Anyone can write an article. But, not everyone can write a quality article that people will want to read and republish on their own website. The guidelines here will help you to improve your writing skills.
1. Write about something that interests you. If you are interested in a topic, you are likely to be knowledgeable in that area and your enthusiasm will come across in your writing. Enthusiasm is infectious and your article will spread.
2. Do not rush at the article like a bull at a gate. Take your time, write it and re-write it. You will be more likely to make mistakes if you hurry and may forget to include something important. You can edit the article afterwards any time you like it is yours. But, you do not want multiple article versions of varying quality being published around the internet, people will notice and it will not do your reputation any good. So once it is published leave it alone unless there is something major that needs to be altered.
3. Make sure that your article is relevant to the topic of your site. It is no good writing an article about gardening if in your resource box you ask people to visit your real estate or mortgage site. You will have established your credentials as a gardener in the article not as a financial advisor. What could you have said in a gardening article that would encourage them to visit your finance site?
4. Make sure that the information is useful as well as relevant. It is no good writing a multitude of articles about the topic of your site if the articles are complete rubbish because there is no useful information in them. People will judge your site and your credibility based on the article they are reading now, not the one you want them to read when they get to your site.
For some authors, who want to save the good stuff for their own visitors, rather than writing quality articles for other webmasters. This idea may be hard to swallow.
5. Write articles of various lengths. Not all webmasters are looking for articles of the same length. One day they may need a small article to fill a space on a page that has a bigger article dominating the page. Another time they may need the big article. If you have articles of different sizes, you increase your chances of being published.
6. Do not write a big long add for your product or site. It is definitely less likely to be published by the article directories. I know I would not publish a blatant add like that. Be discreet. Write well about your subject and people will want to know where your site is so that they can get more of the same. Write a big advertisement and even if you do get it published in an article directory people be wary of your site and webmasters are certainly not going to pick up the article and spread your links around the web for you.
7. Write the kind of article that you yourself would like to read. If you would read it, there is a good chance that others would too. If you think it is rubbish then you really cannot expect others to appreciate it.
8. Be brief. That does not mean that the article has to be short. It means that you should not use two words when one will do. Webmasters are typically very busy. (especially if they write their own articles) Therefore, they do not have the time to wade through a load of twaddle looking for the nuggets of quality information you have hidden in the two-thousand-word article you want him to use on his site and he will not want his visitors to have the same problem. So, say as much as you need to, but do not drag it out. If you do not have much to say then do not say much. If you do have a lot to say, consider splitting the article up into two parts, and publishing them separately or making two completely separate articles.
9. Keep the resource box short. People do not expect to see a job application in the resource box. Again, keep it brief and include your link. Many article directories allow you to insert resource boxes nearly as big as the article. Even if you may, I do not recommend it. It can put people off. When is the last time you read the article, then the huge resource box and then clicked on the link?
10. Most article directories discourage links in the main text and some will not even consider publication of articles with them. This is because links in the article ruin the flow of the article and can make it look like one of those advertisements I mentioned earlier. If it is unavoidable then chance it, but otherwise write the article in such a way as not to absolutely need the links in the main text. That is, after all the reason for the resource box.
11. If you do not speak the language then maybe you should get someone else to write the article for you. Maybe a ghost-writer is called for. There is a whole industry springing up around this side of the business today. I do not mean to be harsh. But, a webmaster is looking for the best quality of article he can get, and generally it will be in his own language. Therefore, he will immediately see the misspellings, grammatical errors and other mistakes are in it, making it unlikely that he will choose it for his site.
12. The most important guideline of all is this. Try hard to make the content original. Do not rehash some old junk that has already been rehashed a dozen times before by many other authors. That will impress no one. There is today a huge variety of article writing software that will do the job for you. However, this software usually takes a private licence article and produces a variety of articles based on that; not very original. Some of them may even fool the robots today. But, what of tomorrow. There is no substitute for the genuine article. With about six billion websites on the internet today, original content is the most sought-after commodity and gets the highest ranks.
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About the Author
Donald Blake is an author and administrator at urArticles and Articles Galore.
