Article Writing Tips

Where to start:
Start anywhere - it doesn't matter where. Putting words on paper is like planting a seed in your subconscious. Your mind will go to work on it while you're busy doing your daily tasks. No need to consciously think about what to write, your subconscious will be working on it. When you go back to your writing, suddenly, out of nowhere, ideas will come. That's the power of the subconscious, use it to your advantage.

If you would like some inspiration take a look at, Article Writing Questions For You, by james lowe.

Can a newbie, novice or high school dropout be a writer?
Yes! No college English Degree needed. Its not always what you know, but whether you can tell others what you know! Everyone has a head full of knowledge about some topic, but that doesn't help anyone but yourself, if you're not able to relate it to others. If you don't know how to spell, use *spell check* to correct your writing.

Common writing mistakes, or Things that make your readers go away.
There is one piece of advice I will always remember from English 101 because of the startling effect it had on the readability of my writing. It is also the most common mistake made by new authors.

Unnecessary words and phrases are the killers of readability. Consider the example below and let's try to make it more readable.

�I have written this article because of a huge and growing interest that there is in MySpace, the sort of explosion of interest that has not been seen for quite some while.�

First, remove unnecessary words:
[I have written this article because of the huge and growing interest in MySpace,]

Next, consider removing and reordering words to make the sentence more readable.
[...the sort of interest explosion that has not been seen for quite some while.]

Finally, the sentence revised: Wouldn't the sentence sound better this way?
I have written this article because of the huge and growing interest in MySpace, the sort of interest explosion that has not been seen for quite some while.

BIG Words:
Don't use big, complicated or techie words unless necessary. Don't try to use big words to impress your readers. If you are not sure of the exact definition of a word, look it up in a thesaurus for a better word. If you don't fully understand a word, there is a good chance your readers won't either.

If you don't understand the rules of punctuation and grammar, get an English book or search the Internet for grammar tips or tutorials. Most importantly, let other people check your writing. Choose people not as knowledgeable in the subject as you, to see if it's easily read and understood by others. The process of allowing other people to check the grammar and readability of your article is used by even the most accomplished writers to check themselves. It is very, very easy to over look simple grammar or spelling mistakes.

Break it up:
To better organize your thoughts, divide your article into sub-headings. At times, writing a 500-700 word article can seem insurmountable. Sub-headings make things easier. Instead of tackling the entire article at once, try writing one paragraph at a time.

Make it easy for your readers:
Internet users, that is you and I, have a very short attention span. Using Sub-headings and line breaks between paragraphs also makes it easier for your readers to digest by taking smaller bites. A good length for any article is about 500 to 750 words. If you make it too short it won't be accepted by the directories, but if it is too long, your reader won't take the time to read it.

As Ernest Hemingway said, use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. This is especially important online because readers read about 25 per cent slower.

Article Title:
Your title is just like a classified ad. Look at it this way. If your article title is crowded on a webpage with 100 others, what will make it jump off the page? Your title should contain 2 or 3 main keywords. Try to keep it short and to the point but catchy.

The Fist Paragraph:
The first paragraph of your article is critical. If it's dull, boring and lifeless, your reader will surely bail out. You must keep their interest right from the start. Again, try using short paragraphs, sentences and words. This will keep the tempo upbeat and make your article much easier to read (or skim, as most do online).

Article Directory owners will often use your first paragraph as an article teaser in their Blogs so try to include the main points of the article as well as the main keywords.

Resource Box:
This where your advertising goes! Make sure that your resource box is compelling. Make the reader jump over to your website, sign up for your ezine, download your latest ebook, claim their free gift -- get creative!

Your resource box can be no more than 65 characters wide and no more than 6 lines deep. It is similar to a signature file, but it also includes information about you, the author of the article. Bytepowered Articles allows 600 characters.

When creating links in your resource box use the format...
<a href="http://bytepowered.org">Bytepowered Articles</a>
for your link, so when your article is converted to html your link will automatically be live.

To make your link both active and visible use this format...
<a href=�http://bytepowered.org�>http://bytepowered.org</a>

Article Description, Teaser:
Write a brief introductory paragraph as a "teaser" for the main article. Summarize the major points of the article and provide just enough information to create interest in readers so that they want to read more. Many article directories now put the first paragraph of each piece into RSS feeds and Blogs which are picked up by other websites, so you'll want to make sure that your two or three major keywords appear at least once in that first paragraph.

Keywords:
Choose as many keywords as you can to draw interest from the search engines.
Keywords, and phrases, should, be separated, by commas

Poofread Your Work
Did you catch that? It should've read, "Proofread". Nothing hollers out amateur, newbie, or just plain unprofessional than an article filled with typos and bad grammar. If you don't have an English major in the family or your circle of friends, go to the library or the Internet and learn it. The time it takes to learn punctuation and grammar will be repaid many times over in readers and click-throughs.

After having your article checked by another person or persons make corrections and then proofread it again and again. Creative writing can always be improved upon, but don't knit-pick it apart. If there are no obvious mistakes after 3 proofreads submit it to the directories.

Things Not To Do:
Your article should not be a sales letter in any way! Treat your article as pre-sales content. Acceptable articles are informative, educational, tutorial, how-to-guide, product-review or at least entertaining. Articles that read like a sales letter will be dropped like a hot rock, period.

Don't use �article rewriting software�, the practice of automatically rewriting articles with small changes in sentence organization, keywords or product data will come back to bite you. The act of re-writing and re-submitting redundant material is considered spaming. Article Directories are watching for these types of articles very closely and will be deleted when they are found and the author will be banned.

Public Domain material:
If you choose to use articles or writings classified as �Public Domain� be sure to rewrite the material in your own words. There is some very good information in public domain writings but they must be rewritten to avoid the duplicate content black hole. Google punishes duplicate content by sending it to the �Ignore This Page� category and soon Yahoo will be doing the same. Not to mention that Article Directory owners sort out duplicate content as it is received by matching phases in a submitted article to articles already in their data base.

Last but not least:
The most important thing to remember is that you have to like your subject and know what it is about. After you write a few articles, you might find that you enjoy writing about the things you know. Who knows? It could lead you to a new, profitable and fun career.

Yours in success,
Lyle Cochran