Five Things You Need to Know about Writing Articles

When you are a freelance writer, you need to have good skills in writing to get noticed. If you write like me, writing is almost your career as there is no more important and profitable job then writing. It can make or break your business depending on how well you know how to use words and write them well. You need to read up on writing if you plan to start writing online or offline. However at the same time, it’s a lot more than just sitting down a keyboard and doing nothing. There is so much that goes into writing articles. Here are five things and tips you should keep in mind when starting out with writing.

1.) Pick Your Topic Wisely         

When I started as a writer, I was told that all I needed to do was pick a topic, stick to it, and write. Most writers who do this mistake can be forgiven for not finishing their article. So, how do you pick writing topics? Well, you want to know what your reader wants from your article, but don't try to go overboard into trying to change the mindset of your readers. Instead, you should study your target audience and ask yourself questions like “what motivates me?”, “what do they enjoy?” and many other such questions. This will help give you an insight of what you should write about. Now, how do we come up with topic ideas that are interesting? We have to think of our idea from the perspective of each type of person and write according to the needs of each kind of readers. For example the author of my first-ever blog post “5 Tips for Bloggers” was very serious about his topic. A lot of people could understand his mission without looking deeper. He wanted to show how many bloggers were successful because he knew it would inspire others to become successful too. So, it made sense to talk about blogging itself. My second article was also super informative. He taught us everything I needed to learn from him. The third one was even better with the story that talks about making money through affiliate marketing. All the four articles were excellent to say, but they were not all right for a certain demographic. They were more for a particular niche. My last article was just a little bit longer; it talked about social media and the importance of being active on platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. This one got pretty good traction and helped bring over $1,000 to me.

2.) Write On Medium

When I started working on my blog, I thought it would be easy. But I was wrong. Yes, writing is easier and faster. Writing on Medium for free is much faster than writing on Medium full-time. But that does not mean you cannot create good content. There are some tools available that really help writers. And as far as I’m concerned, these three are great. Tools such as Grammarly and ProWritingAid are useful when starting out and learning about different types of stories. You’ll feel overwhelmed by every sentence you’ve written, especially those you wrote when you were beginners. So, it’s best to be consistent and go on and keep building until you master the art of blogging. Try to write a minimum of 100 articles a day in order to improve your writing skills.

3.) Use Keywords in Titles and Headlines

Keywords also help you attract your readers attention. Even though your headline and title may seem like two completely different parts of a post, if you look at them closely, they must look similar to your topic. Don’t focus on getting keywords just for headlines and titles. Focus on the main point of your post and tell your readers what makes your article worth reading. Also, add the keyword tagline on your title to bring your readers in and tell them the details of what’s inside that piece of work. Another way to bring them in is by adding the keyword phrase during the section or chapter, where you can start talking about your article before you talk about any information else. As you know, key phrases are like life hacks. Not everyone will buy what you’re selling unless you mention them as soon as they see the word that comes to your head. As long as you’re able to mention them, they’ll get interested in diving further into the piece. Also, always remember that key phrases are also known to increase their click through rates. By incorporating your key terms/phrases in your article will create trust and confidence in you and persuade your readers to stay in your publication.

4.) Research, Research, Research

The research should always be in your back pocket. As I stated earlier, understanding and analyzing data helps in creating a solid writer. As you write articles, you want to take the time to look into the previous works that have done similar topics. In addition to that, you’ll also find out the strengths and weaknesses of various authors from different publications and websites. Just as how important it is to research on specific topics to write about, you need to research extensively on the subject at hand in order to create the most complete picture of your audience. Having thorough knowledge of grammar and punctuation rules will help you make great sentences. If you are struggling to decide which keywords to use, check out the links below for helpful pieces of advice.

There are a couple of ways to improve yourself when you write articles. Be careful not to put your ego or pride on display in writing. Learn to accept feedback from others and learn from them.

5.) Take Advantage Of SEO

You never stop having to improve yourself as a writer. There are always new challenges to face. There are a lot of factors to consider when writing your articles; in order to succeed. And, sometimes, you’ll have to get creative in order to do so. To stay relevant in the market, you need to adapt to changing times. What’s not changing, however, is how to write high-quality content that will get found by search engines and ranking pages in Google. Once you have a firm grasp on the fundamentals and are comfortable with creating quality content, it’s time to turn on the heat under the hood. Start publishing articles regularly. Keep track of the number of views and likes generated for your articles so that you can review whether you are able to keep improving and keep putting effort into writing more relevant articles. Make sure to leave the comment sections open for comments from viewers and answer people who might be asking questions on topics that interest you. Then, start replying to those comments and responding to what the reader has to say about the topic. You may even have the potential to build a blog in which you will post every single week. With all that said, it is crucial to have a dedicated work online and publish at least 2–2–1 of your original articles monthly.

This is only a small list of things I learned along the journey of becoming a freelancer. There is also another blog called Fiverr where tons of talented writers can seek jobs for clients