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Polish Your Writing - Avoid Redundancy

Once you have the basics down, its time to focus on polishing your writing. Neglecting the smaller details, can make one's writing seem amateurish. One important thing to watch out for is redundancy. You'll see it all the time in newspapers and student essays, especially when using quotes.

Example:

The chair of the fundraising committee says she's excited about next week's event.

"I'm super excited about next week's event," said Stacey Stoked.

The sentence introducing the quote should have something to say about what's in the quote, but shouldn't just be a paraphrase.

Example:

The chair of the fundraising committee says she's excited about next week's event.

"Everything is going to be fantastic - the music, the dancing the comedy act. I can't wait," said Stacey Stoked.

Redundancy often shows up when similar words with the same meaning show up in the same sentence.

Example:

This cleaning feature allows the mechanic to reuse the filter again.

Sometimes, as in a list, a writer will deliberately reuse words with similar meaning for emphasis.

Example:

The criminal was callous, cold-hearted and unfeeling.

However, you have to a pretty good writer to avoid the pitfalls of this technique. The reader might assume you don't have much else to say on the subject, that you're being hyperbolic or that you just haven't figured out that the words you are using all mean the same thing.

One final problem, which is surprisingly common despite how easily it can be spotted, is using the exact same word over and over in a paragraph.

Example:

The burglar quietly entered the house through the back door. He quietly crept up the stairs. He quietly opened the door to the room where the man was sleeping.

You get the picture. Most instances aren't that obvious, but you can clear up repetition by giving your writing a quick read over.

Although many people would suggest reading your work aloud, this is rarely practical. Pronounce each word in your head as you read your final draft. You'll catch the errors you miss by scanning.

Pay particular attention to the quotes and paraphrases of your interview subjects. Avoid using repetition simply to pad a weak story. If your story doesn't quite reach the minimum word count, check your notes. Perhaps there was another angle you could have explored. Maybe there's another issue you avoided raising due to the complexity, but could be worth a second look. Or, it's possible that there just isn't enough meat in this story for the reader.

While most writers have competent editors to help them revise their work, in this era of internet self-publishing, it pays to develop the skills to become your own editor.

Time Management for Article Writing - 5 Tips That Work

I've been writing a lot this year, mostly for my full time day job. Time management is essential to produce high quality content in a timely manner. Therefore a time management process is equally essential. I just finished a training manual with 17 chapters and some 39 thousand words. This project took two weeks to finish besides other projects and responsibilities. It dawned on me that the method I use to write manuals may be just what some of you need to write your articles more quickly. You can use any word processing, or slide deck program to organize your process.

I call this process my outline to output work flow. This is a 5 step process that can be used as a template to use over and over again. If you are publishing online and want to rank your article with search engines, make sure to target specific key words that readers are looking for.

The process goes like this:

1. Plan Ahead - Keep a topic journal just for your article writing. Any time you think of a topic write it down. some people like paper journals or notebooks. Others prefer electronic tools like Evernote or Springpad. The really important thing is that you have access to your ideas at any time. The other tips will be helpful on their own but this is really the most important step to me. There are so many times when I am working on a project and an idea for and article comes to mind. Or, I may realize that just a portion of a manual or piece of training content would make a great article. I use Evernote on my iPad or smart phone to capture ideas and subject matter for my writing. However you decide to capture your ideas it needs to be immediate so that your ideas don't disappear before you have a chance to develop them. I think you will find that this method will generate more topics than you will be able to keep up with.


2. Turn Your Ideas Into Outlines - It is so much easier to organize your thoughts into an outline format. I actually got this idea from Pat Flynn from The Smart Passive Income Blog. He explains on his blog how he writes his e-books by first creating an outline from a topic he wants to write about. I didn't realize that's what I've been doing for along time when I write training material. I like to use PowerPoint to create my outline because it makes it easy to use bullet points and numbering for my outlines.


3. Expand the Points From Your Outline - Once you have your main points arranged into the bullet points of an outline, it becomes simple to turn those points into sentences and paragraphs. Research your topic and take unique notes from your source material. Rearrange your notes to create interesting content. Remember to use key words that those looking for your topic will naturally use in their searches. If you find a source that inspires you, use quotes to add credibility to your own opinions. If your publisher allows it, link to these sources for great outgoing links.


4. Turn Your Outline Into An Article - This point is a great time management tip. All you need to do is turn your your outline bullet points into article headings or numbers tips that your readers can easily follow. How to articles that teach an object lesson are very valuable and will build your audience quickly.


5. Proof it and Read it Aloud - Most article submission sites have good quality standards in place to assure original content that readers will enjoy. Make sure to save time by proofing your work thoroughly. One of the most important time management principles is to remove actions that waste time. I have found that reading my work aloud helps me catch mistakes that I would otherwise miss. Another great way to proof your articles is to have someone act as editor.

