There is a large number of reasons for people writing articles, and if you do it properly, you will generally achieve what you intended to by writing yours. Online, that will usually be to advertise a product or market a website. However, it is the ‘doing it well’ that is the problem for most people, and no matter how hard you try or how good a writer you believe yourself to be, internet article writing is more than simply putting a few words together in a sensible way.

However, you will have to stand back and take a long look at what you are trying to achieve with the articles before you try to use them promote your website or products. Prior to beginning your article you should have a clear idea of what your objective is. When writing articles for ezines or article directory submissions, keep in mind that you won’t normally be allowed to provide links to your website or even to actively promote your products.

To be successful, therefore, you must be able to persuade your readers to visit your website – the site that you list in the ‘author’s resource’ section of your article that normally appears at the end of it. Nobody will click on that link unless they believe that:

a) You really know what you are talking about and can help them with their problems or answer their questions, or b) They believe that your website is going to give them the extra information they are seeking.

Just as with any other skill, you have to learn how to write articles effectively – it is not a skill that ‘comes ‘naturally’, and even good fiction novelists don’t understand the concepts involved. Writing articles in the world of internet marketing is a totally different skill to writing professionally for public consumption. The use of language is different, and the semantic approach to content is totally divorced from the type of writing of which Tom Clancy or Agatha Christie were masters.

That is what you have to learn: article writing skills, and the effective writing of articles intended both for submission to directories and for publishing on your own site. In fact, it is possible for your article to appear as content on a number of other websites! If you don’t understand what I mean by that, then you still have a lot to learn about writing articles to ensure your online success.

It is well beyond the scope of this article to teach how to write articles to meet Google’s needs, and to enable them to act as adverts for your websites, products and services. Google is specifically mentioned, because that is by far the biggest search engine online and many others employ Google’s standards and techniques – even, in some cases, their search results.

Google appear to have taken a positive attitiude to articles published on directories, even to the extend of apparently delaying the duplicate content penalty for articles published on multiple directories. Even duplicate content between a number of article directories appears to take a long time to be noticed by Google.

Having learned how to write articles effectively, and having gained the article writing abilities that you will need to effectively market your site and product online, then you will have gained a skill that will enable you to attain high listings for your websites that will not only attract masses of free traffic, but also provide with exposure that no other means of advertising could possible achieve for you.

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People write articles for a large number of reasons and those that do it well will generally achieve what they set out to achieve. In the world of internet marketing this will normally be to market or advertise a website or product. However, it is the ‘doing it well’ that is the problem for most people, and no matter how hard you try or how good a writer you believe yourself to be, internet article writing is more than simply putting a few words together in a sensible way.

However, before you think of using articles to promote or try to sell your products, or even attract visitors to your websites, you will have to stand back a bit and consider what it is you are doing, and what the purpose of the article is. Before you start writing you need a clear idea in your head of your objective. If you are writing an article for submission to article directories and ezines, you will not generally be permitted to promote any specific product, or provide a link to your website in the body of the article.

Your success, therefore, depends upon your ability to persuade readers to visit the website for which you provide a link in the ‘author’s resource’ that generally appears at the end of your article. Nobody will click on that link unless they believe that:

a) You really know what you are talking about and can help them with their problems or answer their questions, or
b) They believe that your website is going to give them the extra information they are seeking.

Like any other skill, knowing how to write articles effectively has to be learned – it doesn’t ‘come naturally’, and even the best novelists have no idea what is needed. Writing articles in the world of internet marketing is a totally different skill to writing professionally for public consumption. The use of language is different, and the semantic approach to content is totally divorced from the type of writing of which Tom Clancy or Agatha Christie were masters.

That is what you have to learn: article writing skills, and how to write articles effectively for submission to article directories and for content on your own website. In fact, your article could end up as content on somebody else’s website, and how cool is that! If you don’t understand what I mean by that, then you still have a lot to learn about writing articles to ensure your online success.

It is well beyond the scope of this article to teach how to write articles to meet Google’s needs, and to enable them to act as adverts for your websites, products and services. I mention Google specifically since it is by far the largest search engine on the internet, and most of the others use Google’s standards and methods of assessing web pages for publication in its listings.

In fact, Google have taken a very positive attitude to articles that are well written and used both as website content and published on article directories. Even duplicate content between a number of article directories appears to take a long time to be noticed by Google.

Once you have learned how to write articles effectively, and have the article writing skills needed for effective internet and article marketing, then you will have a tool in your hands that you will be able to use again and again to force your websites up the listings, attract masses of traffic and provide you with results that no other form of advertising could approach with the results you will achieve.

