Tips on How You Can Write Really Great Articles

by Dave Cole

Published on this site: September 13th, 2005 - See more articles from this month

Do you know how to write really great articles? Here's some quick tips and pointers so you can write great article content that will get published.

We see a lot of articles pass across our desk every day, usually between 100 to 150 or more. Far too many of these articles have common faults, which unfortunately could be easily corrected.

Here's some handy tips and pointers to help your articles get published quicker and easier.

1. Format your articles to 60 characters per line.
   
   Nothing gets an article thrown out faster on our end than an article that is un-formatted with the sentence length totally choppy.
   
   
2. Use Spell Check Every Time. Duuuuh
   
   That should be obvious, but believe it or not, at least 50% of the articles we publish on our site need spelling errors corrected.
   
   
3. Keep your signature box to 5 - 8 lines including url.
   
   Keep it simple, clear, to the point, and give the reader a big benefit on why they should follow your link.....What's in it for them.
   
   No one really gives jack about you or what you do, they only care about what's in it for them.
   
   The resource box or sig file should be a natural follow up asking for the reader to take action after reading your article. Your article should be leading up to that action you want the reader to take.
   
   In the resource box there is no need to put: About the Author. Do begin your article with the tile and then put.... By: Your name
   
   
4. Capitalize all proper names.
   
   How simple is that, yet too many authors lower case their own names or names of places, etc.
   
   
5. Here's a big mistake of many authors:
   
   make sure you put the apostrophe in words like don't, what's, isn't, i've, that's, etc. Spell check picks these up so make your spelling correct.
   
   Note: Why use spell check?
   
   Because if it isn't happening now, it will happen, the search engines spell check content and will reduce your ranking for content that has a certain number of grammatical or spelling errors. These errors only show that a web master isn't really concerned about the reader's experience, they are only concerned with having web pages listed.
   
   So Use Spell Check every time.
   
   
6. When using words like humor, favor, etc.
   
   don't put them in as humour, favour and so on. Drop the u even if you are writing from Europe. Spell check flags these as mistakes.
   
   
7. Recognize, criticize, etc. are spelled with a z and not an s.
   
   This is one of the most common spelling mistakes we get. Practice is spelled with a c not an s.
   
   
8. Make your headline compelling, attractive, to the point, exactly what the article is about. If no one reads the headline, no one will even look at the rest of the article. Make your headline a maximum of 60 characters.
   
   If the article is about one main topic, use the keyword twice if possible. If the article is about a couple of different related things, use two or three main keywords in the title if possible, and definitely in the first sentence or two.
   
   If someone can't get a good idea of what your article is about in the first two or three paragraphs, then re-write it.
   
   
9. One url in the sig box only.
   
   That's enough. We get articles with 5 or more links in the sig box, plus links in the content. Forget it, they won't get published on our site. We don't publish advertisements, we publish content. Too many off site links detract significantly from page rank.
   
   Besides you're way further ahead to give the reader one simple choice to follow with a clear cut benefit on that link than giving them 5 or 6 choices to make.
   
   Don't your url in parenthesis or put punctuation marksdirectly after the url. Put at least one space beforeand after the url.
   
   
10. Here's another common error: using s in place of z in words like recognize, realize.
    
    
11. Make your paragraphs 5 - 10 lines max. We get articles that are 20 or more lines in length. It makes for hard reading. Make the paragraphs simple and easy to read.
    
    If the paragraphs have to be long, double space between them.
    
    
12. Keep your articles to a max of 700 words.
    
    Attention span is short on the net. Get to the point and make your article about one main point only, don't split the article up into 2 or more main topics. You're better off to write two or three smaller articles than one big one.
    
    
13. Make sure the link in your article is active, meaning it actually goes to a real web page and doesn't give a 404 error. Another tip: when you say you are going to give the reader something like an ebook or other promotional item, make sure you actually do and keep that page active forever.
    
    Your links are going to stay active on publishing sites for years, so keep your pages active. We use a link checker on our published articles and if the link fails, then your link doesn't get made hot or click able.
    
    
14. Proof Read Your Article before sending it!
    
    It's your reputation you are sending out there, make it as sterling as you possibly can.

Dave Cole Now you can get your article published in our Exclusive directory where we provide high quality content. Your article will rank high in search engines because of our linking technique which means lot's of exposure for you and your articles.Find out how you can get your content published here:
http://choosetoprosper.com/free-reprint-article.html