If you write business blog articles regularly, one of the biggest challenges you’ll face is trying to come up with innovative, engaging, and original ideas. So how do you keep your content fresh and interesting week after week?

To keep both yourself and your reader engaged, you want to mix up the ways in which you interact. When you’re writing articles for your company’s blog, rotate between the three main types of content:  comment or opinion; list posts, such as ‘Top five ways to boost your business’; and news posts which react to current events.

If you focus more on articles for other websites (i.e. if you’re following a guest blogging strategy), then try to write for a variety of online publications. Keeping your style shifting and evolving will keep you engaged by making your brain work harder and appeal to your readers as they are always given something different and new.

But where does the content come from? Everyone has their own way of sourcing ideas, whether it’s through osmosis or research. Most writers keep a notepad in constant attendance, jotting down ideas as and when they come, whether it’s from a conversation held, a book read or a radio show listened to. The book can be a home for anything and everything; if it fires your imagination, write it down.

Don’t be afraid to mix these ideas up with your own thoughts and opinions either – the most important thing, whether writing articles or blogs, is to provide something people haven’t read before; so don’t just repeat ideas – improve on them.

When writing an article, for traditional or electronic media, you need to play up to the psychology of your audience. They’re only going to keep reading as long as they are getting something from you, so what is it they’re after?

In the first instance, they want to be empowered. When they click off of your webpage, they want to know or be capable of more than they were when they started. Whether you are writing an information or opinion piece, the same point stands.

If you are writing an information piece, Five Steps to a Perfect Blog, for example, make your five steps as clear as possible. That means not only saying what your reader must do to achieve their aim, but also pointing out potential pitfalls and traps that can be easily avoided. Knowledge should never be assumed. Omitting supposedly ‘obvious’ details is as bad as patronising your reader.

And always leave them wanting more – remember how Scherezade in Arabian Nights extended her life by never completing her story? Well, what will keep your readers coming back? There may be a tangential point included in the article, or you may wish to divide a major topic across several posts, but if your original article is giving something to your readers, they’ll be back for the sequel.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article  PR or SEO copywriting. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

When addressing specialist subjects, many business writers can slip into the jargon of their trade. Where the target audience is known to be of like-minded professionals, this approach is often expected, lest you appear to be underestimating your readers’ intelligence. However, where a document is designed for more general consumption, it is important that it be accessible to all.

The one big faux-pas in article writing is abbreviations, well recognised within a certain field but unknown, or in alternative usage, in the wider world. Full descriptions should be used wherever possible. If this proves difficult due to word count, it is perfectly acceptable to ‘introduce’ an abbreviation at the first use of the phrase; ‘sites looking to achieve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)’. Hereafter, you can use SEO as shorthand. When forming this introduction, it is crucial to use capital letters on each part of the phrase and bracket out the abbreviation, also in capitals, for clarity.

Another alternative, if using a phrase sparsely, is to provide a short definition on the first usage; ‘the process of search engine optimisation, improving a site’s ranking in search engine result, begins…’.

Implementing these simple rules will ensure your articles are accessible and easily understood by more potential clients.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article marketing or web content. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

When you first sit down to write an article, it can be a daunting task. Here are Write My Site’s top tips for writing an article that grabs attention.

Make a list – Bullet point all the ideas you would ideally like to cover in your article. Do they fit together as a set? Are there any duplications? Which points are essential and which can you remove?

Take some time – Once you’ve sorted your list, take some time out. Focus on something else while the ideas germinate. When you sit down to write the article, you’ll feel calmer and more prepared.

Don’t force it – Write for as long as the words flow. If you hit a wall, don’t fight it.  Change task, maybe go for a walk - you’ll come back refreshed and ready to jump back into the fray.

Don’t censor yourself – On the first pass, don’t edit your own writing. Trust your ideas and abilities and express them in the most comfortable way to you. This will eventually lead to a more natural and personable article.

Proof read carefully – Of course the flip side of this is the need for a number of revisits to edit and correct your article. This gives you the opportunity to refine and crystallise your concepts, while ensuring you put your points across.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article marketing or web content. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

Given that we have recently set up a group on Linkedin called ‘Content Marketing for SMEs’ it seemed an appropriate moment to explore some content marketing strategies.

Let’s start by examining what sort of content businesses can use as part of a content marketing strategy. Talks for networking events, presentations, pitches, speeches and training materials are all types of content that most businesses produce from time to time. They can be incorporated into an online content marketing strategy by:

•    Turning the material into articles for your corporate blog and announcing it on social networks such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook.

•    Contributing guest pieces to other corporate blogs (with a back-link to your website, of course).

•    Spinning any news-worthy angle into a press release and sending it to journalists in your industry.

•    Creating a white paper that is available for download through your website … in exchange for the recipients’ email addresses.

•    Writing articles for publication and syndication.

•    Sending a monthly e-newsletter to your database of customers and prospects containing highlights from your corporate blog and any attention-grabbing company news.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article writing or web content. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

When it comes to writing an article for web publication, structure is king. It allows you to outline your key ideas and creates an obvious path for the reader to follow you down as you expand upon your introduction. Follow our bulletpoint guide for succinct, effective article writing.

The basic structure when writing an article is simple:

• Your introduction should outline the following paragraphs and any through-line of the article you’re writing. You want to grab your reader’s attention right away, so don’t be afraid to open with a potentially controversial statement or leading question.

• The body of your article will then expand upon these points each in turn. There should be no more than one point per paragraph and each should meld seamlessly into the next, which will enable your reader to follow the train of thought more clearly.

• Your summary will draw these points together and bring out any conclusions to be drawn from them. This is the time to answer any leading questions raised in your introduction – don’t leave your audience hanging or confused as to your intentions.

• It has often been said that a good article shares many attributes with a strong public address – it should have a carefully considered tone, flow logically and fit within the allotted time frame. This comparison can be taken a step further – an acid test is to read aloud your article once written. This will help you identify any cracks in the structure – points where the text is stilted or unclear. If the article works in speech, then you know the writing is sound!

To experience the full range of benefits that article writing can bring, take a look at Write My Site’s unusual article marketing service.