If you’re going to be successful in your Internet marketing efforts then you are going to need to write. Whether it’s a blog post, or an article, a sales page or a product review, writing good quality content is the key to success. If the thought of writing takes you back to your school days of turning in English papers on Romeo and Juliet then you don’t need to worry; the key to writing engaging content can be broken down into five simple steps.
1. Research
Before you even put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, you need to do some research. Spend some time looking at article directories and forum posts. What do people in your target niche need to know? What problems do they have that they want solutions for? The more you know about your target audience the easier it is to write content that will engage them.
2. Roadmap
When you have decided on the topic for your article, or blog post, you need to write down a rough outline to work with. Think of it like a roadmap that you will use to get from the beginning of the article to the end in an organised fashion. When you start writing you can refer to your roadmap to see where you need to go next, instead of staring at a blank sheet of paper with no idea how to move from one idea to the next.
3. Reveal
Wherever possible you should try and include personal stories and examples in your writing. This really makes your words come alive for the reader and makes your content more interesting and engaging. Just write as if you were telling a close friend about your experiences in this topic area; start with the problem that you had and then the steps you took to solve it, and how you felt after it was all over. You’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to write if you take this path.
4. Relax
Everyone has two sides to their brain; the creative side and the critical side. Your critical brain will try and tell you to stop and fix that sentence, or to make you think that the paragraph you just wrote isn’t good enough. If you let your critical brain take over you’ll never make it past the first paragraph.
When you are writing articles or blog posts you need the creative side to take charge. Just focus on getting your thoughts down on paper, it doesn’t matter if they seem like a jumbled mess, you can fix that later.
5. Read
When your first draft is complete you can now give the reins to your critical brain. Read the article out loud and if you find yourself stumbling over words then rewrite the sentence. Ask yourself whether you have come away from the article with more questions than answers; and if that is the case then go back and fix it.