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Suddenly everyone wants to be writing articles. Hundreds of wannabe authors are writing articles and flooding the article directories with items they have specially written for publicity purposes. Many Internet marketers are writing articles to a high standard but there are plenty of others who are churning out poorly written articles or ones that are no more than thinly disguised advertisements for their affiliate programme. I recently saw an article that claimed to be original but where the “author” had taken someone else’s article and added a paragraph or two before putting his own copyright on it. It got published with the result that there are additional links back to his website and that’s all he cares about. Prosecution for copyright infringement is unlikely as this article will quickly get lost in the growing crowd.

All sorts of liberties are being taken in the name of writing articles, but does it matter? I am sorry to say the answer is no: as far as writing articles is concerned, anything goes. If you are writing articles to advertise your website, you can get away with poor spelling, bad grammar and boring subject matter. You can get away with plagiarism and even with cheating by having a robot writing articles for you. About the only thing you are not allowed to do when writing articles is use obscenities or incite people to violence. The torture of the English language is, however, widely condoned.

This situation makes me sad because I love reading and I just can’t help writing. I am not alone in writing articles because of an inner compulsion. If you have read John Colanzi’s article, My Magnificent Obsession, where he says, “It didn’t matter who read my writings. I was doing it for me. I had to keep writing”, you will realise that I am not the only writing junkie on the Internet. If you have never read this article, you can find it at my website; John Colanzi is one of my favourite Internet writers (one reason for this being that he is does not take himself too seriously).

The idea of writing articles for the sole purpose of advertising depresses me, it makes me feel that writing is being devalued. Please don’t think I’m saying the fact that I can’t help writing articles makes me superior, I don’t feel that way at all. Being a word addict is no more a matter of talent or education than being a drug addict or an alcoholic. An Internet marketer who is writing articles with his mind more on his resource box than his topic has just as much right to have his work published as anyone else. What I am saying is that this great stampede to be writing articles is causing our standards to be lowered so that we now accept spelling and grammatical errors as the norm and cheating at writing articles as acceptable business practice. Our unresisting acceptance of the lowest common denominator as our benchmark is the aspect of the writing articles craze that I detest.

This lowering of standards in regard to writing articles does, however, have a positive effect in that a level playing field is being established for Internet marketers who are writing articles for publication. Lack of writing skills or the fact that English is not their first language need no longer deter Internet marketers from writing articles. If the current craze continues perhaps the article writing practise will result in an improvement to writing skills which would not otherwise have happened. Maybe writing articles will turn out to be the antidote to txt type spelling and that is definitely a good thing.

When writing articles offline, the author’s intention will be to communicate with potential readers but when writing articles for the Internet, the author’s aim is to attract the attention of the search engines. Writing articles for Internet publicity purposes is tackled in an entirely different way from writing articles for offline use. When you are writing articles for the Internet, the most important thing is to include hot keywords in your article. The best way to start is to identify a popular keyword or two and build an article around them. As long as you choose your keywords wisely and repeat them frequently enough, the quality of the prose surrounding them is of little importance. Writing articles for Internet publicity is more of a mathematical exercise than anything to do with language skills. This is not as strange as it might at first seem: after all, Googlebot is a robot, not a literary critic.

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I know that we are in the computer age, but writing is still one of the greatest means of expressing and expanding our thoughts and ideas so that others can be taught, instructed and enlighten. It doesn’t matter if you prefer pen and paper, blackberries, palm pilots or laptops; writing is the birth canal for ideas that would other wise remain aloof dreams.

I want to give you the “Top 20 Reasons” why I believe that every pastor and minister should consider writing. I’m not asking you to start out by writing a 200 page book; that will come! I just want you to start getting your feet wet by writing 700 to 1000 word articles. I know it may sound hard, but the key is to write about subjects that you are interested in! When you really set your mind to write thoughts expand as you stretch the creative potential of your cognitive thinking.

In giving you my “Top 20 Reasons Why Pastors Should Write Articles” I will also give you a tip I have used to write hundreds of articles over the years. It is very simple, just find a subject that you’re interested in and make a list! This list may be 10, 20 or 100 things related to your topic of interest. Believe me; if you’re really interested in a subject you will not have any problem making a list of at least 10 subtopics (could expand into 10 separate small articles). You then use this list like and outline to begin the writing process.

Do I have to be a great speller? Do I have to use $100 words? Do I have to have a perfect understanding of grammar? The answer to any of the questions that people use not to write is NO! I’m not a great speller at all!!!! I still make many mistakes. However, I’m not willing to allow that to be a reason for me to stop doing what I love; writing! The more you write the more you will want to write and the better you will get!

OK, here we go.

1. You should write articles because no one can say it like you do!

2. Article writing helps you to expand your thoughts and ideas from intangible to three-dimensional.

3. Article writing stimulates new ideas and thoughts for sermons.

4. Articles uploaded to the internet can allow you to minister to people you will never meet who may not be willing to listen to a ministry audio or DVD.

