• By Jack Landry
• Published 12/13/2010
• Writing for the Web

The art of writing is definitely one that takes years of effort and work to develop. Good writing involved much more that using the correct type of grammar and connection of words. It includes making the first sentence so interesting that when people see it, they will want to read the rest of the article. Good writing also includes keeping the body relevant, interesting, and moving along fast enough to keep the reader’s attention until the end. In order to achieve this, the writing must be clear, concise and simple. If the writing is to go online, it is critical that it is easy to understand and get information from. There are so many different places to get information online that if one article is too confusing to read, the reader will turn around and find a different source for the information. If you are a copywriter, you know that this is a constant battle. You want people to come to your site to get information. If you are working for a company, you want people to come to the company’s site and to choose to purchase something because of what they found there. Of course, the headline must be even more attention grabbing than the body. There are several things you can do within your writing to improve the number of people who are willing to read your work. The first thing you should definitely do is know who you want to read your article and focus on them. If you want children to be interested, then you need to write a child’s level of understanding. If you want business people to read your article, you will need to write in the business language and write about things that will interest those in the business world. Your readers should never be able to stop and ask if they should continue reading. They should be so captivated that they read to the end without ever stopping. The best way to do this is to know your audience and to write to them.

If you do not know your audience, then you are going to have a very hard time pe

rsuading them to do whatever it is you want them to do. Every paragraph should have a purpose and should be targeted toward one main idea and connect with the main idea of the entire piece. While tangents can be interesting sometimes, they often distract the reader and often stray away from the reason the reader was reading the article. It is also very important to back up any statements you make with why you are willing to make that statement. Be sure to state where each study or statistic came from and who conducted the experiment. You will quickly lose your readers if you cannot back up what you say with solid facts as they will turn elsewhere for the assurance of truth that they need. If they do not see reliable facts, they will begin to think that everything else you say is unreliable and they will push the back button. It is very important to be authoritative, but do not overdo it either. Be sure to put enough of your own content in there as well. Do not make up sources if you have not done the proper amount of research. Instead, quickly go and find sources that you can use and use those. After you bring in an important study or statistic, be sure to connect it to the main theme of the paper and the reason why the reader is reading the article. Otherwise, you will end up on one of the tangents that was talked about earlier. Be sure that you make an offer to the reader somewhere in the article as well. Tell them what the company or product can do for them. Connect it to the reason that they were reading the article so that they will feel a need for what you are offering. If you have built authority, then they will trust what you say about the offer more. At the very end you will want to summarize everything you covered in your article and briefly return to the main point of the article. This will let the reader know that you thoroughly discussed what you promised to deliver.

As you follow these tips you will be more successful in persuading people to accept your offer. You will also develop the skills of a master copywriter and many more people will want to hire you freelance.

Jack R. Landry has worked in the field of business management for 20 years. He recommends using Lead Management Software for sales management software. Contact Info: Jack R. Landry JackRLandry@gmail.com http://www.insidesales.com/lead_management.php

by Jack Landry