I hope you have found this article helpful. I'm sure if you follow these simple tips your writing productivity will improve. Always partner with a quality article publisher like EzineArticles.

After you try these tips let our readers know how they worked. Come back and leave a comment with your suggestions for improvements.

How to Market Your Articles With Ease

Content drives the Internet, and consumers are constantly looking for information that solves a problem. The trust, credibility, and authority that content marketing creates knocks down sales resistance to the benefits of a particular product or service.

High quality content must fundamentally change a customer's direction, it does that by teaching and motivating the customer in specific ways.

So what kind of content does it take to change the customer's direction? Anything that is written and distributed for the purpose of attracting, acquiring, and/or engaging customers are considered part of content marketing.

Not every business is in the publishing business, but businesses that don't create content for marketing purposes are missing out on major opportunities.

Building Trust
Marketing is about building trust, and engaging with your customers. Anything that is written and distributed for the purpose of attracting, acquiring, and/or engaging customers are considered part of content marketing.

Storytelling is something we all do in our personal lives. It's a short leap to helping your company tell its story as part of your content marketing. The skill in writing comes from being able to tell a story well and writing in a tone and voice that resonates with the reader.

We create content to educate our customers or prospects about ways they can solve their problems and address challenges they face.

Quality comes from understanding that creating content isn't the same as PR, and it certainly isn't advertising. Seems like an obvious point, but wade through the deepening thicket of content programs and you get mixed results.

Content Marketing is Not Selling
Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling.

I am a terrible salesman but I am a fairly good writer. I can describe a product and its benefits very accurately and if there is someone out there looking for that particular product I am confident they will find my content beneficial.

I don't go looking for customers exactly but I do present products in areas where those who are or maybe looking for a certain product hangs out. This maybe a social media site or a blog. So how do you know if your products is desired, if you are on a dog site you will not likely be promoting Kitty litter.

Many people think they need to be good writers or salesman to market content. If you can tell a story and relate benefits of a certain product or service that is basically all that is required.

There is money to be made with content marketing through article marketing. You don't have to be a prize winning author to receive a share of that income.

Finding The Jobs Nobody Knows About

Ok, you've found this article because 1 of 2 reasons:

A) You are curious if there is a LEGIT, online job for you.

OR

B) You're hurting for a little extra money, have the ability to write well, and want to find out if you can be profitable doing it online. (3 in 1, my bad)

Although there is a niche in the job market online, it's hard to find exactly what you want to do; let alone what you CAN do.

In other words, with all of the schemes, scams and BS that's in droves out there on the net, it's like trying to walk from the Pacific to the Atlantic without a map. Sure you find a body of water. You think it's the Atlantic, but soon you find out it's the Gulf of Mexico and there's a hurricane coming in and you're thinking, "HOLY CRAP! I'm screwed! If I had only taken a left instead of a right I wouldn't be in this situation!"...

Ok, that was a little ridiculous. But you can see my point right?

The reason you hear so much about all of these "jobs" online is because they ARE there, you just have to find them. Often, they are in the most unlikely of places.

Technology is ever evolving and growing and even small town mom and pop shops have websites now. EVERYTHING IS ONLINE!!!! But I'm not going to sit here and tell you what you already know, I'm just making a point that with all of this business from physical and online companies hitting the web by the masses, there are jobs for you out there online.

For example: Do you think that the CEO of ANY company, personally maintains their company's Facebook page? Probably not, yet it's good business to have one right? Well that's where you come in.

See? That's something that I never would have thought of, but after a long time of searching online for what I want to do, I found a way to do it.

I have started a journey in the field of affiliate marketing. So yes, the solution that I have found for you is a product that I am marketing.

Why am I telling you this?

Because, I seriously hate deceiving marketers that are only out there to make a sale and not really caring about whether or not the product they are marketing is a worthwhile buy.

Before I decided to market this product that I'll reviel in a second, I researched it and found that it received so much positive feed back by consumers that it stood out among the rest of the products I had the option of advertising. Because of this, I wanted to put an avenue out there, through me, for YOU to find a quality product that will take you to places that you want to go.

(I'm not allowed to put the link in the text, but go down to the bottom of the page and you'll find my Squidoo lens that will have it all for you)

If you've read this far, you might as well check it out for yourself and see what I'm talking about. Do some research on it yourself if you like, just be sure to come back to this page and use the link... I scratched that hard to reach spot on your back, please help me reach mine.

In any case, I do hope that you find what you're looking for.

Thanks for reading my first Ezine Article!

