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Writing Articles| Article #170 : ARTICLE WRITING – PART 3

The Second Thing the person reading your article is going to notice is how the article itself begins.

Too many new writers start off with something like…

“This article is about…”

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

First of all, let me tell you about the “this article is about” syndrome. Because so many starting writers use this intro, article directories, especially the good ones, will reject these articles before they ever get past the first sentence. As soon as they see “this article is about” your article is TOAST.

In a word, DON’T DO IT!

Okay, you’re probably thinking, “well if I don’t start out telling people what the article is about, how do I tell them what it’s about?”

Easy.

Let me give you two examples of intro paragraphs. The first one is bad and the second one is good.

BAD

This article is about the dangers of white bread. We’ll show you why white bread is bad for you and what you can eat in place of white bread.

GOOD

When I was young, my mother used to have a saying. "The whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead." At the time, I thought she was just trying to scare the heck out of me. You know how mothers can be. But as I grew up, I began to realize that there was a lot of truth in what she said. Hopefully, this article will alert you to some of the dangers of white bread and why it should be avoided at all costs.

Big difference, right?

See what I’ve done with the second intro paragraph? I’ve started the paragraph with a story and eased my way into talking about what I’d be covering in the article.

Yes, this takes a lot of practice, but after doing enough of these, you will automatically and intuitively begin your articles with intro paragraphs that people will WANT to read.

The Third Thing that readers are going to see is the content of your article itself, provided that they get past the title and the introduction.

Because articles can cover an endless variety of subjects, there’s no way we can possibly cover content in any great detail other than to point out a few things that all articles, regardless of what they are about should have in common with each other IF your sole purpose is to get people to go to your web page to get more information or buy your product. Remember, we’re in this to make money.

So, how do we do that? How do we get a person to read our article all the way through, and yet when they’re done, want them to come to your site for more information?

The answer is simple.

DON’T TELL THEM EVERYTHING!

Now I know you want to impress everybody with your knowledge of the subject at hand, but if you give them an article that reads like a novel, for one thing, they won’t finish it, unless you’re a damn good writer. And if they DO finish it, they’ll feel like they’ve learned everything they need to learn and going to your site will be the LAST thing that they will be doing.

So again, I repeat…

DON’T TELL THEM EVERYTHING!

Also, in regard to your content, make sure you stay on topic. If in your intro you tell them that you are going to talk about the 4 things that you should do when you brush your teeth, then make sure you tell people the 4 things they should do when they brush their teeth. Don’t go off into a tangent about how they should also make sure they spray under their arm pits. It has NOTHING to do with the 4 things they should do when brushing their teeth.

Also, don’t start talking about the history of teeth, or how teeth get decayed or any of that stuff.  If the article is about the 4 things you should do when brushing your teeth…what do you do?

You tell them the 4 things they should do when brushing their teeth.

Okay, got it?

The Last Thing readers will see when reading your article, if they get down this far, is what they call your resource box or author bio.

This is really what I call the bookend of your title.

Why?

Because your title has to get them to want to READ the article.

The resource box, or author bio, has to get them to want to GO TO YOUR WEB PAGE.

If you don’t throw a bio at them that blows them away, they won’t go to your site.

Okay, here’s an example of a bad bio.

BAD

John Doe is a writer of natural health articles. You can find John’s web page at www.johndoe.com.

Yeah, that’s going to really make people go to your site, NOT!

GOOD

John Doe has been a health nut for longer than he can remember. Visit his site today at www.johndoe.com and get your free report on how the drug companies are killing us and get a 52 week series on various natural treatments for a number of ailments.

Think people aren’t going to flock to John’s site to get that free report and 52 week series, especially if they can cure one of their problems?

You bet your last dollar they will.

And that’s basically what you need to know about the do’s and don’ts as far as the structure of your article from title to sign off. There’s more to a good article, obviously, which we will cover in later chapters. But for now, just get this much.

We have a long journey ahead of us.

The fun has just started.

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