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Guide to write good articles

Probably everybody is able to write an article, but not every article automatically receives huge response. Often bloggers and webmasters invest much time to write their articles and at the end, many make the experience that only some visitors show up.

I was asked by others, how to write good articles and I asked myself, how to do this and tried to create a scheme to provide an answer.

How to write a good article or blog?

Many people make the mistake just to start writing something, without even thinking for whom they write.

The Target Group (audience)

At the beginning of every article or blog, an author has to think critically about the target group and ask himself a few questions.

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• Who is the target group?
• In which topics is the target group interested?
• What does the target group expect from an article?

Although the questions may sound trivial, they are really tough. If you wish to reach an audience, then it will be required to do research, in order to find out in which topics most people are interested.

Only if you know this, then you can be able to select a suitable topic, in order to write an article that will receive many visitors.

The Headline

Once you have identified a target group and a suitable topic, you should spend some time to think about a good headline. Already the headline will influence, how many people will read your article.

It should reflect the main content of the article that you wish to write, preferably in a way that it attracts readers. In some cases a provocative headline may help to catch attention.
Nevertheless to be successful with an article or blog, it is required also to attract visitors from search engines. Therefore a headline always should contain important keywords as part of effective SEO.

The Category

Every time you start a new article, you should choose a category for your article. Make sure that the category fits best to the topic of your article.

The Tags

Beside the category, you also can choose tags (keywords) for your article. These should describe best the topic and content of your article.

Again think about your target group. What kind of expressions will they use to find an article dealing with the topic of your article?

Like the headline, the tags will influence drastically, how many people will find and visit your article. The tags have enormous influence, how many people will find it in search engines.

To strengthen, with view to SEO, your headline, try to use one main keyword in the headline and tags as well.

Do not spam tags that do not reflect the content of your article. Only select those that are suitable for the topic and content of your article.

The Structure

The previous points dealt mainly with the basic creation of an article to route target group visitors to your article or blog. Unfortunately not every visitor will also be an active reader.

Often in the first seconds a visitor will decide to leave or continue reading.

A good structure can help to make an article more attractive. Create a small introduction text addressing to the target group, in order that they know what the article is about.

Create a few headlines that match with the topic, in order to provide a quick overview for visitors. Again think about your target group, what are they searching?
In addition also have SEO in mind. With some headlines inside your article, that cover your tags, it will help to gain importance in search engines, because the search engine robots will recognize it, when the site is crawled.

Many website editors provide the ability to select different capsules, which you can use to provide a good first impression to visitors. I can only advise always to have one photo inside an article that is somehow attractive and related to the topic.

The Content

Finally after having created the structure, you can start to fill each section of your article and begin writing.

Although I am repeating myself, think about your target group. Are they expecting a narration or do they search explanations or even education, how to achieve or do something?

From my personal experience, articles, which are explaining something, have always good chances to receive positive feedback.

Share valuable information with your readers and they will read your articles till the end.

Avoid writing negative articles, instead always try to write from a positive point of view.

Design your content in away, that it reflects your chosen headline(s) and tags. Only if the content matches with them, search engines will identify it as relevant.

Choice of Words

Each target group may prefer a different choice of words. For instance, if you write for managers, then you probably have to use many academic expressions to meet their expectations.

Well, if you write for people without academic education, then you probably will have to write in a very simple way, in order to make it understandable for everybody.

It will literally depend on your target group, how you will have to write.

Take into consideration to make use of some positive words like success, winner, etc.

Typography

Nearly all editors provide you a few options to highlight parts of your article in different ways.

Not only the structure with different headlines and capsule, but also the use of other typographic elements can help to design an attractive article.

Always have in mind that all visitors decide in the first seconds, if they will leave or continue to read. Therefore the appearance of an article has huge influence on your success as writer.

How to promote an article?

To become a successful writer, it is often not enough just to write a good article. The difficulty is always to bring visitors to your website or blog.

Certainly a good article by time will automatically receive traffic, but if you are actively promoting an article, then an article will receive much more visitors and readers.

A simple way, to increase the traffic, is to use social bookmark sites and to socialize within social networks with other members. Generally the more people you know, the more people will tend to read your articles and the more will set links to your articles.

Why sharing is so important?

Sharing automatically will generate traffic from other websites. Well, but that is not the big deal, except you really have found a topic that attracts a large target group.

More important is, that an article receives many links from other sites, in order to show search engine robots that your article is important.

Articles and blogs with many incoming links from valuable websites will be recognized as very important and as consequence will be listed better in search engines.

A better position in search engines then will route more visitors to your articles. If you have written a good article, automatically many people will read your article and may in addition refer it to other sites that again will improve the traffic.