Successful Article Writing - Starting Out by Liz Canham

Writing articles which are acceptable for publication and attractive to humans and search engines alike is not as easy as you might think, but if you follow some simple tips you'll be well on your way.

I speak from some experience when I write this, because I currently edit and publish the articles submitted to MPAM for payment, on behalf of Michael Russell, the owner. Article writing is one of the many income streams available with an MPAM membership and those with a talent for it can earn substantial sums. However, if you're not experienced at writing articles and don't really know where to start, I hope that this advice will be of some use.


Choosing Your Topic


If you're writing for your own website or to submit to article directories in order to get a link back to your website, your topic needs to be closely associated with the niche into which your website fits. There is no point writing about football if your website is about ballet as it is unlikely that readers of football articles have the remotest interest in ballet - I am generalising here of course.


If you're writing for payment by an individual, obviously you will have to stick to the topic that the person who is paying you dictates. However, if you write for an online organisation like MPAM, you will get a long list of topics to choose from, ranging from Asbestos to Yoga. In this case, you have two alternatives, you can choose a topic about which you already have an extensive knowledge or you can choose anything at all and do some research.


In either event, you will probably write much more quickly and with better flow, if you choose a subject that is dear to your heart. It is perfectly possible to write articles on subjects about which you know nothing and care less, but that will involve research, you may fall into the trap of copying and it will take you a whole lot longer. In this world, time is money, so do yourself a favour, choose something you know a bit about already or at least have an interest in.


Planning Your Article


OK, you've chosen your topic, but unless you're a very experienced writer, you can't just rush in and produce a quality article, so your next task is to make a plan. Write down some sub-headings within your topic, which will divide naturally into paragraphs.


For example, for an article on Acid Reflux Disease, you might choose the following:

• Introduction


• Causes


• Symptoms


• Treatments


• Ending

This will ensure that your article has structure. All too often, I receive articles for review which dart from one subject to another and back again. These are confusing and often end up repeating themselves. Write a paragraph on each sub-heading. With modern technology, there's nothing stopping you from retracing your steps to the Causes paragraph, if you think of a whole lot more to say when you've already finished the Treatments portion.


You will need to write between 500 and 2500 words, or thereabouts, in order to satisfy most article directories. If you type a couple of lines in your chosen editor, count the total number of words and calculate an average, you will know more-or-less how many words you have in your article by counting the lines. MS Word actually gives you a line count at the bottom of the screen so if you use that, it will save you a whole lot of time.


Once you've decided what the features of your article will be, you need a title. It should be keyword rich to attract human and search engine visitors alike and should feature the keywords first.


This is bad: How To Tell Whether You Have Acid Reflux


This is good: Acid Reflux Disease - Signs and Symptoms


It would not be good just to use "Acid Reflux Disease" as your title as (a) someone will probably have submitted an article with that title already and (b) it has nothing to differentiate it from all the other articles on the same subject.


From your plan, devise a summary or snippet, as most article directories will require one. This should be one or two sentences which tempt visitors to read the whole article and which contain sufficient keywords and original content for the search engines to use it for indexing the article. The summary should NOT be a list of keywords and it also should not use such phrases as "This article is about…"., "Tells about….." or "Talks about….." and try to avoid "For more information, read on" or similar.


Using the Acid Reflux example, you might end up with the following summary:


Acid Reflux Disease is more common than you might imagine, but many people don't recognise the symptoms until it's too late to save their bodies from permanent damage.


Some directories do offer the opportunity to list keywords, but don't abuse this. In this example you wouldn't need to use the words Acid Reflux Disease more than once (e.g. Acid Reflux Disease symptoms, Acid Reflux Disease treatments), as there are plenty of other descriptive terms such as; Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, GERD, indigestion, heartburn, hiatus hernia.


Watch out for the next part of this series on article writing, coming soon. 


Liz Canham is the webmistress of Liz-e-Biz.com which offers tips, tools and training for internet marketing newcomers.

This page is generated by sitemap script for vietnam utf8 unicode encoded version 0.1
thank to Sitemapper free php script 0.6, written by Janek Vind "waraxe"
Support for development at XaLuan Forums

Search from ALEXA