Writing for Readers and for Webmasters
Lesson 11 from You Can Make Money Writing
Hopefully you are writing on topics that interest you. In
my experience, this is more profitable. Not only is the writing
usually better, but it is much easier to stay motivated. Of course,
you also want to be writing for readers, keeping the articles
interesting and useful. In addition to that consideration though,
there is another with articles meant to be distributed online:
you have to write for webmasters.
Writing for Readers
What makes you read an article? You may not have thought about
this, but you should, if you want to write articles that get
read. In fact, you may want to go browse the articles at any
article directory, and see which ones get your attention and
hold it - then think about why. Here are some of the things that
will get people to read your article...
1. They can find it.
An obvious first requirement. This is why you have to use
the words they use - the right keywords. That's how search engines
work, right? Of course, it also helps to have your articles in
the more popular article directories. If you are submitting to
specialty directories, it helps to have them in the most relevant
ones, of course.
2. The title catches their attention.
There are many ways to accomplish this, as discussed in a
previous lesson. Here are a few more words that seem to grab
attention:
Simple
Easy
Ways to
How to
Secrets
Tips
Why
Try
You
Your
Mistakes
Important
Titles that are questions work well too. Again, try to look
at it as a first-time reader and see if it catches your eye.
A more objective assessment may come from an honest friend.
Here's another trick to try: copy twenty titles of articles from
a directory - all on the same general subject - and put yours
in the list. Then ask someone to pick out the three that sound
most interesting to them. Yours should be one of them if you're
getting good at this.
3. The article description tells the reader what's in it
for them.
Why should they read this article? What will they get out
of it? Show them that in the description. More than just saying,
"This is what the article is about," you also want
to say, "This is why you'll want to read it."
4. The writing is easy on the eyes.
No large chunks of undivided sentences, and no sentences that
seem to go on and on forever, with more words than are necessary
to make the point, and without any good reason to be so long
and which could have been easily been cut into several easier-to-read
sentences that would have been much more relaxing to read - in
other words, no sentences like this one. Oh, and short concise
paragraphs.
5. The article is truly interesting, entertaining or useful.
Sometimes you might get all three in there, but at the very
least, have at least one of these. I like to aim for having at
least one useful idea, or one bit of information that I can safely
assume the average reader won't know until they read my article.
If you can't get either of these values in there, hopefully you
are funny or otherwise entertaining.
6. The language is easy.
I consider the evidence incontrovertible that pretentiousness
in the elucidation of your information makes the loss of the
reader ineluctable.
On the other hand, you can say anything you want with simple
words like the ones in this sentence, and no reader will stop
reading a good article just because you choose to use simple
language.
Play the odds - keep it simple!
7. Your writing delivers as promised.
In other words, if your article description tells them they
can make their own fishing pole using simple techniques, don't
give them an article about buying the best pole. If the title
has the word "secrets" in it ("10 Secrets Of..."),
be sure that at least some of the content is likely to be new
to the average reader. Lose the trust of those readers and they
won't finish the article or come to your site.
8. They can easily see where to go for more information.
Your thirteen PhDs and many other accomplishments are probably
not impressing them (okay, even I might be impressed by 13 PhDs).
Make sure the resource box clearly guides the reader to your
site and tells them what they will find there. This is the point
of the article - to create a visitor out of a reader.
Continues here... Writing
for Websites
Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money
Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters
on the home page.
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