Steve Shaw asked:


If you’re doing article marketing for any length of time you’ll find that you’re doing a lot of writing, writing, and more writing!

After a while you start to wonder, “Is there an easier, faster way to write articles?”

I think there is.

The goal is to write an article of excellent quality with minimal time and effort. Coming up with a standard writing process that you’ll use each time is very helpful at side railing procrastination and jump starting the writing process.

Here’s an effective writing method that I use that will help you write articles more efficiently:

1) What will your article be about?

I encourage you to think about writing articles that teach your target market something. The free reprint articles used in article marketing are educational articles (rather than sales pitches).

So, when you’re trying to think of an article topic, think in terms of teaching. ‘How to’ articles are great, and so are ‘Top Tips’ articles.

You might ask yourself, “What are the top 10 questions that customers frequently ask me?”

Or, “What are the top 10 areas of misunderstanding or problems that customers ask me about?”

From there, you’ll likely be able to pick out an area that should be covered in an article. If you’ve come up with 10 ideas, then each idea can become a separate article.

2) Make your notes.

After you’ve determined your topic, start writing notes on the points you’ll cover in your article.

These are just quick, brief notes–no need to try to craft an amazing sentence or paragraph (you’ll be doing that later).

What are the points you need to cover?

How many points do you have?

Is this topic generating too many valuable points to cover in the space of one article?

If so, you can always save some of the points for another article.

Note: If you do create 2 or more articles out of this same topic, please resist the urge to title your articles Part 1 and Part 2. Each article needs to be able to stand on its own, as a reader won’t necessarily be seeing all of your articles–they may be seeing just one of your articles. So, you shouldn’t mention Part 1, etc or say in your article body “This is Part 1 of my 3 part series”. Just treat each article as if it were your only article, so that it makes sense even if a reader stumbles across just that article.

3) Organize the order of your article.

After you’ve got all the major points you’d like to cover jotted down in note form, it’s time to get them in order.

If you’re doing a Top Tips article, then you might try the strategy of including 2 of your strongest tips as the first two items in your list, and one other of your strongest tips as your final item in your list. This is a little trick for leading readers through you article–by starting off strong you lure them into the body of your article. By finishing strong you lure them into reading your resource box (and leave them with a positive impression).

4) Create a rough draft.

After you’ve got your list of the points you’d like to cover and all the points arranged in the proper order–write!

Don’t over think things. This is your first draft, and you’ll have time later to polish things up. Right now you’re fleshing out your content and seeing how much valuable information you can provide in the limited word count of the article.

I always shoot for a 700-800 word article because articles of that size are most attractive to ezine publishers. That’s also long enough for a decent amount of information to be conveyed.

After your first draft is complete, take a word count and make adjustments as necessary.

5) Step away from your article.

Yes, that’s right–I know you’re eager to submit it, but patience has it’s rewards.

Put the article away for at least 24 hours and then read it over with fresh eyes. By giving your mind a break from the article, you’re better able to see any errors or awkward phrasing.

Make your edits, and then you’re ready to submit!

It may sound like extra work to do all this pre-arranging, but believe me it cuts down on the overall writing and editing time. This is how professional writers work–why not learn from the pros? By following a writing process such as this one, you’ll save yourself time, and you’ll produce quality articles more quickly.