Bugaboos of Article Marketing in Web Content Management Systems (CMS)

One of the most common blunders by those using article marketing to distribute free reprint articles is to include periods after domain names at the end of sentences. Surely those authors who have made this blunder realize that if that period gets included in the URL, the link will lead to a 404 error or "Page Not Found" message any time a visitor clicks on your link from any web site that used your articles. Publishers complicate things by not visiting links included in author resource boxes and failing to correct the address error in the URL once they do notice it.

To be fair to publishers, it is often difficult to edit within some content management systems and it simply takes too much time to make those changes. To be fair to article authors, we certainly ought to be able to use correct punctuation in our writing, even if it does cause problems with automated link creation in CMS (Content Management System) tools. To be fair to CMS programmers, writing exceptions into the software on CMS sytsems to remove that period leads to incomplete and truncated filenames along with other complex unintended consequences.

But the ultimate responsibility for this issue rests squarely on the head of web content authors who write articles intended to gain them links from other websites. Most have figured out the eccentricities of the web and know how to avoid this problem after seeing a few bad links or URL's that are not hyperlinked by web content publishers. You MUST understand these issues to successfully use article marketing to get your web content used by publishers.

For those web content authors who have NOT figured out the eccentricities of publishing on the web, here a a few guidelines:

1) I'll repeat the opening admonition here because it bears repeating as the most common error by article marketers - Don't follow web addresses with periods or the resulting link will lead to an error page. Include a space between domain names and periods if you must use a period following a web address. Content Management Systems (CMS) used by web content publishers will include that period in the hyperlink!

2) Never cut and paste from Microsoft Word documents or other proprietary word processing software, because most use non-ascii text which replaces common punctuation with code unique to their software to create punctuation marks such as hyphens, elipses, quote marks, accents, exclamation marks, dashes and underscores. It is very irritating to read articles that include those odd looking foreign characters on web pages. Most publishers cannot, and the remaining publishers WILL not take the time to fix those strange characters in your text before publishing them to a web page or pasting them into their plain text newsletter. So your article simply will not be used in most cases.

3) Start a new line each time you include a web address within the body of the article AND in your resource boxes, because email clients often "break" web addresses if they are longer than 64 characters. Count the characters in any web address you use in articles or in your resource boxes because if theyare longer than 64 characters, many will wrap onto the following line of text, those content management systems (CMS) will then ALSO truncate your web address and send anyone who clicks that incomplete URL to a "404 error, Page Not Found." Use one of the recognized URL shortening and forwarding services to make the longer web addresses short. My favorite is http://www.shorl.com

4) Don't use proprietary software to paste your articles INTO before distributing to ezine editors, article distribution and web content sites because that proprietary software converts both previous proprietary punctuation from word processing software and previously ascii text punctuation within your article to use IT'S own proprietary punctuation which shows up on web pages as bizarre foreign and unrecognizable characters as it sends that article to web publishers. Again, leading to your article not being used by web content publishers.

5) Always remember to use the leading http:// portion of web addresses that you want converted into links by web content publishers because, once again, their content management system (CMS) won't recognize it as a URL (web address) if that portion is missing from the domain name. Most will not take the extra time to add that required element to your address to cause their CMS to embed the hyperlink for them and almost nobody will return to add the hyperlink if their CMS fails to do it for them - many don't know how to write the necessary HTML to embed links but would be required to add it if their CMS didn't do it for them initially - so they can't link to you if they want to.

6) Use only those article distribution sources that embed hyperlinks in your resource boxes to distribute your articles. I've run across dozens of sites using my articles that referred me back to the articles distributor saying, "They don't provide the hyperlink from their site". If you do use an article distribution source that DOESN'T automatically embed hyperlinks for users of your articles, learn how to embed them yourself during submission. Most web content publishers simply will not take the time to add it if they use those article distribution sources that don't provide it to them.

7) Never distribute articles with HTML already included to embed links as it will result in web content publishers NOT using the articles because their CMS then DOUBLE embeds hyperlinks- often breaking those links and leading to further error pages. Even if it the resulting hyperlink works properly, it makes reading difficult since you'll then see the HTML code displayed in unicode characters on the page of some sites.

