hubs I have read.
Great article. Wonderful writing style - the best I have seen in a long long time! A++++
Great Hub! So glad I found you!
Thanks for the helpful information.
Perfect! I was looking for the best way to get into ezine. Any time I try to get on the top of Google I see ezine. I know what I'm doing tonight. Thanks.
Another great hub, as usual. Thanks.
Wow this is a popular topic! Great ideas and hub and I hope to use them myself... if ezines would hurry up and start approving my articles! :)
Great article Lissie! I do wish I'd read it before I sent my ezine article for submission! So links in text are no follow - bummer! I will have to change it when it's been approved and put them in the resources box. Thanks for all the helpful tips :) My aim is to write one short ezine article per hub and see what the results are!
Very good hub, finding ezines really useful for generating more traffic
Hi Lissie, am loving your hubs as I do your website posts! Anyway I've been struggling with writing about the same topic in different ways so your 8 versions of the same info is really useful. Many thanks. Cheers, Chloe
A very good hub lots of good info thanks !!!!
Great hub, thanks for the tips! I just submitted my first article to them about a week ago, so I'm still waiting for approval. We'll see what happens.
Thanks for sharing, Lissie. This is perfect guideline for me to follow. It's quite challenge to me in writing an article that Ezinearticles accept. The '7 Minute Articles' may help.
I'm now your fan at HubPages and subscribe for email alert at your Ezinearticles too.
Thanks again.
Ezinearticles is definitely worth learning to deal with. If it makes you feel any better, I was past 80 articles before receiving platinum author status. Once you get to that point, it is great - all the articles tend to get approved in 2-4 days, depending on the weekend. Great hub!
Greetings Lissie - Thanks for the details on ezine. I think I have a membership, if so, it's been a while and I probably didn't do anything over there. Seems to be a lot of mixed feelings about them around here, but I may still give it a go. One of the comments made a comparison of them and Hub pages and said HP has them beat face down. "Duh!" (I couldn't resist that, but seriously). I think we ALL agree that HP is the creme de la creme", but your point was ezine is good as a source for driving traffic here, and for that reason it might be worth the hassel. Thanks for a great hub.
A very helpful hub and the information was easy to understand!
Thanks for reminding me I have an Ezinearticles membership! I used them earlier on when I was trying to get started affiliate marketing. Mind you, I had no idea what to do. Just recently I've decided to start from the beginning so to speak. The advice I got back then was just plain bad and full of holes. No wonder I made basically nothing! It was a lot of effort for little or no return.
Time to put that platinum membership to some use!
PS I fixed up the author box on a few of my articles for a site I abandoned (the site was so amateurish I cringe when I think about it), and the approval for the changes took less than 24 hours)
Good stuff, Liz. Thanks for sharing and letting me know how it works with EzineArticals. I want to try it. Now how do I find out what a hib is and spinners and PLR ?
Best wishes
Great article. I think I am going to write some articles on ezine again.
have to addmit i enjoyed and seeing your in the know could you review my hub please
Lissie - I've been a member a little while. I actually forgot I was. Anyway I'm just about to subject myself to rejection by attempting to have some articles published on the site.
This was interesting because I was trawling through the bloody TOS and almost fell asleep. I'm about to read you linked article after dinner. I can easily write around 400 words before I realise so it's probably perfect as a means of backing up some stuff I have here and elsewhere.
Thanks for this, I do appreciate the fact that you've shared what NOT to do.
Big thanks!
Great Hub. Lots of good info - plus, from the comments - I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that's been experiencing problems and delays at EzA lately.
Thanks for the writing tip about being careful with the headlines. Great Hub.
I have tried many different article submission sites and have been very disappointed. It takes entirely too long to get them published, if they publish them at all. Sometimes I have heard nothing. I'll try Ezine articles based on your recommendation. I hope I don't get rejected too often. If you get rejected, do they let you fix the article and resubmit?
Thank you. This article has great information!
This Sounds like something I can do and use.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Awesome! Basically, it'll be better for someone to write their articles on most of the article submission directories by rewriting them. By doing so, you'll simply reduce the chances of not being seeing on google and you'll also increase the chances to get backlinks to your website. Very good hub Lissie. ;)
Interesting hub. Learnt a lot of new things. Thanks. =)
absulutely, greats thaink so much for share idea.
Thank you for the information. I had been witting over at EzineArticles for quite sometime now. This is a perfect way to help me get off the ground here at HUBPages.
Good information so thanks. I shall have to give them a try.
GOod points. I agree with the Contact Us issue. Just post theissue, for goodness sakes. Why drag out the agony. Other than that, and spelling issues that are non-existant being reported and further stalling things until you can get a human to look at everything - after a couple tries via support ...not too bad a place.
Wow!!! There is a lot of information here. I have just gotten started and I enjoy. I eventually plan to branch out a bit. I have bookmarked your article for future reference. Any suggestions on articles appreciated. Thanks for sharing.
Good points here. EA isn't bad. But their latest automation isn't the greatest at times, like when it tells you to contact them to find out what's up. I mean, cut to the chase. Hoop jumping isn't fun or wanted by anyone. Other than that, they aren't too bad once you learn the ropes.
Hi Lissie,
Great hub with a lot of good information,
Ezine articles has been great for traffic and rankings for me but I have been wanting to diversify with some other sites but only go articles seem worthwhile.
At one time isnare was a premium site trusted by google for quality articles but my last experience with them was very long delays (over three weeks for articles to be approved)Do
you know anything about them?
The one thing in Ezine Article is that its articles stand out in the fastest search engine, Google. The one thing which makes us more reachable is that even if we cook up an article around a keyword, it should be related to the title. Very informative hub, thanks.
This is good information and will be a great help to all those who are writing for the 30 day challenge, to backlink their articles for increased traffic to their hubs. thanks!
Thank you so much for writing this hub. I'd decided to start writing articles for EzineArticles so this hub has been a real bonus to me. I shall make sure I print a copy of this hub and have it by my side as I write!
I use ezine articles and I reckon you hit it on the head saying it was the only one to use. I have fiddle with a couple of others, but they don't do much! I do get traffic from my ezine articles. Their recent video series to explain their guidelines is very helpful for newbies. 10 videos about 2 minutes each on topics to help you get your articles approved. Worth spending the time.
Good hub topic, nice work. Annie
An excellent primer on ezinearticles.com. I haven't been rejected for submitting to other sites first, probably because the others take a while to get indexed. ezinearticles.com submissions are indexed pretty quickly.
Agree, good tutorial. Just need to hang in there and learn the system there.
I don't have any problems in articles getting approved with Ezinearticles.com even though it is already approved by other article sites. But this was a good tutorial to read.
Thank you lissie. I have been so lost for so long. I feel that the rescue force has finally arrived. I hope that I am not so beaten and battered to get back on board.
I have written many articles for ezine.com and they rank very well in the search engines. Ezine.com has recently become more strict with article submissions, but they are well worth it. Great hub. Look forward to reading more from you.
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