6 Surefire Strategies for Writing Better Articles or Blog Posts
Writing articles and blog posts is one thing. Getting them read is a whole other animal! Here are 5 quick tips for writing better articles and blog posts.
1. Use a Compelling Headline
The headline of the article is arguably more important than the content of the article itself, as long as the content isn’t complete garbage. Keep in mind that some people may only see your headline (people skimming your site, those that see it as an entry in a blog carnival, some people that subscribe to your RSS feed, etc).
You should spend a good bit of time working on your headline, either adapting headlines from other sources known to have great headlines (you ARE keeping a headline cheat sheet aren’t you?) or using copywriting software like Glyphius to come up with better scoring headlines (just Google “glyphius” without the quotes and you should be able to find a reseller – that’s the only way you can purchase it now).
Most likely you’ll use a combination of the two…a cheat sheet to get you started and software (or trial and error) to make the headline even better.
2. Write Using Numbered Lists
The easiest article to write is the “numbered list” article. Simply come up with a list of resources, tips, roadblocks, stumbling blocks, challenges, reasons, secrets, improvements, etc. that apply to your market. Write them down in a list. Then go back and fill in the details for each item. Then add a couple of intro sentences, maybe a call-to-action at the end, spell check and you’re all set.
In addition, you can do a separate article for each item in the list if you have enough info. So if you have 5 killer resources, that can turn into 6 articles (an overview of all the resources, plus an article about each of the five).
3. Write in Short, Easy-to-Read Chunks
Write your article in easy to digest chunks – your readers will love you for it. Having huge fields of text makes reading your article look like it’ll be a lot of work. Your visitors might move on to something else rather than actually trying to read your article. But an article with smaller chunks of info appears easier to read…less work. Chunk your article into smaller pieces.
4. If Your Title is “X # of Ways to _______”, Break Up the Article & Number Each Section
If you write an article titled “3 tips” or “7 useful resources” or some other numbered type article, be sure to actually number the sections of your article or at least separate the different items into sections. There’s nothing more annoying than seeing an article like “25 traffic generation tips” followed by a huge bunch of text all strung together. Lots of people will just want to know what the 25 traffic tips are and if there are any that they’re not using. If they see something new, they’ll go back and read the article in more detail. But if those numbered items aren’t sectioned off or numbered somehow, many people will just skip the whole article and move on to something else.
5. Keep a List of Topics You Come Up With
One of the biggest problems people face when writing articles or blog posts is coming up with ideas for things to write about. Since you never know when you might come across a good idea, it’s best to keep them all in one place when they do come to mind. That way, you’ll build an inventory of blog topics to write about which will hopefully help you overcome that all-too-common writer’s block.
6. Keep an Eye Out for Good Article Ideas You Can Adapt to Your Topic/Expertise
Be sure to keep an eye out for things that help you generate good ideas for articles such as:
- Headlines that give you an idea for a topic
- “Back to Basics” type info that would be good for beginners in your market (or a good refresher for more experienced folks )
- Other articles in your market that can serve as idea generators for your own article or spin on that particular subject
For example, in the online business market, you could easily take the title of this article and reuse it as:
- “## Surefire Strategies for Better Conversions” or
- “…Better AdWords Results” or
- “…Smarter Outsourcing”.
Feel free to do that if you’re so inclined because I’d like to see some ideas for those things. 
4 Responses to “6 Surefire Strategies for Writing Better Articles or Blog Posts”
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Excellent tips, Kenton. I’ve bookmarked this article for frequent reference. Thank you!
Buffy