3) Glorified Sales Letter

It seems that the main aim for some authors is simply self-promotion. But that doesn't cut the mustard.

*Don't* link to your website in the text of the article suggesting people visit, try not to include any affiliate links (and cloak them well if you *do* use them) and don't talk about how great you are.

An article's aim is to provide content, your resource box is for trying to gain visitors.

4) Overly Long Bio File

Webmasters love publishing other people's content as it attracts more search engine visitors but they hate having to link to your site at the end - because they lose visitors as a result.

To make linking to your site as painless as possible try to keep your bio file down to just a few lines. Certainly no more than 5 and I aim for just 2-3 myself.

5) No Original Content

Is your article just like hundreds of others out there? Or are you producing something unique and original?

If your article focuses on the same thing as your competitors - and this is often *basic* information like "Why You Need An Autoresponder" or "How To Do Well In The Search Engines" then STOP and think. How can you make your article stand out from the crowd?

I would suggest you consider including some of your own results and experiences - even if they're negative. You can always say "This is what I tried, and this is what I would do next time".

Your experiences are unique - they're your own - so use them, and stand out from the crowd.

6) Too Long/Short

An article should typically be 500-1000 words in length. 600-800 words is even better. Try to keep your article in those limits by ruthlessly pruning long articles (or splitting them into two or more separate articles) and expanding or ditching overly short ones.

Pruning is a good thing and cuts out the "fluff". There is a world of difference bwteen a pruned and a non-pruned article and the the former always looks a lot more polished.

7) Poor Grammar And/Or Spelling

Remember to run a spell checker before submitting your article, and I would suggest even then you save your article and open it up again a few days later before submitting it, as "fresh eyes" will often find mistakes you didn't see before.

And check your capital letters - for some strange reason many writers like to capitalize seemingly Random Words throughout Their article and If you're a Busy publisher Like Me you *won't* want To go through An Article and Change them All Back. You'll just Ditch the Article And find another One instead. Get the hint?

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