The RIGHT Way To WRITE Articles

As a follow up to my previous article on the WRONG way to write articles (see link at the end), this article shows you the RIGHT way to write articles.

As you no doubt already know, writing articles is probably the most effective way to promote your web site - by writing your article in the RIGHT way, you maximize the results you can achieve from your article submissions. With your article published on heaps of web sites, and in several ezines, it's enough to set your traffic counter spinning.

So, presuming you have read the previous article, and that you don't give the publishers something they do not want, you are on the right track - they will look at your article, and they may publish it. But how can you further maximize both your chances of publication, and the results you can then achieve once it is published?

1. Provide A Link To Your Web Site In Your Resource Box

This point is, for some reason, strangely missed by some article writers - without a link to your site in your resource box, you are unlikely to get much benefit from your published article.

Just writing your name, or your company name, in your resource box may bring some name or brand recognition over time, but you will be missing out on the major benefits that article submissions can bring you.

What you need is to provide a full link to your web site that interested readers of the article can click on - this will bring targeted traffic direct to your web site. It doesn't mean you need to include any HTML (generally, never include HTML in your articles), you just need the URL, or web address, of your web site, starting with 'http://' - publishers will turn that into a proper link when your article is published on web sites, and in text-based emails, it will automatically turn into a clickable link in the vast majority of email-reading software such as Outlook.

It's also a good idea not to add a full stop to the end of your link - occasionally this can make the URL inactive if your article is sent via email, or it is published on a web site that auto-publishes articles.

I've also found it is best just to include the one link in your resource box. Many publishers don't like more than one, and if you do get published, more than one link can confuse the readership simply by giving them too many choices - and so diminish the amount of targeted traffic you can then receive.

2. Use The Resource Box To Promote Your Site

This doesn't mean you should overly-hype your resource box, or laden it with advert-speak, but you do want people to click through, don't you? Tell them clearly and succinctly, and without hype, how your site will benefit them if they click through, and then tell them to click through.

3. Make Your Article Original, Factual And Informative

Publishers are generally looking for informative, factual articles that will interest and benefit their readership through the information it shares.

They are also looking for originality, and will likely sift through articles containing the same old topics to find an article that contains a certain spark of original thought. Remember, they are looking for high quality articles that will stimulate their readership - if you can't provide that, they won't publish your article.

Can you provide a new slant on an old topic; some new timely and relevant information; a twist on an accepted concept? Is your article thought-provoking, or just churning out the same old, same old?

4. Treat Your Article Title As A Headline

In the same way that a headline on a sales page is crucial for your conversion rate, and the subject of an email has a huge effect on the open rate, the title of your article is critically important if you want publishers to publish it, and people to read it and from there follow through to your site.

Make your title interesting and enticing, and your results will improve dramatically. For example, 'The Top Ten Little-Known Ways To Improve Your Online Sales', will achieve much better results than 'Improving Online Sales'.

Often a good approach to article writing is to start with the headline first, and once you've got that right, write the article to fit the headline.

5. Write It, Then RIGHT It

An article will often vastly improve if you leave it alone a while after the first draft. Go back to it after at least a day or two, and read through it - you will be amazed at how much you can improve it.

Apart from spotting spelling mistakes, you will likely notice parts of the article that do not read well and that you can improve. Spending a few minutes doing this will vastly increase the likelihood of your article being published, and improve your results immeasurably.

By following these tips, you can turn an average quality article into one of high quality that publishers will be eager to publish, and that readers will enjoy reading - the end result for you is a marked improvement in the levels of targeted traffic that your article attracts to your web site.

Copyright 2005 Steve Shaw