A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Great How-To Article:

1. Pick a Topic in Your Niche – Think about things that you have done that require a specific set of steps, like how to install a toilet, build a bookshelf or make a 3-bean salad.
2. Lead with a Great Title – What is the top benefit of your informative article? Use that as your title. Try this template: “How to [get/save/become] and [insert big reward here].” In his book, Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich, copywriter David Garfinkel gives these examples:
   • How to Save Time and Get Things Done (Time Management Coach)
   • How to Get a Better Job and Make More Money (Recruiter)
   • How to Save Money and Retire Rich (Financial Planner)

   You don’t have to use the words “How To.” You could just say “Install a Toilet Yourself and Save a Pile of Money” – or whatever.

3. Begin with a Simple Introduction – Maybe relating a personal experience as to how you came to know about the topic the hard way – or, conversely, how simple it was to learn.
4. Include a List of Supplies, Tools and/or Resources – If your reader is going to need something besides their wits to accomplish the task, tell them upfront so they can prepare everything in advance.
5. Write Instructions in Chronological Order – Don’t make your instructions convoluted or confusing – keep it short and simple (KISS) and don’t include more than one thought per step.
6. Create Mental Images – Since your article can’t include photos or illustrations, use words to paint a picture instead. Clearly describe what your reader will experience to avoid confusion … and a loss of credibility for you!
7. Conclude with Cautions, Tips and Advice – This is a great place to add some goodwill and wrap things up on a positive note. It’s also a wonderful way to lead readers into your Resource Box.

Using this incredibly flexible and powerful template, you’ll be able to create article after article that will not only benefit your readers, but you as well with increased traffic, credibility and exposure.

Guide to Writing a Great How-To Article published at Start a Business Building Websites

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2. Insert images into your web pages. I checked my logs and I have proof that images draw in a lot of ‘extra’ traffic. People search for images as well as web pages. So if your web page is about ‘how to buy a laptop’ and you have a picture named ‘how-to-buy-a-laptop.jpg’ – you will cover both the image searches and text searches.

3. Participate very actively in ONE forum. If you participate in an online forum, you will slowly build credibility with your web readers. Don’t spam – please – just contribute and solve others’ problems. And my style is to select only ONE forum to participate in. That way, you can build up your contribution base very quickly. If folks see you have 1000 posts in a forum, they tend to read what you say. And that means they are more likely to click your links or signature.

4. Send out your newsletter regularly. This is another important point. I personally fail to send my SBI newsletter regularly and it is costing me traffic. If you judiciously send your newsletter out, you get more and more traffic because folks come in to your website, read the latest articles and spread the word around. You also load a fresh copy of your newsletter in the SBI site so folks can search and find your newsletter page.

5. Respond to emails your readers write. Try to make it a point to solve problems and answer your readers emails. Trust me, if you build credibility this way, soon the word gets around and you will get more traffic.

6. Write more content everyday. Try to commit to write 2 articles a day. Don’t give up – writing consistently is the surest way to build traffic over time. Keep it up, don’t give up!

7. Don’t try to do small tricks. Ok, this is not exactly a way to build traffic. But it does indirectly focus your energy and time, so in way, you will do the correct things to build traffic. What I mean here is to avoid doing small tricks to get traffic. For example, posting answers on Yahoo Answers, posting stuff at WikiHow, setting up scam auctions to attract people to your eBay page containing your URL – stuff like that. These things, when added up, take up a tremendous amount of time. Instead, cut away all these time wasters and just write those 2 articles a day. Then distribute them to an article directory.

8. Set goals. It is very important to set goals in this Internet stuff. I used to plod away randomly day to day writing content. Now I know better. I set a goal of 50 fresh articles per month. What I do is set up folders everyday in my laptop (e.g. ‘20 May 2008, ‘21 May 2008′). I make sure that every one of those folders gets filled with 2 articles a day. That way, I will surely meet my goal each month. 50 articles a month = 600 articles a year – believe me, the traffic WILL come with that volume of content.

9. Choose a topic where you can write a lot of ‘how-to’. Here is something I learnt from experience. I know a lot of you choose SBI website topics based on your passion and interests. However, I’d like to add one more tip to guarantee greater success in building traffic. Choose a theme where you can write a LOT of ‘how-to’ articles. Why? Because ‘how-to’ articles build credibility. And they’re easy to write. For example, for one of my sites, I chose a topic on digital photography (heck of a lot of ‘how-to’ I can write there). On another site, I chose a topic on baby strollers (there is not much ‘how-to’ I could write there). Needless to say, I closed down the baby stroller website.

10. Faith and passion. I don’t mean to make this sound like spiritual advice, but having faith in your SBI site is very important in building traffic. Faith and passion is the fuel that will make you come back to write articles day in and day out. So keep that plenty of that fuel there inside you. One day, you WILL succeed.

