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.

1)    It’s gotta be regular! If you want your website to appear anywhere in Google, you MUST update it with fresh SEO content on a regular basis. At a minimum, you need to be adding content to your site once a week – if you can do it more often, that’s even better. The operative word here is “adding”. There’s a mistaken belief in some circles that you should re-write your existing pages on a regular basis, when in fact it’s adding new content that will really boost your chances in the search engines. Try to ensure that the majority of your SEO content is unique. It’s OK to post an occasional piece of content from another site but keep in mind that Google is looking for sites with something original to say.

2)    Write a blog. A lot of websites are “static”, i.e. basic brochure-style sites with content that don’t really need embellishing or updating. Installing a blog is therefore a neat solution to the problem of needing to add regular content. The blog can have its own section on the site (www.sitename.co.uk/blog) and any number of posts can be added without disrupting the overall usability of the website. If you use a CMS (Content Management System) like Wordpress for your blog, you’ll find it’s as easy to use as Microsoft Word. Lace your blog articles with your keywords and link those keywords to other pages of your site for extra SEO brownie points.

3)    Say something useful. A business blog is only as good as the topics it writes about. After all, you want the readers to engage with your carefully crafted SEO content and subsequently take an interest in your products and services. What do your customers find interesting and useful? The reason our own SEO content focuses on blogging is because we’re a team of article writers and blog writers and we want to attract readers who share our interests. Don’t make the mistake of using your business blog as your personal diary. Your blog needs a consistent theme that’s relevant to the needs and interests of its readership.

One of the best ways to get your company name out there in cyberspace is to publish articles – both on your own blog and on other people’s. Ask other bloggers if they will publish your article along with a link back to your site – as long as what you’re writing about is relevant to them, and the nature of your business is not in direct competition with theirs, most bloggers will agree to let you do this – after all, they get some free web content out of it.

There are a number of things you need to consider when it comes to blog writing. First, you need to pitch your idea to the blog on which you want to publish an article. It’s a good strategy to pitch the idea before writing the article itself as a) you’ll find out straightaway if your proposed article isn’t of interest and b) it’s a good opportunity to get some guidance about how to shape your article.

When a blogger has given you the green light to write an article for their website, make sure you keep the readers of the blog in mind at all times. This will help you to ensure that both the content and style are appropriate for the people who are going to read the blog.

You also need to keep the blog owner in mind. What are their objectives? They are likely to want website content that’s optimised with particular keywords. Earn extra brownie points by finding out what these keywords are and working them into your article. If your writing helps the blog attract traffic from the search engines you will almost certainly be invited back to write for it again!

Finally, help the blog owner out by publicising the article you’ve just written. Link to it from your website and your social networking pages on Twitter and Facebook. Go back to the blog post from time to time in order to respond to any comments that readers have left. Keep the dialogue going as long as possible for everyone’s benefit.