• By Tiva Kelly
• Published 05/6/2008
• Article Writing

Websites and article directories thrive on good content. Good, well written content doesn’t require a Ph.D. or extra special skills. If you can answer yes to the questions below, rest assured you’ve written a good article. *Does it have scannable text? In other words, will your article make it through the editing process, pass article submission service criteria and be easily read by search engines? *Is your article useful? Anyone can write an article really. The question is: have you written anything that is useful to your reader? Keep your customers in mind when you are writing an article. Provide good information and you will establish trust with the reader. *Is your article unique? The old copy and paste trick doesn’t sit well with publishers. Changing a few words here and there isn’t enough to make your article stand out of the crowd on the Internet. Ensure that everything you submit to article directories is original. Use your own style and your voice. Put a new spin on topics that are heavily covered. *Does the article answer common question? One way to write good content articles is to answer customer questions. Use questions from your e-mail, from forum discussions and anywhere else that questions come up on your topic. Turn customer questions into articles. It’s a great way to provide information to the public that is needed.

*Is the article entertaining? Sure, some topics don’t lend themselves to humor or entertainment. Most topics, however, have some flexibility here. Reading one

boring article after another will put your reader to sleep. The important thing is to keep the reader from closing the window to your article. Keep your articles lively and include personality in your articles. *Does your article create debate? Typically, people think of debate as a bad thing. Where articles are concerned, debate is a very good thing. Debates get other people reading and talking about your article. Debates have a way of drawing traffic to a website quickly. *Is the article newsworthy? Each article you write needs to be newsworthy. This doesn’t mean write timely articles that would fit in the daily newspaper. What it means is that good content articles have something solid to say and include up-to-date information. *Is your article easy for the average reader to understand? People read the Internet differently than they read articles in print. Online readers have a short attention span. It’s your job as the writer to hold their attention. Don’t bog them down with big words and long sentences. Use short words and small phrases to get your point across. *Does your article use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation? This isn’t grade school and we won’t have a pop quiz on the fundamentals of writing. Generally speaking, writers get away with a lot more infractions while writing online articles. Some publishers are extremely picky, however, and if you come across a publisher who is strict about grammar they will choose not to accept an article that doesn’t hold up to their standards.

If your article lacks these qualities, rewrite them to include these things and ensure that you provide good content articles.