Article Writing for Beginners
Does the thought of writing articles that millions of people could read over the Internet intimidate you? If your answer was ‘yes’, then I can assure you, you have lots of company.
There are a few things that hold people back from attempting to write articles. To begin with, they are unsure about the subject matter they should write about. If a person is writing purely for pleasure, then he would write about things he felt strongly about and that he had some expertise in. However, many people wish to have their articles published to help them generate leads for their business. That being the case, they would want their article to be able to relate back to that business.
A stumbling block for many is the feeling that they just don’t have enough material. This is probably the easiest hurdle to overcome. If you just Google search your subject, you will come up with thousands of postings dealing with that very subject. I suggest you read quite a few of these postings to get a general idea as to where you would like to go with your particular article. A word of warning here though…..it goes without saying, that you would not copy another persons material.
There is absolutely nothing new under the sun! Everything has been written about before. Nobody holds a patent on their thoughts and ideas, so you can get as many ideas from other people as you think you need. We all have our own way of expressing ourselves so even though the ideas might be the same, each piece of writing will be unique. The very things I am writing here in this article have been written numerous times before, but no one has said them in exactly the same way as I have. You will be well on your way to producing articles when you get over this stumbling block.
It is recommended that an article be between 400 – 600 words. This is certainly nothing like trying to write a book. Perhaps you could compare it to writing just one page of a book! I can assure you that you will not get writers block while writing 400 – 600 words. In fact, you might find yourself trying to cut the article back somewhat, because it went too long.
You want to really grab your reader’s attention in the very first paragraph. Of course you will want to have good content throughout the article but your first and last paragraphs are crucial. Sometimes the reader will scan through the middle portion of the article, but that is not always the case. That last paragraph has to wrap everything up neatly for them. You want your personality to show in your writing so I suggest you write as you speak. Some people who do not want to write their own articles outsource them. However, it is very difficult for a cohesive personality to shine through when your articles are written by numerous people.
The rewards of writing your own articles and having them published are fantastic. I would highly recommend that you give it an honest effort. Even though I had no prior writing experience, my first article got on the first page of Google within a matter of hours of it being published over the Internet. Just remember, you are not writing an article for your English teacher to critique. You are writing it for people who are hungry for information on the subject that you have chosen to to write about. Give them what they are searching for and they will be happy….and so will you!!
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