7 Tips to get your Article picked up by an ezine and build traffic

These are small, simple tricks, but if you follow them closely, you will improve your article and increase the odds that an ezine editor will want to publish it:

1. Keep your article length between 600-800 words. Most ezine editors are looking for articles within specific ranges, so you really want to keep that in mind as you're writing. The frustrating truth is that you can write a masterpiece War and Peace length article, but no matter how great your article is it won't be used by an ezine editor if they have a 700 word limit. Put on your editing hat and scale your article down to a manageable length.
2. Make your article a stand alone article. Please, don't write articles that are continuations of other articles. For example: How To Stage Your Home, Part 1; How To Stage Your Home, Part 2, and on and on. Maybe the editor liked your Part 3 article but wasn't interested in the other parts. What then? An ezine editor knows that their readers will be wondering, "You've shown me Part 3-did I miss the other 2 parts? What's going on?" Having articles that say "Part 1", "Part 2", etc, decreases your chances of getting published in by an ezine.
3. Write ezine eye candy. "How To" articles, "Top 10" articles (or Top 5, or 7 or whatever), and "Helpful Tips" articles are ezine eye candy. All publishers love the types of articles that instruct, are straight to the point, and are easy to read (lists are easy to read). 
4. Write about what your audience is interested in. If you were subscribing to the top ezine in your niche, what type of articles would you like to see in there? Write that type of article.
5. Create an attention grabbing title. Really spend some time on the title. It is your "hook" to interest your audience.
6. Proofread, proofread, and proofread yet again! Be sure that your article is grammatically correct with no spelling errors, you already knew this, but it helps to have a reminder. Sometimes we are in such a hurry to get our article submitted that we forget that it may be picked up by a publication that is sent out to 10,000 eagle-eyed ezine subscribers. So, you want to be very sure that you won't be embarrassed by (or that your article won't be ignored by ezine editors because of) typos, poor grammar, arguments that don't make sense, etc. 
7. Write to educate, not to advertise. Do not make your article about your own business, website, products or real estate services (duh, right?). Quality publishers are looking for educational, well-written articles, so let's give them that!

Bob Gammache has been originating mortgages since 1991 and is the author of a mortgage education website at www.nva-mortgage.com. Bob has also been instrumental in the development of the Internet Dream Machine, a turn key business opportunity useful to many Realtors and Loan Officers trying to survive the housing slump.