How to Organize Your eHow Articles

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By Althea DeBrule
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (9 Ratings)

eHow

I like to have things organized. It makes me feel productive when what I’m working on has a place to land when it’s finished. Using an organizing system for my eHow articles is perfect for keeping information at my fingertips. The more articles you write, the more you will need to keep track of how those articles are performing. In addition to the excellent tools eHow affords its writers, this article organizing system will give you the satisfaction of a job well done, and the freedom to fully engage in hassle free writing.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Computer
Printer
Microsoft Office Excel
Adobe Acrobat
eHow Articles

Step 1

Create a New File

Open the Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet program and create a new file. If you do not have Excel, you can take a test drive for free (see the link in the resources for more details), or use a word processing program like Microsoft Word. Excel is better for this organizing system because of its functionality, plus you can use as many columns and rows as you need.
Step 2

Microsoft Office Excel

Allow one column for each category of information you wish to record. I use 23 columns (19 for article data and 4 for spacing between columns). You can adjust each column to fit your content.
Step 3

Create Column Headings

Give your columns the following headings: a) number (start with #1 for the first article you write and publish; then number each subsequent article); b) Article Title, c) URL (this can be copied from the bar at the top of your browser); d) RSS Feed URL (located under your member information on each article page. Click on this and copy the URL from the browser window); and e) a column for each bookmark submission (Digg, Google, Stumble, etc).
Step 4

Get RSS URL

Add additional columns each time you find a new submission source (pingomatic, Yahoo, Propeller, Social Poster, etc).
Step 5

Enter Date of Each Submission

Place the date in the appropriate column so that you can keep track of each article submission.
Step 6

Adobe Acrobat

Make the heading for your last column “copy” to record the date you made a copy of each of your articles. Click on the “print article” link in each article; then “save as” from the page icon in your browser and give the file your article name. Of course if you can’t live without a hard copy of your article, you could always print it out. One creative solution is to make a pdf of your article if you have Adobe Acrobat software, since it uses the print function on your computer.
Step 7

Spacer Columns

Place spacer columns according to your preference to give your spreadsheet an uncluttered and clean look, and to make the information easy to read and access.
Step 8

Spacer Rows

Insert 1-2 empty rows after each group of 10 or 25 articles and repeat the column headings if you desire.
Step 9

Back Up Your Work

At least once a month, back up your spreadsheet to a data CD, DVD, flash/jump drive or external hard drive for safekeeping.

Comments

donata said

Flag This Comment

on 10/6/2009 These are great tips on how to organize eHow articles.
Very well-written and reader-friendly, makes it easy o comprehend. Adding to my favorites. Thanks for posting. 5***** and a rec!

lorigist said

on 5/5/2009 Great tips! I'll add that to my eHow excel writing template

showpup said

on 11/18/2008 I came back for another look as I haven't done this yet and really need to do it. I bombed trying to do it on my own and your article explains it so well. I plan to add another column to mine for Featured so I can date and tell the position when I have an article hit the front page or if I'm ever lucky enough to have it referenced somewhere cool like some writers have in newspapers and such. Anyhow, thought I'd share that extra idea... not sure how to add it to the spreadsheet yet. I'll have to plan. I'm pretty dense at this stuff without guidance like yours. Thanks again!