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Article Marketing Advice: Increasing the Readability of Your Articles
Copyright (c) 2008-2010 Hunter Waterhouse
When it comes to writing articles to promote your online business, it's important to consider more than just your marketing goals: it's essential that you also focus on writing articles that people will want to read. In other words, you don't just want to use words; and you don't want to market and sell your business directly. Instead, you want to make an effort to be engaging and influential.
The first tip that will help you to increase the readability of your articles is to write with the reader's concerns in mind. If you are unsure of exactly how to do that, you may want to look into article ghostwriters who understand article marketing and who only focus on writing articles for Internet audiences. When you work with article ghostwriters, you can focus more on your business and know that someone else is working hard on your behalf to write articles that will be read.
Getting The Best Results From Your Article Marketing Campaigns
Still, if you want to keep article writing within your company, rather than outsourcing it, here are some tips for getting more out of your article marketing campaigns:
1. Hook your readers from the start. Article writing is a lot more effective for marketing your business when people will actually read the articles. The best thing that you can do is to catch their interest right away. Your article title will determine if people will open your article, and the first paragraph will ensure that people keep reading the article.
2. Avoid the temptation to overwhelm your readers with a lot of information. Article writing is not about telling the reader everything that there is to know; it's about sticking with a central focus and giving your reader an introduction or overview of the information they want and need to solve their problems. In an article that probably won't be much more than one thousand words, you will never be able to tell the reader everything they need to know to solve a problem, but you can help put your reader on solid footing for moving forward towards a workable solution.
3. Break up information into digestible chunks. Writing articles is about expressing some key points. When it comes to writing articles for the internet, what you are going to find is that many readers skim rather than read your articles. Using numbered lists (like this one) will help you to present your information clearly, and let readers find what they are looking for quickly. Similarly, if you use bullet lists or break up your text with subheadings that are in a larger font and bolded, you can be sure that after reading your article, the article's key points will be easily recalled.
4. When it comes to article writing, particularly when you are working to establish yourself as an expert, it's important to show that you know what you're talking about. A great way of doing that - and to break up the text of your article - is to include quotes from more established experts. If you are writing articles and are more established, you too should quote other sources, possible letting the readers know why you disagree with another writer.
5. Focus on spelling and grammar. Just as someone who is hiring article ghostwriters should take the time to find ghost writing services that are well versed in your point of view, it's also important to be sure that you're writing in the native language of your target audience. American English is different from that spoken and written in England and India. Paying attention to your spelling and grammar shows that you care about what you are saying and that you are a professional.
A good example of the difference between the usage rules in British English and American English is the story of Paul Marshall from Dallas, Texas. When Paul was running his mortgage business, he had hired some Indian writers to develop content for his website. When he received the copy from his ghostwriters, the copy used the word "mortgage scheme" in the text eleven times. Paul was pissed, as you might well imagine. In British English, "scheme" does not carry any negative connotation. Yet, as you may well realize, "scheme" in American English is one of the most negative words that can be applied to any business model. It denotes "dishonesty" and "fraud" in American English. His Indian writers could not understand his anger with their choice of words, but you can understand his anger.
Professionalism In The Article Writing Process
Professionalism, unfortunately, is frequently overlooked when it comes to article writing. Great writing flows, not just for the writer whose aim is to get the words and message out, but also for the readers who are consuming the information.
Because of this, one key element of an effective article is not the writing itself: it is the readability of that article. Take the time to look at the articles that grab your attention and jot a few notes about each of them. Specifically, focus on the following:
How did the writer grab your attention (or, if you weren't interested in the first paragraph, what turned you off?
What sort of spacing did the writer use in the article?
What did you come away with after reading the article? In other words, what were the key points of the article?
Writing articles is neither purely science nor purely art – at its best; it is a good combination of the two. A great article focuses on a key issue, isn't stuffed with keywords (you do want search engines to find the article, but too many keywords in an article takes away from readability), and is as easy to skim, as it is to read.
When all is said and done, an article that gets read in its entirety will carry the reader to the Author's Bio at the end of the article. Ideally, the reader will read the entire article and feel a desire to visit the author's website to learn more about the writer of the article. It is article marketing at its best, when the reader likes the article enough to click on the link in the Author's Bio and visit the author's website to learn more about what the author is offering.
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Hunter Waterhouse has been ghostwriting and building websites
since 1999. He is ready, willing, and able to put his experience to work for Main Street Businesses that seek to generate walk-in traffic to their stores, from the online exposure of their business. To learn more about how Hunter can help your offline business, by marketing local businesses visit his website: http://onlinemarketinglocal.com/local-services/
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Top-Level Category: Business Online Articles || Related Categories: Writing and Speaking Articles
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