Good Organization Could Help You Write Your Article
At some point in your Internet Marketing endeavors you will be writing some articles. You might start off by writing a blog post, then it could be writing an article for an article directory and it could escalate into writing a short report that you might be doing for your new product. For whatever the reason there must be some type of organization before you get started. That organization will make it a lot easier to get started and will probably speed up the process and get it done faster.
Yes, it could depend a bit on your writing abilities, but no need to make the process any harder. There will be that need to concentrate on the task at hand, so get yourself prepared. If this will involve you only having a short period of time without any interruption, realize that you will probably not be able to complete the whole thing in one sitting. Use that time to plan out what you are going to write about, be it for that blog, article post or report. If you find yourself short of time pull up some links that may be of assistance to you later on. Go ahead and paste it on your outline page and then save it so you can save yourself some time when you return to complete the project.
Also, think about these questions to ask yourself before you start writing:
What will I actually need and why?
- Maybe some articles for article directories for some traffic.
- How about some articles for affiliates to use.
- Don’t forget those blog post to showcase your own products.
- That short report you will use to as a giveaway product to collect email addresses.
- And an ebook to go along with that new video product.
What will be your message and area of focus? (Would be good to know before you start writing)
How about that tool that will help you with xyz.
These are the results of your survey and this is what they mean.
This ebook sums up what you were saying in the videos.
This is a product I have reviewed and this is why I think it will help you.
Okay we are ready, here are your steps to writing:
1. Idea – This is your what, why, message and focus (see above).
2. Outline – A short outline listing 3 (or so) main points you would like to make.
3. Expand outline – each main point will have sub-points or explanations. Explain each one of those and you will have your main content.
4. Research – Try looking online using keywords, and offline in magazines or books. Hey, try the library!
5. Write introduction/body/conclusion/bio- You already wrote the body with the help of the expanded outline, now write the rest.
A good idea is to organize folders on your computer or external drive to keep your writing in – maybe by topic or project. For example, if you are writing articles about dogs for an article directory, put it in a folder entitled “Dogs” or your website name “DogsRMe” or your product folder “Dog Training Is For The Birds”. Be sure to note what you do with the article each time you use it. You think you will remember, but you won’t once you’ve written a number of articles and have them in a number of places, believe I know from personal experience, so type it in red at the top of the article.
My friend Doug Champigny understands the process and the problems associated with article marketing. His eBook “Beginners’ Key To…Understanding Article Marketing” will “Increase Your Web Site Traffic, Explode Your Opt-In List Building, Brand Yourself An Expert & Skyrocket Your Profits By Article Marketing Correctly!” If you find yourself having problems give it a try. it might help you through the rough spots.
Remember, writing articles, blog posts, reports, and/or eBooks is a part of marketing on the internet. If you get organized before you begin to write will make the whole process go quickly and painlessly.
And by the way, I am a paid affiliate so if you should purchase this product I do say I deserve a commission.
My favorite tool for organizing my thoughts for articles is free mind.
I can map it out and once that is done the writing is easy.
Great post, Andre, and thanks for the shout-out about my book!
Article marketing is the one technology that has worked since the dawn of the web and continues strong to this day, because it directly fills the need that brings most people online – the search for information, for answers.
When distributing your articles, don’t forget to make Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages and Google Knols from them too – there’s no denying the power of the big Web 2.0 sites!
Some really good tips and steps to article writing.
This is definitely one of my week points and do appreciate a good planning tool when I see it.
I will refer back to this post when I start writing my next article.
You bring up a good point, that you need to know how your article will be used before writing it. If you want to use it for SEO purposes, then you need to write it differently than if it is for email use.
Andre, Good post. I like the questions you posed to ask yourself before you start. You are right that getting organized can help you with your article writing. That’s also true for most any thing that we try to do.