3 Tips when Writing Articles

Do you love to write? Do you want to put those writing skills to good use? Perhaps you want to see your name published whether it be in a newspaper, magazine, e-zine or other forms of publication. Here's 3 tips to start off your New Year.

1. Brainstorm

Once you've decided what your writing is going to be about, brainstorm. Think of a new angle for your article. For example: If you're writing for your local newspaper about an author, don't necessarily write only the obvious details. Is there something about this author that makes them unique? What is so great about the book they've written, can you tie it with a current news event and or holiday?

2. Removing the Fluff is a Must!

When writing a first draft, it's expected to h ave at least some fluff. Fluff is words, sentences, certain aspects of your article that don't necessarily add to your article. An example would be: “I had no energy. My energy had been sucked out of me” Now that's not the great example, but you get the point. A good way to tell if you ave fluff is to put your article away for a while. Why? Because wen you leave your article for a bit, the next time you look over you'll see aspects of your article popping out. Certain words, facts and excess information that could easily be removed for a smooth flowing article. 3 fast tips that also apply are:

Editing- Proof read your articles and remember to use your spell checker. Grammar and spelling mistakes can easily turn your editor away.
Simple Language Structuring- You may be an expert in your field, but for others reading about your topic for the first time, your content should be simple. Make sure your sentences aren't run-ons. Are you teaching something? Break down aspects of your article into steps. This will ensure your reader understands your topic better.
Be careful of the word “the”- “The” is a common word that sometimes is repeated too many times in the article, causing your article to become repetitious. Use “the” repeatedly if you're trying to make a point.
3. Passion

No, I'm not talking about romance. Passion and excitement in your article. The topic that you choose to write about should excite you. It should be something you enjoy, something you love. If it's a topic you're not truly interested if, it's going to show in your writing. Especially if it's an article that you put together in 5 or so minute. Use words to “pump” up your article, actions, appeal to one's senses if it's about cooking. Have the reader become excited and motivated if it's a teaching article.

Editorial guidelines, also known as writer's guidelines, are the rules set forth by publishers for contributing authors. In order to have your article taken seriously you must review the guidelines prior to submission. It is also recommended that you review previous editions of the publication to get a better feel for the types of articles favored by the editor(s).

Outlined below are the typical issues covered in editorial guidelines along with their definitions and any additional information you should know.

Length of article: The minimum and maximum word count of articles considered for publication. Online articles are usually expected to be 750 to 1,000 words while off-line publications will often accept a longer article.

Topics: The subjects of articles accepted by the publication. Never submit an off topic article as this is very annoying and may result in further submissions from you being banned.

Illustrations/Photographs: Some publications require/accept illustrations or photographs and will usually specify the size and format required for acceptance.

Editorial style: Consistency and accuracy governs the use of a style selected by the editorial department of a publication. Many publications require the use of the Associated Press Stylebook which covers spelling, capitalization, grammar, punctuation and usage.

Author Photograph: Some publications require or accept a photograph of the author usually included with the submission of the article. Guidelines will often cover the size and format of photographs.

Byline length: Also known as an author biography or resource box. Some publications have certain requirements for length, characters per line and what or how much contact information can be included.

Payment: Your byline is often the only payment you will receive for your article. However, some publications (particularly those in print) pay for articles by the word or per article.

Rights: Governs whether or not the publication will accept original or reprinted articles, how long they plan to use the material and whether the article can be used elsewhere at the same time.

Query requirement: A query is a letter written to the editor that proposes an article topic and asks permission to submit. Some publications require that you query the editor (by e-mail, fax or mail) prior to forwarding your article.

Submission methods: Methods of submissions may include via fax, e-mail or hard copy sent by courier or standard mail.

Editorial calendar: It is not unusual for a publication to establish an editorial calendar for each year far in advance. The calendar will cover topics, themes, article types and required submission dates broken down by publication dates.

Format accepted: Each publication will accept articles in certain formats such as Word, WordPerfect, text or Adobe Acrobat.

Audience: Demographics such as number of subscribers, gender, educational level, age and income level.

Notification: When you will be contacted about your submission. Many publishers choose to contact only if an article is chosen for publication.

Acknowledgements: In some cases you will be required to sign (either electronically or on paper) an acknowledgement that you have read the guidelines.

It is very important to understand and follow the editorial guidelines of your target publications in order to maximize your chances of publication. Not all publications will include all of the above items in their editorial guidelines. Contact the editor if any of this information is not disclosed and you need it to refine your submission.

