The 15 Most Common Article Marketing Mistakes

Because we're all human, it goes without saying that eventually we'll all make mistakes. Especially when you're learning a new field, such as Article Marketing, you have more areas where you can stumble because you're doing things that you're not used to. You do things to the best of your knowledge, and then sometimes, after the fact, you find out that what you did was actually not quite right. Oops!

There are two perks to making mistakes. The first is that if you learn from your errors, you get better at the thing you're doing. It's hard to get better if you don't mess up every once in a while.

The second perk is that by making mistakes, you now have the opportunity to help others by warning them of the hazards that lie ahead. You can help others get back on the right track or to entirely avoid the mistakes that you made. It can feel pretty dejecting when you forget to put a link in your resource box or when you miss an opportunity to get better results from your articles by doing one simple thing different. But, if you know that some good is coming out of it, then it's not all bad. You're creating some positive purpose out of the mistake.

That's what I'm doing with this article. When thinking about the most common article marketing slip-ups, I began by taking a trip down memory lane. I remembered my own silly screw-ups from many years back--including the time when I submitted an article with a broken link in the resource box. Ouch! Afterwards I was kicking myself, but I can assure you I've never made that mistake again. The unpleasantness of that one time was enough to permanently cement it into my brain--always test out the links in the resource box!

Because of my business, I also read loads of articles a day submitted by "regular" people just like you and me. When I see them making innocent mistakes, I empathize, because I've been there too!

In creating this list, I've picked out some of the most common slip-ups I see people making in their article submissions so that you can learn from them. You may see some that are familiar to you. Alright, here's the list of the 15 most common article marketing mistakes:

1 - Neglecting to do keyword research before writing and submitting articles.

2 - Creating a resource box as an afterthought.

3 - Not submitting articles on a regular basis.

4 - Submitting way more articles than necessary.

5 - Unreal expectations as far as the time frame for results. (Aka: Expecting results NOW!)

6 - Writing articles that are not even remotely related to the general topic of your website.

7 - Thinking that you've run dry on article topics (or the "I can't think of anything to write about!" syndrome).

8 - Not putting enough strategic thought into your titles.

9 - Writing in such a complicated way that your readers have a hard time understanding what you're trying to say.

10 - Formatting your article with really long sentences and big paragraphs that are hard to read. Also, not including any bullet points, numbered list items or sub-headings.

11 - Writing articles that are about your business or your products.

12 - Having a resource box that has links that don't work!

13 - Using keywords inappropriately in the article, so that the article does not read naturally or is not grammatically correct.

14 - Not writing with article length in mind--either the article is too short to contain worthwhile content or so long that people don't want to take the time to read it.

15 - Not taking the time to proofread your article.

These mistakes are made on a regular basis by newbies to article marketing and veterans alike. Many of these are innocent mistakes that you wouldn't know about unless somebody pointed them out to you.

Do you see yourself in any of these mistakes? If you've made any of these mistakes, please don't beat yourself up about it--remember, these are the most common slip-ups, so you're not the only one! Just make the correction and move on. Any innocent mistakes that you've made in the past can't derail your article marketing campaign--just leave them in the past and move on with the new knowledge you have.