Tips To Help You Write High Quality Articles

Joseph Heller, the famous satirical novelist, once remarked that all the writers he knew had difficulty writing. So if you start breaking out into a cold sweat just thinking about having to write articles, then you can take comfort in knowing that you are definitely not alone.

If writing is new to you, then the first couple of articles that you write are going to seem like a monumental task. In the end, you might even think that what you wrote is rubbish. You could very well be right.

However, as with most things, the more you practice, the better you get at it. Persistence and repetition is the key to learning. The simple truth is a good writer is one who doesn’t quit.

You can’t learn the skill of carpentry just by sitting in a chair watching others. In order to learn this skill you actually have to do it.

The same holds true with writing. All the writing advice in the world won’t mean anything unless you put your fingers to the keyboard or pen to paper.

Continue to work at it until you become the best writer you can be. That’s our first tip for writing well.

Conscientious, consistent and constant practice will help you become an excellent writer. In addition to practice, there are a couple of technical details you will want to be aware of.

The Fundamentals of Becoming a Good Writer

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to write an article, however there are a couple of important fundamentals that you do need to get right. If these are ignored your article will end up being mediocre at best.

1. The title of your article is the most important component

Your article will be doomed if you don’t get this right. Make sure you spend the time learning how to create attention grabbing titles for your articles so that people will want to read them.

2. Understand your audience

You need to understand who your audience is, who you are writing for. This is very important. Many marketers make the mistake of trying to write solely for the search engines, and doing so is just a waste of time.

A computer program doesn’t care what you write, but your human audience does. You should always write for your audience. You need to know what their problems, fears, needs, psychology and language are.

It sometimes helps to develop a profile or avatar of your visitor or reader. Picture yourself talking with them. Then write your article as if you are having a friendly conversation.

3. Don’t edit while you are writing

This is a very common mistake that many people make. You can edit later after you are finished.

First get your article written. Don’t stop writing to correct mistakes as it will just break your flow and concentration. Your mantra should be to write first and edit later.

4. Maintain continuity and flow

You want your article to have pacing and flow. You don’t want your paragraphs to seem to be disjointed. There are some marketers who take different PLR articles and copy and paste different paragraphs together to create what I call a Franken-article.

That’s fine if you do it properly and think about what you’re putting together. Then you want to make sure you smooth out the “rough edges.”

5. Don’t get distracted

Eliminate all distractions. Close Facebook, turn off Twitter, put Pinterest away, and turn off your phone. Again, when you’re on a roll you don’t want to be distracted.

6. Draw from several sources

Copying from any source is plagiarism, so don’t do it. If you draw from two or more sources then it’s called research.

What this means is you can take points from various sources, add the information to what you already know then write your article in your own words. When utilizing other sources, you need to improve on it and add value.

7. Do your research ahead of time

Don’t research while you are writing. If you need to do research for your article, do it ahead of time. Write down some points that you can refer to easily and expand upon.

Using your notes, develop an outline for your article. Now your articles should take about 15 minutes to write rather than taking an hour or more because you haven’t gathered the information you need.

8. Make it easy to read

When it comes to online writing, using bullet points or writing in a list format will be very helpful… for your readers! Don’t torture your readers. Break up your article with paragraphs, bullets, or lists.

Additional Tips to Help You Write Better Articles

 Use a timer

Always try to write as quickly as you can, and using a timer may help. Having the ability to write quickly is a useful skill to develop as an online marketer. If you don’t use a timer, your writing job will expand and fill up an unlimited amount of time. Your productivity will suffer.

If you’re new to writing set your timer to 30 minutes or maybe even an hour. As you become more proficient, you can set your timer to less time incrementally.

While less is better in this instance, don’t be in such a hurry that you sacrifice quality. The quality of your articles is always important; what you strive for.

 Read as much and as often as you can

As Stephen King has pointed out, those who don’t have time to read don’t have time to write either. But not writing may not be an option.

The more you know about your niche the more easily your article writing becomes. You’ll have a wealth of information at your fingertips. You’ll have a lot of information stored in your brain (and on your hard drive ) so you’ll be able to access that information whenever you need it.

Conclusion

Use these tips when you are writing your articles and they will stand “head and shoulders” above all others… they will stand out like a beacon in a storm.

And always, always keep in mind that you’re writing for humans, not for “bots.” While the technical aspects of writing for search engines has its place and shouldn’t be ignored, it’s not the most important.

So don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through. While a computer algorithm won’t care one bit, your readers most certainly will and appreciate your efforts enough to want to read more from you.