Before you are going to be able to submit your article and for our article brings you positive results, which means a lot or readers and ultimately some profit, you need to actually write the article. Here we are going to talk about 5 fundamental steps to follow to submit a great article that will bring you back what you put in.
1 – Determine Your Topic
What are you going to write about? Knowing what specific subject you want to write about is really where you want to start. Do not write about your niche in general, but about a specific topic within your niche. For example, do not just write about dog’s medicine, but about dog’s flea repellants. Do not just write about dog’s training, but how to make your dog stop barking on command.
The more specific you are going to be in your article the more people will read your article and the more sales you will be able to generate from it. This is a very simple formula that never fails.
2- Determine Who You Are Writing For
Do you speak the same way to a 3 year old, a 13 year old and to an adult? Most likely not, right? If you did, you might be understood very well by some but you would sound like none-sense to others. Well, it’s the same thing when you write an article. Who is your audience? Are they beginners? Are they intermediates? Are they advanced? For example if you were to write a tutorial teaching a foreign language, would you write the same tutorial for a beginner that has never studied the language yet than you would for someone who has three years of study behind them? Your tutorial would most definitely sound different depending on who it is for, wouldn’t it?
3 – Research Your Material
Whatever you may write, whether it is a blog post, an article for an ezine or an article for a directory you want to make sure that your information is as accurate as possible. This will increase the value of your article and bring you more readers and sales. This is what research is for, NOT to copy and paste what you read, but to get information and ideas and process it in your own brain so you can come up with good articles based on your knowledge and be seen as well as become an expert.
4 – Determine the Length of Your Article
A very common problem I have encountered among new writers is that they write articles that are too long and out of control. Of course, the length of your article depends greatly on its purpose and this is the first thing you need to determine when you start writing an article.
Determine its length before you even start writing. Is it going to be a 400 word article? 500 word article? a 1000 word article? Once you’ve decided on the length of your article it will program you brain and you should be just about right on target when you are done with your article.
For example when I write a post on this blog I know that I want it to be between 550 and 850 words. I don’t want it to be shorter than 550 words but I don’t want it to be longer than 850 words either (and I don’t mean 10-15 words more or less matters here). This frame of mine is guiding me to write the kind of article that want to write.
When I write an article on EzineArticles for example, I want my article to be between 350 and 450 words. This frame of mind helps me to stay within those limits and pretty much on target. Try it! It really works.
5- Outline Your Article
This is something you might not need to do when you will be more experience as a writer, but as new writer, outlining your article will help you in two major ways. It will help you to stay focused on what you want to write about, and it will help you regulate the length of your article. The outline should be very simple and like this:
Introduction
Body
Wrap-up
Your introduction should be about 3-5 sentences and rather exciting or intriguing. If your article is going to be a long article you may want to play around the introduction a bit and extend it a little.
The body or your article should sound like you know what you are talking about, like an expert, but not too revealing because you are writing an article that is meant to make people click on your resource box link.
The “conclusion” which I’d rather call the wrap up is where you sum up what was said and encourage the reader to look for more down below. I have stopped calling the end of my articles “conclusions” because internet marketers should never use conclusions, but openings for the reader to read below and click. You can read more about writing persuasive articles by clicking here.
There you have it! Five fundamental steps that will improve you efficiency as an article writer.
This article by Sylviane Nuccio
So true, the first few lines are very important, these first few lines should be powerful enough to keep the readers engaged. I’m sure those trying to sharpen their writing skills will certainly benefit from this post. I regularly visit your blog and I can see all these 5 points reflect in your writing style.