Basic Article Marketing Tips: Writing and Editing Articles

Unlike most published authors, article writers are largely responsible for cleaning up and editing their work prior to submission. If you are posting your article on your own website or blog, you will be the final judge on how well it is written.

If the article will be submitted for public use online, it will be given to an editor there for approval before it is approved for publication.

Basic Article Marketing Tips For Writing and Editing Articles:

Composing a good article is generally done in stages. First and foremost is the research stage where you are learning and adding to your knowledge of the subject of the article, as well as finding the keywords that will provide the SEO factor in the article.

Next will come the draft stage. An article can have several drafts, not unlike any other published work.

The first draft is the creative draft. This is the stage where you simply sit down and write. There may be little rhyme or reason too much of what is written. The purpose is to release all of your creative knowledge of a subject. Some liken this stage to a toddler coloring outside the lines and this stage can be a bit of a problem for A type personalities like myself, who have an inherent need to correct as they go.

One way that I get around this is to work with Notepad instead of Word so that the editor in Word is not constantly prompting with spelling and grammatical errors. It is very hard to concentrate on the free style type of writing that the first draft represents when Word is shaking its grammatical finger.

As the purpose of the first draft stage is to spew out as much information as is possible without regard for correction, I find Notepad to be the most effective program in which to work.

A second consideration that many are unaware of is that some of the characterization that Word uses is unacceptable to systems used by article directories.

If you have ever come across an article with weird looking characters in the typing, most likely that article was originally written in Word. Notepad does not add this type of characterization to the body of your work and will look better when pasted in for publishing. Either way you will want to preview the article or blog post before hitting the publish button.

Once you have squeezed out every ounce of inspiration you have on your subject, it is time for editing your draft. This may in fact be more than one draft. It is important that you retain your first draft as you work through this stage as mistakes can occur and you may inadvertently remove something that you could use at another point in the article.

The easiest way to do this is to save the original draft under a name such as articleone-draftone.txt. Then use the Save As option to resave your work as articleone-editone.txt.

This gives you two distinct copies, one copy to edit and the original copy to refer to. Repeat the “Save As” as often as is needed. You can always go back and delete the copies you no longer need later when you are finished. You may even end up retaining more than one copy if you find that the creative stage produced enough material to inspire more than one article.

The editing stage has an art to it of its own. From your research of what is expected in the way of article length by the directory to which you are submitting, you will have a length in mind for your article. However, you do not want to slash and cut at will.

Ensure that the main points of the article are covered. A good way to do this is to have a basic outline of the points you want to cover. Re-arrange this information and follow this outline as you begin editing your draft.

Final Stages For Editing Your Draft

1. Grammar Check

This is where the Word program can help you out. Once you have the basic article written, copy and paste it into Word and use Word’s spellchecker and grammar editor to identify problem areas. Make changes to your copy in notepad as they are identified in Word.

For the most part, this grammatical check will catch the majority of mistakes that are made. It will not, however, catch mistakes like the replacement of words that sound alike but are spelt differently such as replacing the word sun with the word son. So, it is important that you don’t rely completely on this check and use your own eyes to read through the material to ensure it makes sense.

2. Read The Article Out Loud

It is amazing really how different an article can sound when it is read out loud. Suddenly, sentences that looked perfectly fine on paper come across as disjointed or stilted. You will notice that you will automatically correct in your head as you read.

This is because what is written does not fit with how you would speak. If it doesn’t make sense to you, chances are high that it will not flow well for your readers either.

3. Cut Out the Big Words

It is recommended that when writing for public use, you simplify the way you write in a manner that would be appropriate for someone with a third or fourth grade education. The use of complicated words and explanations will only serve to be impressive to you if the reader is unfamiliar with the terminology you are using.

There really is no point to writing something that no one but you is able to understand. The result will be a reader that moves on quickly to someone else’s work. Wherever possible, simplify, and where it is not possible, provide adequate explanation so that the reader is able to follow along easily.

4. Slim It Down Or Build It Up

If the article directory that you are targeting has a limit on the size of the article and the number of words that can be used, now is the time to slim the article down even further. On the other hand, if you find that you are not quite meeting the expected word count, this is also the time to add to your article so that it meets any word count requirements.

Make sure that as you go through this process you are also taking the time to read through the article to determine that it still makes sense and continues to flow well following any additions or cuts.

5. Keyword Check

Now that you have the basic article completed and you are reaching the final stages of editing your article, it is time to review your article with SEO in mind. Have you added in the keywords that the article was to target? What is the keyword density within the article?

Do you need to rephrase any sentences to fit the keyword or keyword phrase into the article in a more natural manner? Does your title contain your keywords or keyword phrase and does it make sense as written?

6. Take A Break

This is something that I personally find to be of significant help. Once you have completed your article, walk away from it for several hours at least, if not a day or more. It really is amazing how well this works to allow you to see the article with fresh eyes. What made perfect sense when you finished may now sound a bit off and will prompt you to make additional changes.

Whenever you find this happening, once again put the article aside for a period of time and come back to it later. This process of looking at your article with fresh eyes will save you from having to make corrections once the article or posting has been published.

Writing and editing articles is an important skill used by online marketers in their efforts to become known in their niche market and their efforts to increase traffic to their site.

While it is important to develop your own process for producing articles, be sure that you include both the creative and the editing phases. The basic article marketing tips provided above can be used as a guide to get you started with the process of composing and editing your article.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com