5. You should write articles because you can use a collection of related topics to create training manuals or devotionals.

6. You should write articles because you can use a collection of related topics as the ground work for future books.

7. You should write articles because everyone is not willing to read entire books.

8. Article writing can brand you as an expert on particular topics.

9. Article writing will cause you to be a more prolific speaker.

10. Article writing has the capacity to give your presentations and sermons more content.

11. You should write articles because the study and preparation will broaden the area of your expertise on a given subject.

12. Article writing helps you develop another tool for not only casting but also expanding your ministry vision.

13. Article writing causes you to be more articulate when it comes to verbally casting your ministry vision.

14. Article writing causes you to be more likely to act on your own thoughts and ideas that will lead you to success.

15. Some people are motivated by visional and not audible information.

16. Articles solidify your thoughts for the next generation.

17. Articles are easily and inexpensively reproduced and can be given away during your speaking engagements; with information about your ministry and website.

18. A collection of related articles can be used as a manuscript for a great audio program that can be produced and burned to CD right from your home computer.

19. Online articles have the potential of taking your teaching to tens of thousands of people.

20. Online articles are great drawing cards that will influence people to come and return to your ministry website.

Application:

1. Make a list of 5 topics that you’re familiar with.

2. Decide which topic you’re most interested in.

3. Rank your topics from 1 to 5 with 1 being most interested.

4. Over the next few days brainstorm and write 10 subtopics for each main topic.

You now have an outline for at least 30 or more articles. So what are you waiting for! Get started! Hey, tell another pastor about this article! Thanks!

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THE WRITER’S ADVISOR: A GUIDE TO BOOKS AND ARTICLES ABOUT WRITING NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, POETRY, DRAMATIC SCRIPTS, SCREENPLAYS, MAGAZINE ARTICLES, BIOGRAPHIES, TECHNICAL ARTICLES AND BOOKS, AS WELL AS A GUIDE TO INFORMATION ABOUT LITERARY AGENTS, MARKETING, AND A WIDE RANGE OF LEGAL AND BUSINESS MATERIALS OF INTEREST TO FULL- AND PART-TIME WRITERS.

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Presenting your content in a fashion that is easy for people to follow encourages them to continue reading through the entire article. When you spend the time to write an article there is no greater compliment than to have readers read it completely.

So now we want to review in 7 steps how to learn to write articles in a format that will appeal to your readers:

Pick Your Subject

Your article content should usually be related to the topic of your blog or website. Try to choose a subject that is ‘hot’ and current within the circles of your niche. When you write an article you always want it to be relevant and current so a quick review of recent events is a good start for writing ideas.

Develop Your Ideas

After narrowing down your writing ideas into one topic you’ll want to next consider possible sub-topics around which you can base your list. Remember you’re just coming up with a list of topics here so there’s no need to write complete thoughts or paragraphs at this point.

Determine the Length of Your List

Ok you’ve developed a sizable list of sub-topics to work with so now you want to decide the length of the list you’ll use for your article.

In choosing a list length it is recommended to pick odd numbers such as 3, 5, 7, or even 10. An article such as ‘The Top 10 Reasons…” or perhaps “5 Primary Causes of …” seem to catch a readers eye more easily. For undermined reasons readers seem to prefer list that are of these lengths!

Select Your Best Ideas

When reviewing the sub-topics you’ve developed for your article you’ll want to choose, obviously, your ‘best’ topics for inclusion on your list. Enough said here.

Logically Arrange Your Ideas

When writing for your readers you want your content to flow in an organized manner that makes sense. The same goes for the order in which you list your sub-topics. You want your list to reflect some logical pattern making it easier for the reader to follow so keep this in mind as you arrange this list.

Compose an Introduction and Conclusion

This should be relatively easy to do at this point since you already have put together the content of your article. These may be the only areas of your entire article where your writing skills are put to the test
In your intro just briefly discuss the reason for your list and how it will help the reader.

Your conclusion will simply state what your list just covered and how it will help your reader if they act upon your suggestions.

Effective writing always lets the reader know what they are about to read in the introduction and then what it is they have read in the conclusion.

Develop a Catchy Title

With an article using a list format it is not too difficult to develop an eye catching title. Just including the number on the list and stating the benefit of the list itself within your title will catch a readers’ eye.

For instance you have of list of 10 home remedies for poison ivy well there you go:

“10 Ways to Cure Your Poison Ivy at Home” or “10 Remedies that Will Stop Poison Ivy and Cut Medical Costs”.   

Knowing how to write articles using a list format will not only win the appeal of your reader but also make your article writing much easier. It is to your advantage and to the benefit of your readers to learn to write articles with this type of format. You will find your article writing is now less a chore while people will find reading them more enjoyable. Everybody wins!

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