How To Write An Article

Have you ever been completely stuck in knowing how to write an article for the internet? Well, you're not alone.

You see, this past couple of weeks, I seem to keep having the same conversations with various people about article marketing and, more specifically, how to write an article. There may be something in the water, or maybe everyone's cottoned on to the fact that writing an article is a really easy and free way of building yourself up as an expert, and putting loads of people into the top of your marketing funnel. So, I thought I'd give my starter guide to article marketing and show you how to write an article - without you having to pay a monthly small fortune for the information!

Getting Those Elusive Words On Paper...

Firstly I decide what my article should be about. Keep it simple, and on one subject, is my motto. If you find, as you're writing, that you're straying into another subject area, then make another article out of it. I also need to know what I want people to do as a result of reading my article. For instance, do I want them to click through to a certain page on my site, or go through to a particular landing page, or subscribe to my newsletter?

Next I mind map. This is one of the funny spidery diagrams with thoughts going out in all directions (if you google 'mind map' you'll find examples). This is where I get down all my thoughts on a particular subject on one bit of paper using my favourite quill and parchment. I use mind mapping for all sorts of things - initial thoughts for business plans and marketing plans, they're also my notes when I'm delivering talks and running courses and so on. I find them very useful, so worth a go if you've never used this technique before.

Once I have my mind map, I'll see what the main points are that I'm going to cover in my article and leave the rest for another day.

Then, under each of those points (on a separate piece of paper or parchment), I write two or three sentences to expand each of those points, and also organise these points in a coherent flow (so it makes sense to the reader).

What I can do now is start pulling the article together (and it's normally at this point that I join the 21st century and commit my offerings to the workings of my laptop).

How to Format An Article

The simplest way to format an article is to write it in three sections:

1. First section - tell your reader what the article is going to be about and what it will do for them (what problem you will be solving for them);
2. Then give them the information itself;
3. Finally, tell them what it was about and reinforce your solution/benefit.


All in about 500 - 800 words or so (this whole article is about 1000...an article for publication should be less than this). And, that is pretty much that! If you can't write a body of text in this format, how about "Ten Ways To..." or "Five Secrets of..."?

There are plenty of other ways for you to write and article other than the standard way (like this onw for instance).

And Don't Think You've Finished Until...

1. Make sure you are typo and spelling error free. I'd best make sure this missive is typo free then... ;o)

2. Make sure your grammar is correct - most common place is the mis-use of apostrophes, and when to use 'their' or 'there'. Spell check won't pick up all of these, so go through with a fine tooth comb and correct as necessary. Incorrect spellings and grammar will 'grate' on your reader's subconscious (or just outright annoy them) and you will not come across as the expert you were hoping to be seen as.

3. Only ever write to 'one' person. OK, so you've heard me say this before once or twice - but KNOW your target audience. If you know them like you know your best mate, then you can write to them as an individual. Even if you think you can't write an article, you can write some information for your closest friend.

4. If you're writing an article for the internet, then you will probably need to include the key words that people are searching for in order that they your article pops up. For example, 'article marketing' will be a key word that people will be searching for. I'll cover this in more detail in the next article.

5. Again, for the internet, you are not allowed to 'sell' in your article. Actually, the same goes for offline article marketing. Articles are there to provide information to people, and that's what you should provide. If people are impressed at the information in your article they will follow through and find out more information from you, which means...

6....you need to have a 'Biog' box at the end of your articles. Mine, for example, is "Kim O'Rourke is a professional marketer specialising in coaching marketing to those who work hard in the network marketing industry. You can visit her site here xxxx." It does change slightly though depending on who I'm targeting. With offline article marketing, it's actually no different but I would include my phone number as well.


So, there you have it.

Writing an article doesn't have to be difficult. It seems that getting started is the biggest stumbling block - there's nothing worse that sitting there, fingers poised over your keyboard at the exact moment your mind goes completely blank and you can't think of anything AT ALL to write on any subject whatsoever. Hopefully, my tips above should eliminate that forever for you.



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