By most accounts, EzineArticles.com reigns as the premier article directory. It has a PageRank of 6, and the home page gets crawled fast by Google.

If your article is accepted by EzineArticles.com and they label you an “Expert Author,” your article will show up on the site’s home page for a few hours, and your link will get picked up quickly.

That’s enough reason to make sure EzineArticles.com accepts your articles. But it’s not easy. Unlike many article directories, EzineArticles.com is extremely picky about the articles it accepts, and has very stringent guidelines.

That’s good for you as an author – you want their directory to have high standards. It provides your articles with more credibility, and you can become an expert in your field.

Since EzineArticles.com has editors who read every article submitted, acceptance is subjective. You might get your article kicked back for revisions or flat-out rejected, and it’s not always easy to understand exactly what you did wrong.

It can be a frustrating process, but I believe it really is worth it to do whatever you can to get them to accept your articles.

Follow my 25 tips below to give your articles the best shot at being accepted by EzineArticles.com.

  1. Only submit an original article. Don’t try to rewrite an article you bought (PLR), took from the public domain, or changed from an article written by another author.  EzineArticles.com has software that will immediately scan your article for duplication and reject it if it finds that it matches other articles.  You won’t even get to the submission process, so don’t waste your time.
  2. Write a great article that provides valuable information to the reader. Share your unique expertise on the topic by including unique tips, strategies, techniques, case-studies, analysis, opinions, and commentary.
  3. Don’t include more than five lines of quoted or source material.
  4. Don’t sell hard in your article body by including your URL, product pitch or blatant self-promotion. They’ll toss your article without notice. You can pitch yourself or website address in the resource box.
  5. Don’t stuff keywords into your article or title. They really don’t like that.
  6. Only bold headings and subheadings.
  7. Make your title “keyword rich.” The first 3-4 words of your title determines the success of the article in terms of how much traffic your article will generate, so choose the first 3-4 words wisely.
  8. Don’t put your title in all caps. Use initial caps for each major word instead.
  9. Don’t put quotes around your entire title.
  10. Don’t end your title with a period.
  11. Don’t use Microsoft Word smart quotes in your title (quotes, apostrophe’s, double dashes, and 3 dots in a row.) Replace smart quotes with standard quotes/apostrophe’s/double dashes/or 3 periods in a row.
  12. Don’t use excessive repetitive punctuation in your title. One exclamation “!” or question mark “?” is enough to make a point.Don’t use HTML tags of any kind in your title.
  13. Don’t use HTML tags of any kind in your title.
  14. Start the first word flush to the left of the title submission box.
  15. Don’t put your author or website URL in your title.
  16. Use a minimum of two unique words in your title
  17. Don’t use slang terms or profanity in the title.
  18. Make sure the body of your article delivers on the promises made in your article title. If not, your article will be rejected.
  19. Write your article to a length between 250-5,000 words. EzineArticles.com really likes articles between 400-750 words though.
  20. Don’t write your article as a press release, ad, or sales letter, and leave out any blatant or excessive self-promotion or hype. 
  21. Check your grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure. EzineArticles.com will reject articles that are poorly written. Proofread your article for spelling errors, and double-check for accuracy. If English is your second language, have someone else proofread your article before you submit it.
  22. Follow these punctuation rules: One or two spaces after each period, colon, or semi-colon; Periods should be inside of quotes; When doing “…” — you should use only 3 dots minimum and maximum; When using dashes, use two in a row, ex: “–”; There is never a space BEFORE a period or BEFORE a comma.
  23. Don’t try to submit pornography or adult material, or articles that are hate or violence-oriented, suggest racial intolerance, advocate against any individual or group, have insulting, obscene, degrading tone, or contain profanity.
  24. Don’t write articles on hacking/cracking content, bomb creation, support for terrorism/ radicalism/ religious fanaticism, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, steroid use or advocacy, weapon/ firearms/ ammunition/ balisongs/ butterfly knives or brass knuckles, or the promotion of hard alcohol/tobacco-related products or prescription drugs.
  25. Don’t promote term papers or essays for sale to college students, PLR (Private Label Rights) articles as a good thing, the promotion of email Safe-Lists as a good thing, or bulk email spamming as a good thing, advocacy for paid auto-surf programs as a good thing, advocacy of click fraud or clicking on Adsense ads as a good thing, advocacy of creating MFA’s (Made For Adsense) sites as a good strategy, or advocacy of Adsense Arbitrage.

Whew! That may seem like a lot to think about, but once you get into the groove, you should have no trouble making sure your articles are accepted by EzineArticles.com.

And once your article is accepted, you can think about submitting it to other directories. Some people are afraid of submitting duplicate content, but the folks at ArticleMarketer.com, an article distributor, have written a free report showing you how to do it and stay in good standing with search engines.

You can download The Duplicate Content Debate here by right-clicking the link and saving it to your computer.

165 Comments to “How to Make Sure EzineArticles Accepts Your Articles”

  1. witchypoo says:

    You really did your research!
    Has submitting articles really increased your traffic significantly?

    witchypoo’s last blog post..Meat Juice it’s the new red

  2. admin says:

    Thanks! Yes, submitting articles is really a great way to increase traffic. It does take work, but it pays off.

  3. hi Joan,
    EzineArticles is my favorite directory… in fact it’s the only directory I submit to, and that’s because it actually has quality standards. You put together a great list of things to do when writing an article. It’s amazing that you have to include some of them (like no profanity), but I guess there are those people…
    I’ve never bothered submitting the same article to other directories because of duplicate content. I’m going to have to follow your link and see if I’ve be wrong on that.
    ~ Steve, the ezine-lovin’ trade show guru

    Trade Show Guru’s last blog post..Unused Gift Cards and Stores Going Out of Business

  4. Dennis Edell says:

    Great stuff! I’m just gettin’ into the whole article marketing thing. :)

    Dennis Edell’s last blog post..2 NEW BLOGS Unveiled! FINALLY!!

  5. Hi Joan, I arrived here via VIV10’s twitter about your article. Very interesting, thank you!

    I just submitted an article last week and am hoping to have it approved. After reading your guidelines, I feel I followed them all – so I’m keeping my fingers crossed :)

    If you have time, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my article – I’m totally open to constructive criticism:

    http://boatinginbeautifulbriti.....ington-dc/

    Heather in Beautiful BC’s last blog post..Talking Hot Dog Condiment Holder!

  6. Joan says:

    Hi Heather. This was a beautiful, well-written story. Your article was almost 3,000 words, though, and my suggestion for your next article is to try to write no more than 750 words. I find that most people don’t read longer articles, and you’ll be better off with shorter pieces. But, great work. Please let me know if EzineArticles accepts your article.

  7. Great article. I read every word of it.. and I understood it.. now I’m making it into a checklist so I can ensure I get it right first time, every time. Thanks, great info here..

    Helen Bradley’s last blog post..Show Off! Frame your photos in Photoshop

  8. Joan says:

    @Helen Bradley, You’re welcome! Good luck with EzineArticles! Joan

  9. Wow great advice. Didn’t know there were so many guidelines for ezine articles.

  10. Lex says:

    Hey there!

    Great content! I have been doing a lot of research on article marketing and was looking into how to write an article for Squidoo vs. how to write an article for Ezine and this helped a lot! Thanks so much.

    I had a question to shoot your way: how much time does it take you to write a quality article? I feel like a good article I crank out in about an hour, an hour in a half, but that is so long!

    What should we be aiming for?

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