If you are using article marketing to help drive traffic to your website you will need to come up with ideas for articles that people will want to publish and read. The quality of articles found on article directories can vary significantly so it is important that yours are among the best available for your article marketing campaign to be successful.
So let's get started. When you are writing a "how to" article remember that you are the teacher so write in an authoritative tone. You are sharing your expertise with someone who may have little knowledge of the subject at hand. So keep your writing style simple and your instructions clear.
Of course, you will have to have a good knowledge of how to do the task yourself before you can think about instructing anyone else how to do it, so stick to what you know. There are many possibilities. If you have experience in networking you could write a 'how to' article on how to set up a router at home, or if you love cars you could write an article on 'how to service your car'. There are endless possibilities for 'how to' articles, in fact you are reading one right now.
Also, you must start at the beginning and work through the task step by step. Sometimes it may be beneficial to use bullet points to help give the impression that it is a step by step process. Alternatively you can link the steps with words like 'next', 'and then' or 'now'. If you are new to writing the bullet points option might be best for you as it keeps things simple, and helps you avoid complex grammatical structures.
As you write, re-read your text every few paragraphs, and try to read it from the reader's point of view, assuming they know nothing about the task at hand. As an expert on the subject it can be too easy to make things over-complex because the task is second nature to you. Try to imagine you are doing it for the first time and instruct the reader accordingly. Going back to our previous example, will the reader actually know what an ethernet cable is, or what a router is for that matter?
If a particular stage in the task is complex you may want to repeat the instruction, or ask the reader to check their progress so they are sure they have followed your instructions successfully.
With longer articles it is important to do this regularly so the reader does not lose track. Summarize what they have done so far, tell them what should have already been achieved and ask them to check that everything is as it should be. If a reader finds that the project does not look like what you have described, they can then retrace the last few steps and see where they went wrong.
If you work through your article in this manner you should be left with a clear, concise 'how to' article that takes the reader through each step of the project to completion. Read it again, at least twice, to make sure that it is well written and that instructions are clear. Wrap up with a concluding paragraph congratulating the reader for a job well done.
And finally, the icing on the cake, the headline. This does not necessarily have to be done at the end. It can be done before you write the article but you may find that headline ideas will come to you as you write your content. Be sure to spend some time perfecting your headline as this can be the difference between the success and failure of your article.
Happy Writing!
