Article writing should be part of your overall marketing strategy, as readers want valuable content and search engines reward those who provide it.  Article writing is not rocket science but there are some missteps often made that reduce both the ability to attract visitors with your articles, as well as the potential to motivate a reader’s actions.

1) Not Focusing On Readers – Understanding the reader’s needs, desires and concerns should be the primary focus of your article writing.  Use survey results, buzz lists, forum queries and search engine keyword research to find out their burning issues.  Then ask yourself the following:

• Is your article too generic to be of real value?
• What benefit will your article offer them?
• What problem will it help them to address or solve?

2) Putting Out Crap – Respect your readers enough to put forth quality work.  Conversational article writing does mean you have license to butcher the English language with grammatical or punctuation errors.  And for heaven’s sake, please use the spell check function.

Sadly, too many IM gurus preach quantity over quality, which is why you will often find articles that appear to have been written by a trained chimpanzee.  This can include articles which are merely rehashed PLR materials or articles written by freelancers who don’t have a good grasp on the English language.

Article spinning and multiple submissions to various directories can give you additional backlinks and the potential for more eyeballs, but if your goal is establish yourself as a leader and authority, then taking these kinds of shortcuts can be counterproductive.

3) The Sales Pitch - Along these same lines is blatant self-promotion within the article itself.  Articles are not sales letters or excuses to embed affiliate links, they are designed to educate readers.  There is nothing wrong with asking for an exchange of value, but you must first provide the value before asking.  The only appropriate place to advertise or ‘pitch’ is the Resource Box and even that should be done judiciously.

So, respect your readers by understanding their needs and putting out quality information.

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If you resonate with this and have some ideas or encouraging words to share, I’d love to hear from you down below. And if you think the people over on Twitter would benefit, a ReTweet is always appreciated too, and if you think your Facebook following would benefit from these words feel free to share them with your friends.

Wishing you prosperity and joy,

Scott

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