Article Writing Mistakes – 7 To Avoid

Making your articles available for reissues by other magazine publishers and webmasters is the fundamental strategy for building an avalanche of pre-qualified visitors to your site.

If you want your articles to be picked up and distributed en masse by others, here are 7 common mistakes to avoid:

Article Error # 1 Too many grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.

In addition to testing your article from others, you may also want to make sure you have clearly defined paragraphs. Nothing is worse than a large text of 20 sentence phrases.

Readers no longer read articles in depth and often just ‘scan’ your article. They want small bites of easily digestible information … also known as “info-eating”.

Keep your “voice” in the same person throughout the article. If you use the first person voice (me, me) or the second person (you, us, us) or the third person (they, they, he, she) … be consistent by staying with one voice for the entire article.

Article Mistake # 2 Too much exaltation, bragging and self-promotion.

If you’re as good as you know, you have no reason to fill the article with hype, free links to your site, or obvious self-promotion. Readers are smart and will see right through your “exaltation.”

It is better to sell or launch your company only in the RESOURCE BOX under the body of the article. Research I have done indicates that the resource box often receives a 3% CTR (Click-to-Hit Rate). Make sure you take advantage of this by not selling hard in the body of the article.

Article Mistake # 3 Content based on what you need to learn, not what your reader needs.

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and ask yourself, “What does this article offer me?” Explore what your reader wants to read by doing surveys with your own audience or research a keyword search engine to find what people are looking for.

Article Mistake # 4 Making your article wide or superficial in content.

It is better to delve into a narrow topic. Define it. Explain it. Relate to it. Use bullet points or numbered lists. Offer a secret or expertise you have around the topic. Be original, handling your topic as closely as possible, in a way not done by others. Shortness is golden.

Article Mistake # 5 Title and article summary do not catch the attention of readers.

The headline is often ~ 95% of the initial reason why someone might read your article or submit it for another article. Don’t bore your audience outside the gate with a blunt headline or worse, a boring introduction to the article.

If you have to use two sentences to make your headline, you are thinking too hard. Keep it simple and shorten it. Use keyword research tools to optimize your article title.

Article Mistake # 6 Plagiarizing or ‘buying articles’ …

It is OK to explore the Internet for article ideas, but not OK to copy word-for-word from any article. Paraphrasing can also be classified as plagiarism. Be original. Let the words flow from your mind into your article. You will sleep better at night and your items will have a higher value in the market.

Buying articles is not a great idea … especially if you don’t get an exclusive license to use them. How is the same article useful if thousands of people call it their own? If you outsource your article writing to ghostwriters, make sure you have an exclusive right or license to the works.

Article Error # 7 Do not burn the RESOURCE BOX by overloading it.

The RESOURCE BOX is your reward for donating your article for free reprints, but don’t misuse the welcome carpet by including a dozen website addresses. Stick to one or two websites at most and you will find that your article can find a higher distribution percentage.

If you want to be really rough, include an affiliate link in the RESOURCE BOX. A better strategy is to register a domain name for each affiliate program you submit, and include the domain name that rewrites or refreshes your affiliate link. This is much less rough and looks more professional.