Write With Clarity

One of the mistakes people often make when writing is being too descriptive. People want you to get to the point and they don’t need to weed through the excess words.

Being overly excessive with words doesn’t make the article more valuable. Whether you’re writing an article, blog post or business email…just get to the point.

I couldn’t have said it any better in this excellent article by Sherice Jacob.

Does Your Writing Suffer from Purple Overload?

3 Key Steps To Article Submitting

As you have read many times why people highly recommend article marketing simply because it works and it’s free!

Before you go submitting to thousands of article directories, here are three key steps to remember.

1. It’s important to read the author’s guidelines and the article directories’ requirements. For example, some article directories expect no less than 400 words and up to 5000 words and some allow up to three links in the resource box and others only two. Be sure to reference the guidelines often as they do change without prior warning.

2. This step is obvious. If you’re happy and accept the article directory’s and author’s guidelines then go ahead and create an account. A lot of people miss this next important step and it’s to fill out your profile. If someone really enjoys your article and want to know more, they will click on your name to read more about you. Don’t lose out on potential customers, sales or connections. Make sure you complete your profile.

3. Now you can submit your article and reap your rewards.

Happy article marketing!

~Sophia

6 Effective Ways To Improve Your Writing

Writing doesn’t come easy to everyone, but I believe everyone can write well when given the proper tools.

Here are six ideas that will help you become a better and more confident writer.

1. Start with your basics and review grammar and punctuation rules. Keep a thesaurus and dictionary close by when you start writing seriously.

2. Start writing. Start a blog and write from thought. Let your ideas flow and don’t worry about the mistakes you’re making while your writing. Just keep the flow going and you can always choose to edit after.

3. Find a writing mentor or someone who will help critique your writing. Someone else who writes will be extra beneficial to you as they will provide the best constructive criticism.

4. Read a variety of material as this will expand your vocabulary and expose you to the different writng styles from different authors. Take the time to read each day for at least one half of an hour.

5. You can find free writing tutorials or worksheets online to help with your writing. You can also look in your local library for books, community colleges, or community centers where they may offer writing workshops or courses.

6. Gather your writing material and your topics and start making an outline of what your topic will be about. You don’t have to do it in one sitting if you can’t, but each day add more to it until you have completed your article.

You can also set up your own writing goals, challenges or writing project to keep you focused and keep you writing because the only way to gain confidence and experience is writing consistently.

~Sophia

Article Writing Tip: Be Concise

There seem to be so many things to remember when you’re writing articles. Keep it simple, don’t use big words, use keywords or keyphrases, watch for spelling and grammatical errors and the list goes on.

Being concise and getting to the point is important to remember. Having a 500+ word article doesn’t mean it’s a better quality article.

One last tip: Don’t confuse your readers. Well executed articles drive the point home.

~Sophia

Writing Masterpieces or Regurgitating Articles?

I’m confident many people would agree with me when I say that article writers who re-hash, regurgitate, re-spin, reword their articles multiple times for submission to article directories is totally worthless.

Seriously I have to wonder why someone would write on the same topic over and over with the same information or ideas? That doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know how many articles I’ve read from one particular author on how to organize your home office. For a moment it was deja vu because the article was the same material.

Yes, I understand people comprehend things differently in different ways, but if you write at an elementary grade level there should be no problems getting the point across in the first place.

How does it make the author look? To me, an author loses credibility. What they say offers no value and their words are meaningless.

Would this be someone you look up to?
To follow in their footsteps?
To be looked upon as a niche leader?

No, no and no.

It’s important to have good quality content attached to your name whether it’s on your website, blog or you’re submitting to article directories.

There’s nothing wrong with rewriting your article for a blog post and vice versa. When I rewrite some of my articles for blog post, I completely rewrite them, but it’s also acceptable to rewrite a few paragraphs.

The main thing here is it’s not okay to rehash and rewrite articles that offers nothing, but the same material and then submit them to article directories.

It’s pointless. It has zero value. It’s worthless.

~Sophia

10 Article Writing Tips For Writing Quality Articles

When asked for article writing tips, you will surely get a variety of answers. One tip is not more important than the other.

In no particular order, here are my 10 tips that will help you with your writing so you can create the best article each and every time.

1. Gather ideas for your topics. Doing a brain dump is good. Just write ideas as they come to mind. You can sort it out by putting them into categories and subcategories; deleting duplicates and so on.

If sitting in your home office is stunting your creative juices, move to another location. Going for a walk outside clears a clogged mind, but at the same time old stuff is filtered out and new ideas are filtered in. Don’t forget to bring something to help you remember your new ideas.

2. Working with an outline will help you stay focused and on the topic. You want to write with clarity and with substance. Don’t get too wordy. Get to the point.

3. Research your topic if necessary. Providing misinformation is poor, unprofessional and you lose believability and credibility.

4. Write with a solution in mind. The reason you write is to inform and to help answer your target audience’s questions.

5. Connect with your audience. People want to hear your voice. Don’t be someone you’re not. You get more respect if you are yourself and you are genuine. One of my favourite quotes comes from John Mason “You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.”

6. Have a beginning, middle and end. Grab your readers’ attention with a mind blowing intro. Okay not mind blowing, but something that will entice them to read and not skim through.

The body is where all the juicy information is and the conclusion nicely sums up the message of the article.

7. Proofread, proofread, proofread. And then proofread again out loud. Get another pair of eyes and have them read through your article with a fine tooth comb. Microsoft Word spell checker doesn’t detect correctly spelled words used incorrectly in a sentence. Read your apostrophes fully to see if it’s (it is) right.

8. Don’t be a perfectionist. It’s okay to fine tune just don’t over tweak, over think and over analyze. The more you edit, the more you lose the core of the article.

9. Write regularly, but not forced or rushed. The latter produces substandard articles.

10. Always have a thesaurus and dictionary close by and use it.

Each time you pick up a pen or start typing in Word, follow these article writing tips to ensure you always create the best quality writing masterpieces.

S McIntyre is the founder of www.WorkAtHomeSpace.com, a free resource focusing on telecommute companies, home businesses and other work at home related topics. Join her on her work at home forums for more article writing tips.