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On-Line Article WritingTips...
1. The first paragraph clearly state what the article is about. It should tell who, what, why, when and where an event is happening.
2. Organize your material in a point-wise fashion. Create an outline of the article before you begin writing. Write down these points and then make sure you include them as you begin writing the article.
3. Put the reader at ease. Write in a simple style and if you introduce new terms, define them for your readers.
4.Explain your points in short paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier for the reader to follow. Three, to five sentences are sufficient for one paragraph.
5.Don’t be afraid to educate your readers! By giving more information, readers will understand that you really are an authority on the subject that you are writing about.
6.Give examples and experiences that back up your points. Explain how you faced a problem and solved it. Or give hypothetical examples of business problems and solutions.
7.Emphasize the benefits of your product or service. Benefits are the real sales driving force, not the features. You should repeatedly state the benefits that you offer to your potential customer.
8.Give additional resource information to your readers. Include the addresses of websites where your readers can get more information on the subject that you are talking about. These may be your own websites or they can be other resources. Quality outbound links from your website are benificial to your website’s page ranking and positioning in search engines.
9. Get another opinion on your article. Show it to your friends and colleagues, and don’t worry if they criticize you, it is better that your friends find the mistakes than your clientele. Always remember, a good editor is a writer’s best friend
10.Keep your most important information near the beginning of the article and summarize what you want to say at the end. Editors usually cut text near the end, keep your most important points and ideas in the beginning of the article. At the very end of the article you can summarize what you outlined in the opening paragraph.
Writing articles and submitting them to on-line article directories is a great way to generate publicity and gain an expert reputation.
But remember you are writing for
several audiences with different needs...
1. Publishers – Web sites, ezines, blogs and printed media all require different lengths and styles of content so you need to be flexible with lots of choice from short punchy to in depth analysis to personal commentary. Articles need to be topical, from an expert and contain no overt promotion and self serving links. The more articles you write the more of an "expert" you become.
2. Readers - People search the internet for content so the article needs to provide topical, fresh ideas with plenty of easy to digest, practical advice.
3. Search Engines – You need to do extensive keyword research for your web site then select a specific primary keyword or phrase for each article and use it liberally for maximum search engine ranking
4.Directories – They each have specific requirements regarding format, structure and topic. Each article will be checked to see that it does not beach their content guidelines and formatting rules.
Before you start your article – type out the headings below to form the template – then use the notes to guide you.
Article Title
Maximum 100 characters (including spaces) - that’s about 12 words. Make it grabby to catch the attention of readers and publishers but start with your primary search engine keyword phrase. In printed media titles starting “How to…” or “10 top tips for…" are very popular – they are not good for search engines. This will go in the title of a web page.
Abstract
Maximum 500 characters - about 90 words but 50 or 60 is better. Make it enticing to hook the publisher and make them want to read the full article. The abstract is primarily targeted at the publisher and will be displayed just below the title on the search pages in the directory, but is secondary to the title in getting attention. Some publishers may also use it.
Description – Meta Tag
Maximum 200 characters but preferably 150 – two lines of text.
Shorter punchier version of the abstract which must contain your primary keywords – you will need this if you publish on your own web site.
Keywords – Meta Tag Maximum 100 characters - about 12 words comma separated Start with your primary keyword of phrase then add other relevant keywords used in the article.
Article Text
Length really depends on your market and style. Much advice suggests about 250 to 750 words, but some publishers want in-depth analysis and I have had a 1700 word article reproduced at least once. Research your market and be flexible, with a mix of lengths and perhaps long and short versions of the same article.Write the basic article with No Formating – if you are using a wordprocessing program, disable all the auto-formatting because they will all cause you problems. You can always reset them later.
Get your Primary Keyword Phrase into the first sentence if you can and provide a liberal sprinkling of keywords throughout. The article still has to read well, and quality content is important.
No advertorial copy - Do not promote your products and services you will kill the article. This includes self serving links – Do not include links to your web site or affiliate sites in the body of the article, or your article may not get published. If you have links to resources show them as text - many sites do not allow live html links in the article.
Copyright
Copyright, date, name, country Not many directories ask for this but it still makes sense to put it at the bottom of the article or in the requested field.
Resource Box
Maximum 500 characters, "including spaces and html code." This is the limit for many sites so best to stick to it for all. This is your opportunity to promote yourself but limit to 1 or 2 self serving links and write in the "Third Person." The publisher has to live with this on their site or ezine so make it palatable for them. I offer an incentive for people to visit my web site, but make sure that live links show the web address not keywords. If the publisher doesn’t use live links, you still want people to see the web address.
HTML Formatted Article
Once you have completed the unformatted text article – you can then make an HTML formatted copy if you wish. Most sites do not need HTML, a lot of publishers don't accept it and some directories forbid all html. Remember "Content is King." If you do format – keep it simple – too much formatting and it will never be published.
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