Article Directory :: Internet Marketing/Online Business Articles

7 Fast and Easy Steps to Writing Your First Article...Even If You're Not A Writer!

By Steve Shaw

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 17Nov2008 Word count: 774 Viewed: 344 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

So, you've decided that you'd like to start article marketing to drive traffic to your website, jump up the search engine rankings, and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

There is only one problem....You don't even know where to start when writing your first article.

It is perfectly normal to feel a bit apprehensive and want to procrastinate--whenever we're learning a new skill it can be a bit nerve wracking at first, but trust me--when you break the article writing process down into steps, you'll start to think, "I can do this!"

Sometimes the sheer volume of options make you think "Where should I even start?", so I've broken the article writing process down into a few simple steps and have eliminated some of your options.

These steps are not the only way to write an article, but they are a very efficient way of getting the ball rolling on your first article. If you follow these steps you'll have a first article that is better than many author's hundredth!

Here we go:

1. What should you write about?

Customer questions give you great insight into what to write about (after all, we're trying to write useful articles for our target market).

Ask yourself, "What questions do my customers frequently ask me?"

Then pick one of those questions to serve as your article topic. Your article will be the answer to this question.

For example, one frequent question that customers ask me is "How do I get started writing my first article?", and you see that this article is the solution to that question.

Don't over-think things--you probably have multiple questions popping into your head that customers ask, but you just need to pick one. You can address the other questions in another article.

2. Create a starter title.

By "starter title", I mean a working title, one that you can change if you like when your article is complete.

I always start my article writing by coming up with a title first, because the title gives me guidance on what to write about.

The titles you could use are endless, so let me help you narrow down the options.

Use one of these starter titles:

Top 5 [ solution to customer's question]

5 Ways To [solution to customer's question]

For example, with this article I could make it:

"5 Ways to Write Your First Article...Even If You're Not A Writer!"

3. Make notes of what you'd like to say for each point.

This is where the brainstorming comes in--you have 5 points to cover in your article--what will they be?

We're still doing prep work here--no need to try to craft the perfect sentence yet. Just jot down your some basic notes for each of your 5 points.

4. Write the body of the article.

Yes, we're writing the article body before the intro and the conclusion on purpose--if you try to start with the introductory paragraph straight off, you may spend a lot of time just trying to get the ball rolling.

If you jump immediately into fleshing out your steps, however, you can work much more quickly because you already have a head start. You have your notes on each step to use as your guide.

5. Write your intro and concluding paragraphs.

After you've written the article body, it should be quite easy to craft a simple introductory and concluding paragraph.

You can keep it short and sweet--in the intro tell your readers what your article is about, and in the concluding paragraph, you can restate what your article is about in different words.

6. Check your word count.

Most quality publishers have word count limitations, so it's important to keep your articles between 400-1500 words. If you can, aim for the word count sweet spot of 700-800 words, as that length is most appealing to ezine editors, and an article of that size looks about right on a web page also.

7. Get some "away time" from your article.

Yes, just step away from your article for at least 24 hours and return to it with fresh eyes (and brain). When you come back you'll be shocked at the errors you overlooked just yesterday, and you'll be glad you took the extra time to make your article picture perfect.

That wasn't that hard, was it? I think you'll find that when you approach the article writing process as a series of steps and limit your options (as we've done here), that your creative juices will start to flow, and what was once intimidating will soon feel easy!

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here

More articles by Steve Shaw

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy Now:

Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!
Click For Details