Most all ezine publishers need fresh content. Article writing is something that gets tedious to the publisher who sends out an ezine every week. Fresh, unique ideas are always attractive, and ezine authors don't mind publishing others work, (along with a complete research box, (THIS IS YOUR AD) as well.

If you can learn and excel with this kind of content writing, you can win in two areas. Promoting your own site, or writing content for others site owners and earning dollars as a ghostwriter.

I have been writing and promoting on the web for over 3 years. Here are the tips I find most important to a beginning --article for promoting-- writer.

Articles should be short enough to read in less than 5 minutes.

Ideally they should be between 300 and 600 words (an average page in a printed novel is about 300 words).

Top 10, or 7, (the number isn't that important) Tips on (your subject) are great attention grabbers for articles to promote your website.

Write in short paragraphs, forget what you learned about in English class, if a paragraph is long, find a good point where you can cut it and put an extra line break. Browsing for content, readers are more likely to stick with reading something the eye can easily skim from top to end. (Notice with this article, I have added spaces between each bullet in this list :o)

If your article is long, break it into 2 or 3 parts. For a real web traffic puller, and list building technique, request them to sign up for an autoresponder version to receive 2nd or 3rd part. (be sure to give them opt-out options when you do it this way)

Here is a mistake I see many online authors' making. Don't use huge big vocabulary. You are not writing a thesis, or essay for school. Write so that someone with a 8th grade education could easily read it. Don't try to impress with large vocabulary words, you will lose readers, who feel your writing is condesending to them. (See, how many do you think I may have lost using condesending?

Try to write with passion. Put feeling into your words. Pull in as many of the five senses, experience stories, as you can. For an example of this, read this article. Articles should educate, entertain or inform. Imagine how popular your article will be if it does all three.

Make sure your article is well formatted. You can post it at a site like ezinearticles.com and use their ("get this article page" to get your article in different formats, both text and html.) This sites also allow you to input your own personalized summary, and keywords, which allows webmasters to find them and use them as well.

Set a goal to publish a certain number of articles per week to a certain number of database sites.

It is easy to find sites to submit your articles too. Just go to google, type in articles, then, scroll to the bottom of the page. You will find a button which says, search within results.

With this search button type in "free articles" or "free content" or "free to republish" and you will find several submission sites. You can also type "article submission directories"

I have set a goal to do five things each day toward promotion. Each persons goals will be different, but remember, to be effective you must write new content and promote on a consistent basis.

However, if you have a good article, it will also duplicate itself quickly and spread across the web like a forest fire out of control!

You can optimize your article to get the exact keyword density for search engines, but that could fill another whole article. For your main keyword, try to use it about 7-10 times throughout the whole page.

If your articles aren't getting published very often, or you just want to increase the chances of them being published, then you will benefit from the tips in this article.

1. Article Length

You should always keep you article 500 to 800 words long. If you can't fit what you want to say into that amount of space, then break your article up into more than one part.

2. Resource Box Length

When writing your resource box, keep it 5 to 6 lines long. In a resource box you are simply trying to get people to request more information, not sell them something. If you want a longer ad, buy one!

3. Line Length

The lines in both your article and your resource box should be formatted to 60 to 65 characters per line. One of the consequences of not doing so is that, in some email programs, your article may appear with every line at a different length.

You can get your article formatted, as well as learning its character, line, and word count, at the following website for free. http://www.fwointl.com/FWOFormatter.html

4. Is Your Article Actually An Article?

Publishers want to provide their readers with actually useful information and you should want the same. If you write an article that is just a sales letter or press release it will be rejected 99 percent of the time.

5. Inactive Links

Before you even think about publishing or submitting your article check that all links within it are active and working. Nothing is more irritating than to click on a link for a site you're interested in only to find out that it no longer exists.

6. Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar

If you submit your article and it's full of errors it will be thrown into the trash folder so fast that your head will spin. Submitting articles with these types of errors not only makes you look extremely unprofessional, but it shows disrespect for both the publisher and their readers.

7. S*AM Triggers

As a courtesy, you should run your article through a program that will check it for triggers that could possibly get it rejected by filters. This isn't a necessary step but it will definitely impress publishers and increase the chances of your article being published.

You can check your article for free at http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker.

8. Publisher Guidelines

This should be understood without having to say it, but it is still important enough to mention. Always, always, always follow the publisher's guidelines when submitting an article to them. Not doing so will get your article rejected quicker than anything else.

Read this list, print it out, and keep it by you when you are writing an article. Read each tip and make sure that you are following it.

Making the above mistakes will insult the intelligence of both the publishers and their readers, as well as wasting your time and theirs.