10,000 Reigistered and Contributing Authors

This achievement is really all yours, so Congratulations!!!

A lot of people said we were foolish to try to improve upon the normal “article directory” model when we launched Content Caboodle back in 2007. We were told that our CPM (pay per 1000 impressions) payout rates for writers were too high, unnecessary, and would eventually bankrupt us. We were told that we couldn’t compete against the established article sites for traffic or to get eZine and Newsletter publishers to come here looking for content to use in their projects.

We were told a lot of reasons why Content Caboodle couldn’t, and wouldn’t last…

But we knew something that all of the nay-sayers were overlooking. We knew that if we fostered an environment where content creators could earn a fair rate for the lifetime value of their work, and visitors could be assured a pleasant experience with helpful and entertaining content, then we knew that we could make this project work and benefit everyone involved from the authors to the visitors and to ourselves.

And we have, with your help and participation… so I sincerely mean it when I say “Thank YOU!” to each and every one of our contributors.

Stay tuned for some more exciting Content Caboodle milestones which we expect to reach over the coming weeks.

Technorati Tags: article directory, authors, content caboodle, writers

<a href=”http://www.YourDomain.com”> Your Anchor Text </a>

It looks bad to your readers, and it’s not clickable! You’ve just wasted your chance to get a link and traffic to your site when you do this.

We provide a very easy to use rich text editor on our submission form so that you don’t need to fuss with any HTML code ever, and it’s in your own best interest to use it properly.

Our editors only review submissions to ensure they meet our quality guidelines, they do not provide grammar nor formatting assistance. To do that would require far more time than we have in a day. It is up to you to spell-check and preview your submissions before pressing the submit button.

So do yourself a favor and take the time to double-check your submission (via the preview option) including your resource box before submitting your articles, and make sure that your links and formatting are the wa you want them.

Technorati Tags: authors, links, resource box

First, we’ve set it up so that you may add your Twitter account to your profile. This way readers of your articles who want to read/get more from you can follow you on Twitter.

To add your Twitter to your  account simply login to Content Caboodle and then click on the “My Account” link from thenavigation menu.

Right below your email input box you will find a field for your “Twitter Username”. Just put your username from Twitter into this field, not the full URL to your Twitter account.

For example, if your Twitter account is at http://twitter.com/obannonsleap then you would only enter “obannonsleap” into the Twitter Username field and then press the update button.

A link to your Twitter page will then appear on your author’s profile page here at Content Caboodle. See example here!

The next new feature is an Author’s Articles Widget we’ve created that you may use to display your latest articles on your own web sites and blogs.

You can see an example of the widget here on the right side of the profile.

These widgets are a great way for you to promote your articles on your own sites and blogs to increase readerships, and were designed to be SEO neutral (for those of you who care about Google’s PageRank juice) as the widget is delivered via JavaScript and enclosed in an iframe, the links will not pull any PageRank juice from your pages.

The widget will just give you a way to highlight your latest published articles to visitors to your web site or blog, expanding your readership and reputation as an authority on the topics  you write about.

To use the widget from your profile just log in to Content Caboodle and visit your profile page by clicking the “My Profile” link in the navigation menu.

On your profile page you will see the widget for your account displayed on the right, and beneath it will be a small box holding the Javascript code for displaying your widget. Just copy that code and paste it onto your web page or into your blog (works great as a sidebar widget) and that’s it.

If you have any trouble with this please feel free to contact us and we will assist you with it.

These are just the 2 latest ways we’re working to help our authors expand their reach online, there are more to come in the near future.

As always, we welcome your ideas and suggestions for how we can improve our service for you.

Technorati Tags: articles, authors, twitter, widget

Actually, there are several reasons that the editing staff have come up with for why a blog was not necessarily needed, but would prove to be a value add to the thousands of users participating on Content Caboodle in the form of authors, content publishers and article readers.

As our site has become more popular with authors, content publishers and readers there has been an equal growth in article submissions. That’s exactly what we want to see, however inevitably as more people participate there are more instances of submissions which don’t quite meet our guidelines.

We will never specifically point out any article or author which fails to meet those guidelines here, that would be in direct violation of our Privacy Policy; not to mention pretty darn rude.

However, we will use this blog as a way to offer helpful tips and advice that will hopefully assist authors in creating better material for themselves, and lead to fewer frustrations for you in the submission process.

We also plan to use this blog as a way to feature and highlight some of the most talented authors using our service. We know their works can be of great value to others still building their writing muscles, and hopefully we would like to not just shine a spotlight on the best articles and authors in our directory; but ultimately we hope to include some interviews with them here as well–which we believe will be of value and interest to many other authors.

I mentioned the content publishers who participate at Content Caboodle earlier, these are vital to the success of a site like ours. Just as we need authors to submit articles, we need publishers to syndicate them in order to increase the value of our directory for the authors. And of course the publishers benefit from gaining additional high quality content. It’s truly a symbiotic model, authors want exposure, publishers want good content, readers want valuable information and our site acts as the facilitator to bring each of these components together.

Understanding the importance of all who participate at Content Caboodle we realize that providing publishers with useful information about our content offerings and how to make the best use of them is vital to our continued growth, so publishers can expect to find lots of helpful postings here along the way.

I want to say again that we value your input on our article directory and the evolution of this blog as a resource, so please feel free to contact us at any time with your comments, ideas and suggestions. That’s how we will know if we’re on the right track with each move we make.

Technorati Tags: article writing, authors, publishers, readers