Top 7 Tips For Writing Effective Articles and Blog Posts

As someone who has been writing and blogging online since 2003, one of the most important things I have learned is that quality content trumps all. If you are just starting out writing articles online and/or blogging, you will read all kinds of stuff about how to increase page views, reach the first page of Google, and increase your revenue online by adding mass content to your site. This is not true. The BEST way to succeed online is to write quality articles, original content that you produce yourself, not free articles that you find online, not auto blogging, just really good content.

Below is a list of what I consider the seven best tips for writing the best online article or blog post you can produce. If you follow these guidelines for each piece you write online you WILL succeed.

Tip #1–Write Informative Content with Authority.

Unless you are simply blogging for the fun of it or for personal reasons, nobody cares what your dog said or the newest trick your kid performed. Readers of quality blogs visit regularly because they are finding something of value to them. Search engines are the same. If you want to get on the map with your articles and blog post, make sure you are giving visitors what they came for, helpful information, and write from a position of authority. You shouldn’t write an article or blog post about a specific topic unless you are an expert on that topic or you have done diligent research. Believe me, it will show.



Tip #2–Be Yourself

While you do want to offer quality, informative articles and blog post to your readers, you don’t have to write in a dry style. Use your voice, be who you are. This is the secret to truly
successful content. Draw the reader in, converse with them, as if you are speaking to them in real time.

Tip #3–Learn how to use keywords correctly.

If there’s anything I can’t stand when reading content online, it is to find an article or blog post stuffed with keywords. If you don’t know what keywords are, they are the main point of the article, the words you want search engines like Google and Bing to pick up when they crawl your article or blog post.

Here’s a scenario that will explain how keywords work effectively. Say you own a site, or are writing for a client who owns a site, that sells first aid kits. You want to write an article or blog post which engages your reader without being right out obvious that you want them to buy a first aid kit. That would be a sales letter or advertisement. Your article/post will offer them information about first aid kits, the value of them, or a story about them, etc., but you need the keywords, ‘first aid kits‘ to be picked up by search engines, so that when the reader begins searching for first aid kits on Google or Bing, or other search engines, they will find your article.

As you will see in the paragraph above, I have just promoted first aid kits effectively, while teaching you how to use keywords. The density, or number of times the keywords appear in your article, should appear natural, should flow without being obvious that what you are doing is writing a keyword content article. Now, search engines will pick up this blog post for the keywords “first aid kits’, and also for ‘keywords.” I hope this explanation help you better understand the oh so often elusive world of keywords.

Tip #4–Use Images and Links

It’s a fact of our culture that people love pictures. A great way to spice up your blog post and bring attention to it is to use images. Also, if you save the images you find, free ones from places such as Shuttercock.com, or Getty Images, in a file with your keywords as the title, it will bring you lots of search engine traffic.

Links are always good to include in your post, but understand what and why you are linking and make sure the information you are linking to is helpful to your readers. Linking to high traffic sites as references for your readers will also help you gain back links. This is called “Link Bait’ and if done correctly it can really help raise your page rank.

Tip #5–Create Short Paragraphs and Use “More” Function

People’s attention spans are very short these days. Everyone is in a hurry, so you need to write your articles or blog post using short paragraphs and also include a killer first paragraph to hold their attention. When a reader sees a long paragraph their eyes just glaze over and they move on to the next site online.

The MORE function in your blog editor is a great way to be able to fill your page with different articles rather than the whole page being taken up with the text of one or two articles. Just try it out and you will see. It’s simple to use, just start a new paragraph and click on MORE and it will install a break, which will allow the reader to click on the text, “Read the rest of this entry.”

Tip #6–Use Proper Grammar and Punctuation

The smallest details of your content can influence a reader’s perception of your website’s reliability. Consistency in capitalization and the visual treatment of words–how you use such elements as quotation marks, boldface, and italics–contributes to your content’s readability and speeds comprehension. And it does one more thing that’s less tangible but very important: It gives the people visiting your site the understanding that your website takes itself seriously.

Tip #7–Promote Your Article or Blog Post

Never has it been easier to promote online. With tools like Share This, and Ping.fm. with just a click of your mouse you can spread your article or blog post across multiple social networks. Also, using Ezine Articles, adding your articles to Hub Pages, or creating Squidoo lenses from your articles or blog post will assure over a short period of time that your information is easily picked up by search engines. Writing a great article or blog post doesn’t do much good if no one is reading it, so learn how to promote online and use the tools that are available.

I can guarantee with confidence that if you use the 7 tips for writing the best articles or blog posts you will have no trouble becoming an authority in your niche. Just be persistent and consistent and before you know it you will be seeing your stuff on the first page of search engine and getting new traffic everyday!