I just wrote two articles and i was wondering how long it takes for the articles to get approved? And also, when they do, will i get traffic right away from them?
Depends on the quality of the articles, the directories you use, how many people have submitted articles as well, and public holidays, weekends etc. Usually seems to take between a few days, and on some directories, up to a month! As long as the article is interesting, with a catchy resource box, I usually get a spike of traffic while the article is on the front page. It then goes down for a while, and picks up again once/if the search engines grab it. Any effect on search engine rankings due to the inbound links seems to be months afterwards...
Depends on what you are marketing and where you submitted the article. For example, with your hydrogen powered car thing. A box saying "Find out how I beat the gas crunch" or something like that. Remember, you are always trying to market a solution to people.
The best way to see examples of resource boxes is to go to Ezine Articles and look at the resource boxes used in the most popular posts. Once you have done that, do a search for the topic you are writing about. Look at their resource boxes. Is there anything in common? Don't reinvent the wheel. Use what is already working. Be sure you don't copy word for word.
I would just suggest to submit to ezinearticles to get started. They will get you the most traffic and the best shot at ranking good on Google. Your resource box is the second most important aspect of your article. The title is first because you can have the best resource box in the world but if your title doesn't grab them and get them reading then you resource box doesn't matter. If they make it to your resource box that means that they read your whole product all the way through. So wrap it up and make them want to know what else you have to offer. look at these two examples. Want to save money on gas? Want to Discover how to slash the price at the pump? This is just an example off the top of my head. The second one isn't really that good, but i think it will at least double your CTR from the first one. You have to grab their attention and not let go. Adam
As for your question, EzineArticles normally takes less than 3 working days for approval if your articles are following their rules (such as no keyword spamming and count of words). Others, like Amazines normally take 3-4 working days; while for Article City, SearchWarp, and GoArticles are almost instant. Also when you mentioned about article marketing, do include Squidoo and Hub Pages in your list. They are not quite like the traditional article directory but their 'functions' are more or less the same.
Go to Ezinearticles.com and look at the expert authors. You will see what they are doing in regards to resource boxes. Short and sweet seems to work best. I like to use SubmitYourArticle.com to submit some of my articles with. This way I always have some articles getting approved at different times and I get unique articles with their Article Leverage Program.
It usually takes 3 - 4 days with Ezinearticles. Goarticles is another good article site, and you should get approved instantly there.
If you're new to Ezine it may take longer than 3 days, I've known it to be upto 6. Keep the quality up and you'll gain Expert status which helps.
OK Inow have three articles approved but there is a spot where it says 7 articles published.... what does that mean?