Learn the bugaboos of Web CMS and take advantage of the knowledge to out-perform your article marketing competitors who haven't yet learned how to manage Content Management Systems to their advantage.

Copyright © August 12, 2005

Mike Banks Valentine operates http://Publish101.com - a web content resource for article authors and publishers. He offers a Text to HTML converter for web publishers who don't have expensive Content Manangement Systems to automatically insert paragraph tags, create HTML lists and hyperlink domain names for use on the web without the need to learn HTML. Just cut and paste articles into the converter, click a few buttons and paste pre-formatted articles into your web page template. http://www.website101.com/cgi-bin/t2h/Mt2h.cgi

---

Jump From Unknown to Widely Quoted in One Week

Start by Being QuotableIt's tough to stand out online. With... Read More

Simple Tricks to Maximize the Reach of Your Marketing Message

Jim was working hard to grow his business. Long hours... Read More

Building Your Site With Other Peoples Content--Part 2

Earlier, I published part 1 of this series, which contained... Read More

Ten Top Tips For Good Article Writing For Promotion Of Your Business

Writing and distributing articles on the internet is one of... Read More

Article Writing Dos and Donts

Still following along on the Copywriter's Crash Course in article... Read More

How to Write Articles to Sell Your Book

Selling books online means that you need to get interested... Read More

How Article Marketing Will Make You a Fortune

Article marketing-the simple act of writing one 400 word article... Read More

How to Effectively Hire a Ghost Writer

In today's busy world, whether your business is large or... Read More

Advertising that Wont Cost You a Dime is to Write Articles

Search Engines are constantly on the "look out" for freshly... Read More

Writing Articles

You say, I can't write an article, I have no... Read More

Writing Articles, But Still Not Getting Traffic? Your Articles Suck ? But I Can Help! (Part 2)

Last time on "Because your articles suck" ? we discussed... Read More

7 Important Elements of Any Article - Miss Just 1 Element and Your Article is Doomed

These 7 Important Elements are your Blueprint to Article Writing... Read More

7 Invaluable Tips: Getting Your Articles Published Online

When you have to share what you've created, where do... Read More

Writing For Dollars -- A Freelancers Guide

If you have writing skills and want to use your... Read More

Do You Have the Characteristics of an Article Writer?

In order to answer the question I've just asked in... Read More

Crafting Your Optimized Author Bio

Your author bio is a vital part of your article... Read More

Reprint Article Headlines ? the Reader is Secondary

A great headline can be the difference between having your... Read More

Article Marketing

A revolutionary marketing device that I call article marketing I... Read More

Ten Steps to Writing a Winning Top Ten Article

Have ever wished that there were a formula for crafting... Read More

5 Simple Ways To Get Ideas For Awesome Articles!

1. Participate in chat rooms related to your targeted audience.... Read More

Article Marketing: The Five Indisputable Rules of Author Bio Creation

Hey! Who's that I see, typing feverishly as brilliant ideas... Read More

An Article about Articles

Everyone that publishes a newsletter or ezine knows that the... Read More

Article Syndication for Better Search Engine Position

If you're sick of being #987 for your best Google... Read More

Personal Promotion Through Publishing

One of the best ways to build credibility and promote... Read More

Consultants - Writing Articles for the Internet Blankets the World with Your Expertise and Style

A Consultant could be an expert about absolutely anything.Calling yourself... Read More

Write What You Think Youre Writing

You've written this wonderful (no question about it) piece of... Read More

Article Marketing 101: The Perfect Author Resource Box

If you want to really make your article "SELL" then... Read More

How to Cash in on the Huge Online Demand for Writers

Currently many online writers and would-be online writers, feel very... Read More

Keyword Article Writing: the Key to Your Success!

Ready to jump on the keyword article bandwagon? Billions of... Read More

Want to Put Your Names on My Article?

There's a new sort of ghost stalking the digital landscape.They... Read More

Sticky Leads

The first twenty-five words of your article are the most... Read More

There is an Article Deep Down Inside of You Just Looking to Bust Out

The Most Economical Way to Advertise online is to Submit... Read More

Top 7 Tips For Submitting Articles Online

Online PR in the form of website and ezine article... Read More