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.
You will find that the article directories recommend that your article be between 400 – 600 words. I can assure you that this is nothing like writing a book…..well, perhaps one page of a book!! You are not going to get writers block while writing a short 400 – 600 word article. In fact, what I have found is that sometimes my articles has ended up being too long, and I have had to cut them back.
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.
I would highly recommend that you give article writing an honest effort. The rewards are fantastic. Without any prior writing experience, even my first article got on the first page of Google. Remember, people are reading your article to receive information. They are not there to critique your grammar. You are not writing the article for your English teacher, but for a public who are thirsting for solid information. Give them what they are looking for and they will be happy…and so will you!