How does that work?

With every article you submit you will also include an 'author resource box' or 'author bio' that includes some basic biographical information and also a link back to your website.

That resource box will sit below your article, and if a reader likes your article they will read your resource box and then (hopefully!) click the link that leads back to your website.

Also, every time your article is republished, you gain an incoming link to your site which can affect your website's search engine ranking. With an increase in links, your website can start ranking higher when people do searches for your keyword terms.

So, a major key to success with article marketing is that link in the resource box that leads back to your website.

You can imagine how frustrating it must be to go through the effort of writing an article and submitting it, only to later realize that you made a mistake when entering your website URL into the author bio area.

If you've ever made that mistake, you're familiar with that "Argh--I can't believe I did that!" feeling, and I bet you'll go to any lengths to be sure that it doesn't happen again.

How can you be sure that your links work?

Are there any quick and easy tricks to make absolutely certain that the links in your resource box lead back to your website like they're supposed to?

Thankfully, yes!

There are several recurring reasons why links break, and if you'll follow these 5 tricks, you will submit an article with a resource box that has working links!

1) Be sure that your URL is fully qualified and has 'http://' at the start of it.

Now, I know that we're all used to just typing in www. and then our website name, but when you're entering a link into your author bio box, be sure that the link is a fully qualified URL. For example, http://www.examplewebsite.com

That http part at the beginning of the website address needs to be there. If you're nervous about entering your URL correctly, you may try just bringing your website up on your computer, and then copying and pasting the URL from the address bar of your browser. Then, you don't have to worry about making a typing mistake.

2) Don't try to italicize or bold your website address.

If you know basic HTML then you know how to do bold and italics, but I caution you--do not try to put bold or italics into your URL. The HTML can mess up the formatting of the link and make it not work, and I know you don't want to risk that happening!

Just keep things simple--enter your fully qualified URL and don't worry about making it fancy with bold or italics or underline.

3) Put your URL on a new line.

Sometimes when a link is at the end of a line it can get artificially cut off, which results in a broken link. To safeguard against this, try entering your URL on a new line rather than at the end of a line.

Now, of course to make this look right, you need to make your URL be the last word in your resource box.

4) Don't put punctuation after your URL.

Even if your URL is at the end of a sentence, you don't need to put a period behind it. Putting any type of punctuation after your website address can mess up the formatting and break the link.

5) Preview your article and test your links.

Now, this is a foolproof way to be sure that your links will work--before submitting your article, preview it and click the links in your resource box.

When clicking your links, do they take you to your website?

If so, great! Then you know your links work, and you can put your mind at ease.

If not, then you can go back into the 'edit' page of your article and make your corrections. Maybe you typed your URL incorrectly, or maybe you made one of the mistakes listed above.

At any rate, isn't it great to figure out that your links don't work when you still have the opportunity to correct things? Absolutely!

After you write your article and get it all entered into the submission page, just take an extra few seconds to be sure that your links are formatted correctly and working--you'll be happy you did!