Practical Tutorial: How to Write High-Quality Articles

practical-tutorial-how-to-write-high-quality-articles

Do you want to learn how to write articles to try your hand at copywriting? Or have you been a copywriter for a long time, but with the receipt of a larger order, say a description of all the features, pros, and cons of the 22Bet portal, you want to improve the quality of your material? Or maybe you need to fill your website or blog with interesting texts? We will tell you about the stages of creating articles, their structure, conditions, as well as share tips on editing text.

After reading this material you will know how to write articles, even if you have never done it before.

How Does Article Writing Work?

Ideally, the author completely writes the text "out of his head," based on his own knowledge and experience. However, this is not always the case. There is such a thing as rewriting. In this rater takes some specific article from the Internet and retells it in his own words, picking up synonyms, swapping places. Such a text will technically be unique, but the benefits for readers will be little because the content of the article completely repeats the text, which has already been published somewhere.

Therefore, the most common method is to combine these two methods: based on materials from several sources, combined with his own thoughts on the topic is written a unique author's text.

At the beginning of the article, the author must think about the idea of the text, clearly understand its purpose. You can write an article based on your interests, but not the fact that this text will interest the visitors. The article should solve the problem of readers or tell them something new, so semantics is more often based on information requests from users, collected with the help of search engines Google or Yahoo.

When writing articles to order is necessary to draw up terms of reference (TOR) - a document that prescribes the subject of the text, for which audience it will be written, its volume in characters without spaces, style of presentation, etc. The TOR contains a list of keywords to be inserted in the text, the desired percentage of uniqueness, the verification service (we will talk about this below), and other technical indicators. The deadline is also determined. It is good if the customer will add to the terms of reference a link to an example of an article he likes. This will make it clearer to you what is expected of you.

But even if you write for yourself, for example, an article for a blog, the ToR will not be superfluous. When you write it, you will better understand what text you want to write.

The Order of Work on the Article

A quality article should be interesting. But the interestingness - a subjective concept, you may object, and you would be right! The same text cannot be equally useful to a teenager and a senior citizen or a novice in a field and a professional.

Hence one of the basic principles of writing articles. At the very beginning of the work you must determine the target audience, that is, take into account gender, age, and level of knowledge in the desired area in your readers, as well as their problems and interests. Good material can not be written "for everyone. For everyone means for no one. It is the target audience that will determine the style of the writing and the depth of the topic.

The next step is to gather information. Before you sit down to write an article, you need to collect data and analyze it. Use only reliable sources to find data: authoritative online publications, official documents, thematic Internet services, and blogs. It is desirable to include confirmed facts in the text.

If you are going to write a long text, it is better to make a plan in advance. The author must decide on the structure of the article: to understand which sections it will consist of, what their approximate size will be, and in what order they should follow. Each of the sections should respond to one specific question posed and disclose it in detail.

This is followed by the writing process itself, after which it is necessary to edit the article and check it against the requirements outlined in the terms of reference. Next, we'll look at these topics in more detail.

Rules for Writing Articles

  • If you are a novice author, choose only those topics in which you are well versed.
  • Do not try to reveal in one article several different topics.
  • Try to present your thoughts in simple language.
  • Do not write long paragraphs - a maximum of 500-600 characters, follow the rhythm of the text - alternate simple short and long complex sentences. Avoid using cliches and clichés, such as "as everyone knows" or "has a place. Avoid repeating the same words in the same paragraph.
  • Separate blocks of text by meaning and use subheadings for each one. When writing an instructional article, list all the steps one by one in the order in which you do them. If it is a compilation article, the meaningful text blocks can usually be placed in any order.

Structure of an Article

Any article consists of a title, an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. The title and first lines are of utmost importance.

Title

The purpose of the headline is to catch the reader's attention. After reading the headline, the visitor should understand what the article is about, become interested in the topic, and immediately start reading the first paragraph. The title should be short, simple, and clear. To make it more catchy, you can use one of such elements as:
  • Question. For example, the headline could be, "Where do I get ideas for articles?"
  • A number. Example: "25 Ways to Find Article Ideas."
  • Amplifiers, that is words that increase the effectiveness of the title. For example, if you title the text "How to write a quality article if you're not a copywriter?", it will attract the attention of someone who is not a professional in writing texts.
Also, to attract a particular group of readers can specify in the title the area of interest of the target audience, mention hobbies, use special terms. For example, an Internet marketer will surely be interested in an article "How to increase the CTR of an ad?", while people who are not in the subject will not pay attention to it.