How To Write Better SEO Articles

Even if you are not a native writer, you can write a good SEO article. However, before explaining to you how is it possible to write better articles, let's talk a little about the market of articles, and about some methods that would allow you to position yourself better in this market.

There are some writers that can't even spell basic English, writers that are still able to make good internet money. How is that possible? In my opinion, every ORIGINAL article written on internet has its value. Even those written by Asian writers with no experience and skills have their value. Maybe a buyer would not be willing to pay more than 0.5 $ / 500 words of this kind, but even such an article can be sold by people who know how to write SEO articles.

You might ask what a person would do with such an article. I must admit I have never asked my clients what would they do with my articles, and this is one of the basics rules that you must respect when you write SEO articles. As long as a client has paid you for an article, you don't have any right about it anymore. In fact, this is the basic of content article writing, and this is the reason why this kind of writing is called ghostwriting.

However, I think there are two methods for buyers to use this kind of bad SEO article. First, they might use it only for SEO optimization. The article would be placed on an obscure page of their website, in a section that is never accessed by visitors, only for SEO purposes. The Google crawlers would index the respective page, as it contains the keywords, and the article would be accessed only by a limited number of visitors. This is a common practice, so don't be surprised if you find a solid website with great articles, but also with a bad section that contains only articles giving you headaches.

Another method to use those articles is to correct them. I am the kind of writer that doesn't like to get back on his work, but there are some webmasters that just can't do it other way. Those webmasters buy bad articles with low prices, giving them to a native proofreader for modifications. On the other hand, it is not such a great deal. A bad article with a cost of $1 might need solid corrections, and a native corrector would request at least $2 to modify the respective article. Total costs would be $3 for an article. With this kind of money, you can find writers (like me), who are not perfect in English, but whom can write good articles for any kind of internet site.

As a conclusion, it is a good idea for a writer to learn how to write SEO articles better, instead of dealing with bad content. Moreover, Google introduced some new algorithms that are able to detect bad content; therefore, it is better to have a website with quality content all over, instead of having a section with bad articles.

A writer that is able to write SEO articles with limited English notions can always improve his or hers skills. Let's see some methods that would allow you to write good content articles after a while.

Always listen to your clients

If you are a beginner and you have just wrote your first SEO article, your client might have better notions of English than you, therefore he or she might send the article back for proofreading. Correct the article and keep the advices of the respective person in mind. You would never guess how many important and interesting facts you might find out about writing just by correcting your own articles, considering the specifications of clients.

Find guides and English courses online

It is not that hard to learn how to write SEO articles. You just need a few notions about keywords, density and page arrangement. The level of English is much more important. Don't stop writing, but whenever you have some free time, use it wisely and study the free English guides available on the internet. You might even want to find the paid guides, which are more effective, but make sure to spend your money wisely.

Read a lot. English articles, news and guides are perfect to improve your English level. However, there is nothing better than a solid guide is.

Watch movies in your own language without subtitles. This way, your brain would "train" itself to translate the movie. This empiric method was used by many writers, and it is the perfect method to improve your English at conversational level.

With all those aspects in your mind, you will be able to write SEO articles effectively after a while, and to improve your content article writing style, allowing you to write for more money.

Writing Successful Articles For Your Business

How do you write successful articles for your business? What do you say to get someone's interest? What do you write in order for the article not to be considered spam by the internet? How do you write an article to get it to rank high on the search engines? These are all things you need to consider when starting to write an article.

Did you ever notice the number of spam articles or E-mails you have? How do they get there? What triggers it to be considered spam?

Obviously everything that is posted is not read by a human and they decide if it is spam or not. There are certain things that the search engines look for that decides if it is considered spam.

When posting your article, you need to get it to rank high for people to see it. You really should get somewhere within the first two screens. When people search the internet for a certain topic basically they look at the first couple screens before they move on to something else. I know even myself, when I am looking something up sometimes there are many, many pages of information on my topic. I usually look at the first two before I may try wording it another way or moving on and working on something else.

So, how do people get ranked high on the search engines? You can get your article to post at the top with the pay per click but did you know that there are ways you can rank high for nothing? There are things that you can do to get your article to rank high just by the way you write your article.

Another thing you have to consider is what do you write to make people interested in your articles? To write a successful article you need to be creative. You can't just write a bunch of crap in your article and expect results. You need to hold their interest and make them realize you know what you are talking about. Make it interesting and informative. Put yourself in their place. What would you want to know if you were researching that particular topic? Take time on your article. Cover as much on the topic as you can. Spend time researching if need be. When you are done make sure you edit. It looks very unprofessional if you write an article with a bunch of words that are misspelled or sentences that don't make sense. Always reread your article at least a couple times to make sure everything is correct.

These are some of the things you really need to think about when writing your article. Good luck writing your articles!