Writing a good article is not difficult but it does require commitment and skill. The skill is not necessarily in the English language or sentence structure but rather in basic formatting, goals, good research, understanding keyword space and reviewing your work. Get those right and you’ll soon be hammering out ten articles a day for your portfolio!
Choosing a topic and researching
First ask yourself what you’re interested in. It’s far easier to write an article or feature about a topic you enjoy or have experience in. Knowing the subject matter well also means less research required which saves you time and energy.
Choose a topic that you can write about in more than one article. A series of articles about mountain biking for example, will ensure you quickly get recognised as a knowledgeable source on the topic whereas writing one article alone won’t do much for your credibility.
When choosing a topic to write about, don’t be too broad or too specific in your subject matter or stance as it’s important to remember the primary keyword phrases in your choices.
Once you’ve mastered the series technique you’ll be able to apply it to other topics and broaden your article writing expertise.
Setting Goals
As in any other project or career goal setting is important when writing. Try to set some goals for yourself and think about how many articles you could write in a day and then times that by six – giving yourself a day off – and you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.
Writing the articles isn’t the only challenge though. Submissions count just as much and getting all of the ten articles you write submitted to relevant publications, blogs or editors is a challenge in itself. If you can write in a series it will be simpler to submit them as it narrows your choice of recipients. Be sure to submit your articles to each online article distributor as well though!
Research continuously
Popularity of keyword searches varies from day to day so it’s important that you research carefully finding out the top keyword phrases on your topic before you write your article.
Remember to interlink your articles to increase page views to the series of articles you’ve written. Each article you write can generate page views to at least three more articles ad infinitum. Also try cross referencing and links on your articles.
Review your work
Go back and relook your previously written articles. Rewrite them if necessary making sure titles are in mixed case format along with sub titles. Remember to use different keywords in your subtitles to the heading. Try putting yourself in the mind of the person who is searching for your article on Google using active verbs and phrases.
Your opening paragraph is often the excerpt used in a search. Make it snappy. No more than three lines and pithy! Put the crux of the story up front to encourage readership.
Add a strong conclusion. Readers like articles that are rounded off and offer additional links and resources being careful that they enhance the article and are relevant.
Make sure that you’ve written the article in the third person i.e. in a journalistic style.
Things to avoid when writing articles
Think of fresh approaches to old topics and write about what’s current, what’s hot and drop what’s not! Readers want value and entertainment and they need to able to understand the article, so keep it simple.
Use reputable references and combine them with your own knowledge and experience but display authority by being professional about your topic. Avoid all slang and abbreviations.
Support your claims by citing sources whenever you can so that your reader can follow your train of thought and investigate further if they choose to although try to limit links to two per article but ensure they don’t replicate your own article.
Embed your URL’s in the text and use keywords as link text instead of asking your reader to ‘click here for more’.
In Conclusion
Ensure you end on a high note and that your conclusions are strong but brief. Wrap up your article in a similar fashion to your introduction but remember the meat in the sandwich. It must be relevant!
Learn more about blogging. http://wp.me/pkXGE-5o