To optimize and promote the article in search engines, its title should necessarily include the main keywords or phrases.

Introduction

So, the title has prompted the reader to open the article. What next? So that the visitor to your site wants to read the article to the end, it should be fascinating, to begin with.

The first paragraph of the text is called a lead-above. The lead should give the reader an answer to the question, "Why should I read this article?". In this short introduction, you can ask a question about the topic, such as "Do you want to learn how to write articles?" and then reveal the benefits of reading, letting the reader know that he or she will find the answers in the article.

To pique the reader's interest, try starting the article with some unusual fact or tell a story. Life examples work well. Readers like it when the author shares personal experiences. You can also start the article with some quote that is relevant to the topic.

Main Part

In the main part of the author responds to the reader's request, which he came to the site. Break the text into small sections of 3-5 paragraphs. For all sections, think of informative subheadings - they will prompt the reader what each block is about. Include keywords in the subheadings and distribute them evenly throughout the text.
  • Illustrate what you've written with appropriate photos, graphics, and tables. Such elements attract the readers' attention and make the reading more interesting.
  • Use bulleted and numbered lists, they catch the eye, additionally structure the text, they are easy to read.
To draw the reader's attention to some important point, you can make a paragraph as a quote.

To highlight individual words and sentences within a paragraph, format the text in bold or italics. And the same type of elements in the article should be highlighted in the same way. However, it is important not to overdo it - if there is too much emphasis, it will make reading difficult.

For the narrative to be logical and easy to understand, one paragraph should disclose only one idea. No need to try to cover the immensity in a few sentences. Also, make sure that each subsequent sentence is a logical continuation of the previous one.

The Final Part of the Text

It remains to figure out what to write in the conclusion. In the final part of the article you can complete the idea, which sounded in the introduction, thesis repeats the main ideas, remind the reader about the most important points. Try to encourage the reader to use the information, give further instructions, prompt further action. You can wish the visitor success and offer to share the article on social networks.

Keep in mind that you don't have to write the article sequentially, you can start with the block of meaning that you feel comfortable with.

Editing the Text

We figured out how to write an article. But that's only half of it! Before publishing it should be checked for errors and typos. It is better to start editing not immediately. It is desirable, if time permits, to postpone the article for a day or at least for a few hours, and then reread it and make the necessary changes. Such a breather allows you to look at your text with a fresh, unshadowed creative eye.

Even if your literacy is high, check with dictionaries and language reference books when in the slightest doubt.

Those who have trouble with grammar and spelling can use various online services to check your text for errors.

When checking an article, you should pay attention not only to errors. Perhaps when you read it again you will want to cover some point in more detail, or, conversely, you will notice something unnecessary in the text. At this stage, once again assess the structure of the material - the breakdown into paragraphs, the presentation of lists in the form of lists.

Checking the Uniqueness and SEO Analysis of the Text

The position of the site where your article will be located in search results depends on the uniqueness of the text, as well as parameters such as wateriness and spamming. Therefore, the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) should not be underestimated.

Uniqueness

For good indexing of the site in search engines, the uniqueness of the texts should be no lower than 90-95%. In some cases, for example, for highly specialized texts containing professional terms that can not be replaced, allowing the uniqueness of 85%.

Water Content

The text should contain a lot of specifics and a minimum of words and phrases, which do not carry any semantic meaning so that the user could get the answers to his questions by reading the article. Meaningless articles full of "water", the visitor will not finish reading to the end, which will adversely affect the site promotion in search engines.

Spamming

Spaminess (some services use the term "nausea") is the percentage of frequently repeated words or phrases in an article. When writing texts, it is necessary to monitor the number of search keywords, because if there is over-spam, the article is lowered in search results.

The content of spam is expressed as a percentage. The more keywords in the article, the higher is it's spamming.

Conclusion

We figured out how to write high-quality, interesting, and optimized articles. The entire work can be divided into seven stages:
  • First, you choose a topic, determine for whom you will write, and start collecting data.
  • Then you pick up a catchy title, from which the reader will understand how this article will benefit him.
  • Next, think about the structure of the future text, creating an approximate plan.
  • The next step - creating an attention-grabbing introduction, in which you pique the reader's interest.
  • Then proceed to the main part of the text, where you consider in detail the problems and answer the questions posed in the introduction.
  • Now it remains to write the conclusion, in which you draw conclusions or prompt the reader his next steps.
  • In the last step, you check the article for errors, get rid of unnecessary information, and run the text through all the necessary services.
Congratulations! You have finished working on your article and can safely publish it on the Internet.

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