10 Tips I Use To Build Traffic published at Start a Business Building Websites

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2. The Article Body is where you GIVE; The Resource Box   is where you TAKE. Thou shall never TAKE in the   Article Title.

3. Your objective is to create a relationship of trust and   credibility with your readership. You will not get the   opportunity to sell to your reader until they know, like   and trust you.

4. In your article title, you are trying to sell your reader   on the benefits they will receive if they continue   reading your article. Put your creative sales focus on   selling your reader the benefits of the information in
your article, not your business.

Does my article title attempt to sell something other than information? published at Start a Business Building Websites

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Ask yourself: “What does my article title promise to give to my reader?”

1. Your article title should promise to deliver your expert  information on a specific topic. It should build interest  or motivation.

2. Within 2-5 seconds of anyone reading your article,   they should be able to clearly see the answer to the   promise you made in your article title.

3. Do not bait or trick your reader into being forced to   visit your website to see the answer to the promise   you made in your article title. This is a credibility   and trust violation.

4. If you have a very short article title, be certain that   your article body includes the most socially acceptable   or expected solution or information that any   reasonable person would expect from a short title.
Better yet, don’t use very short article titles. Instead,   make them longer and more descriptive.

Ask yourself: “Does my article body deliver on the promise made in my article title?”

When you can answer that question with an absolute “YES!”, you know you have the makings of an excellent article.

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Article Title Training published at Start a Business Building Websites

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1. Does the article have zero self-serving links in the article body?

Loading up the body of your article with affiliate links or other obvious self-serving links is a liability and will keep your article from ever seeing top results.

2. Does the article have no more than 2 self-serving links in the resource box?

Your resource box at the bottom of your article should be short and to the point. It should also be less than 10% of the total word count of your article. Ezine publishers don’t mind giving you name credit and a link for sharing
your article with them, but they don’t want to look like a fool by being required to reprint a short novel about all of your websites and accomplishments.

3. Is the article within 250-700 words?

Readers want instant gratification from your quality, original content. No one has the time to really go deep when it comes to reading email newsletters. It’s proven that shorter articles achieve a much higher distribution rate than longer ones.

4. Does the article deliver quality, original content with numbered lists, bullet points or easy to glean information their audience would deem valuable?

Key Point: Make sure your articles are 100% original content. Anything less is considered an insult.

5. Is the article’s author well recognized or respected within their market niche?

Ezine publishers have an ego just like you. They want to use articles in their email newsletters that make them look good. The more you use your articles to help yourself gain credibility for your unique expertise within your niche, the greater the chances you’ll find your articles getting picked up by your ezine publishing peers.

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Introduction to Article Writing and Marketing published at Start a Business Building Websites

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In that article the spiders were the object of our desire. My quote “… almost any written content will give you untold opportunities to flood the spiders data bank with keywords and phrases. Not just 10 words or 30 words but hundreds of keywords and phrases.” Today I want to discuss the other reasons for fresh content. In a recent article on his How to Blog for Fun & Profit blog, T.L. Pakii Pierce lays out what he calls “The Four Pillars of Effective Blogs” T.L. wrote;

“You cannot create a success blog without compelling content. Compelling blog content is not a compelling sales message. It is much better to create compelling conversation that wins a relationship than to try to leverage your blog for an opportunity to deliver a compelling sales pitch. Looking for the sales pitch opportunity is much to short-sighted and usually ends up with you shorting yourself by not delivering valuable information that can boost your business in the mind of your audience.”

TL’s article is a must read if you are going to follow any of the sage advise you hear from my big mouth. (I have placed a link in my Bio sig below) He writes from the Blog perspective but his advice is relevant to all content minded websites. T.L. brings up one of my favorite topics, he talks about showing your passion, that passion is contagious and channeling your passion will help you write more compelling content. As he says, “write to inform.” In his article he also discuses communication, credibility and community. I urge you to take a few minutes and study these points, the success of your website depends on a firm understanding of these basic principles.

You know your products or service better than anyone. Write from that knowledge base, communicate your ideas or thoughts with authority but more like a friend or trusted advisor. On target topic articles with minimal text link ads that educate your viewers or potential customers will serve you well in the long run. The content will remain relevant long after that item goes off sale.

Make your reader want to come back, offer a monthly newsletter, or better yet, create an articles vault. Share these articles with a “creative common copywriter license” and encourage other webmasters in your topic field to use or link to your content. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

I have spent the past 5 years building fishing and outdoor themed websites and If I have learned anything in that time it is that content is king. Float tube fishing articles and product reviews that were written over 4 years ago still bring a constant source of traffic from the search engines.

Write it and they will come.

Creating Compelling Content Write It And They Will Come published at Start a Business Building Websites

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