28 Ways to Make the Perfect Article

You may have found this article on writing the perfect article because of a bout of writer’s block. In that case, you are in luck. I always see lists providing similar information, but I notice that none of them give extensive detail in each item. That gave me the idea to write this. Keep in mind that this is in no way an extensive list. But I hope it gives you a few good ideas, and I look forward to reading and commenting on the articles that this list gives you ideas for. If you write something from an idea originating from this list and link to it, I will happily publish your trackbacks.

1. It’s in the name: Choose a name for the article that stands out and commands that a glancer clicks on it to read the article in full detail. Use keywords in the name, or at least create a catchy one.
2. Keep it short, make it long: It doesn’t matter if your article is short or long, as long as you drive the point home and keep it clear for the reader. Do understand that some of your readers will appreciate a nice long article with loads of information, and search engines love it too.
3. Stay on topic: I often find myself wondering what the hell my wife is talking about because she rambles on. She tells me what happened, but she also mentions the things that happened in between. Women do this and then wonder why guys either forgot or didn’t really listen to what they said. With that in mind, keep on topic. Rambling on will only lose your reader.
4. Reference facts: Provide information to help your reader learn the truth. If you don’t know everything there is to know about the subject, or someone simply wrote it better than you can, provide a link to that content within your article.
5. Make a list, check it twice: “Gonna find out who’s bad at takin’ advice. Brandon Connell’s coming to your blog”. No but seriously, lists work. They tend to get lots of readers, and lots more comments than any other type of post you can publish.
6. Don’t repeat on accident: Especially with list posts, it is important to go back and check your work. It would be dumb to post the same thing on #2 and #14, unless you were trying to make a point somehow and you made your readers know about it.
7. Make the kids go play: Distraction is a killer. Just ask Jean Sarauer who hears voices in her head telling her not to write and publish articles. If you want to write the perfect article, do it in a non-distracting and comfortable way. I sit in my recliner and have a bottle of water or mountain dew handy.
8. Grab a book: Yeah, it seems counter productive. But if you are running on blanks, then you can probably pick up one of those old fashioned paper thingies with words on them and get an idea.
9. Get a sex change: Ok, but I am allowed to be a smarta$$ on one of these because it’s my list and I can make jokes if I wanna. But on a solid note, I believe that if you get stuck, you can always come up with a new way of looking at something if you think about how the opposite sex would look at the subject. You might just get unstuck.
10. Subscribe: It’s a good idea to subscribe to other people’s blog feeds because they can give you ideas that you otherwise might not have come up with.
11. Take your time: Do it right. For those of you who got the “Max A Million” reference, bravo! When you are writing the perfect article, you want to slow down and not rush it forward. This list is a piece of art thank you very much. I left this one brewing like aged wine. Feel free to keep a draft for awhile until you know it’s ready to be criticized by the world.
12. Be inspired: I like to watch cool shows like Angel or listen to music when I write. Back when I was a recording artist, I wrote some of my best music when there was loud construction outside. Use whatever normally inspires you to write and git er’ done!
13. Stay current: I find that occasionally I come up with an off-topic post because the subject has affected me somehow. A recent example would be the post on the disturbing images from the Gulf oil spill. There are many sources of current news, but I tend to get all of my news from my homepage which is Yahoo.com.
14. Events: If you are attending a bloggers conference somewhere, share the wealth and let us know. Other bloggers might want to go. But you can also let us know things like a new marriage or something in your life that is big. Maybe you won the lotto or struck it rich blogging.
15. Record: Doesn’t it just suck when you are somewhere away from the computer and you have an idea? I have had issues in the music business where I came up with the greatest melody and hook, but I wasn’t anywhere near a piece of paper or voice recorder so I forgot it the next day. You might have had the perfect article so don’t risk at and go get yourself a voice recorder to carry with you at all times!
16. Ask: Not sure what to write about? Ask someone. Ask me! Sheesh! That’s what I’m here for.
17. Hire: Owning a blog doesn’t mean you have to hoard all of the real estate. Invite guest bloggers to take part in your precious blog. Just don’t hate on them if their writing is better than yours
18. Outsource: This goes right alone with #17. You can pay a professional article writer to come up with something for you. But take this tip – make sure they write with perfect English. I hate coming across a decent blog and noticing that they have bad writing published. It’s like discovering what your girlfriend really looks like when the make-up comes off.
19. Deadline: Pretend you got a new job at a famous magazine and you have until 3pm tomorrow to write the best article of your life or you are losing your $200,000 a year job. Give yourself a deadline and make yourself stick to it. Punish yourself with a good whipping if you fail. If you are a hot chick, I will be happy to whip you (or at least spank you). Just don’t tell my wife and keep this on the down low…
20. Start a riot: Controversy is a great way to go if you want comments. Politics and religion pay off in spades with this kind of thing. Just make one side mad, or go completely nuts and make both sides mad. Controversial posts will get the most attention.
21. Comment: By commenting on other blogs, you might end up accidentally coming up with something to say on your own blog. Just don’t get stingy and keep the comment to yourself!
22. Poll it: Create a poll on your blog and ask readers what topics they want to read about. This not only will give you a basis for your next post, but will encourage reader interaction.
23. Get naked!: Well you can for real if you want, but that’s not what I meant. You can get naked by admitting something. Be vulnerable and you might even attract comments. When I originally came up with #23, Jean hadn’t posted this article yet. But I just feel like I have to link to it because it is highly relevant to this concept. See her post here.
24. Optimize heading tags: You know very well that your content is primarily for your readers. But there is nothing wrong with optimizing it for the search engines too. When you break up your article into sections, you use subtitles to start off a new section. You should place that subtitle between an <h3> or <h4> tag for search engines.
25. Optimize meta tags: All-In-One-SEO is a great plugin that will automatically insert a description and keyword tags into each article. But if you wanted to, you can also manually insert the relevant tags yourself. Meta tags are important for the best exposure of your articles in seps (search engine results pages).
26. Hold a contest: When you create a contest on your blog, you not only generate a new article, but you invite commentary and interaction from your readers. You also gain new readers because of the kind of exposure that contests get.
27. Announce an ebook: When you release a new ebook, it is important to drive as much traffic to it as possible. By posting an article about the ebook, you will attract signups for your newsletter, get comments from readers, and build links from other bloggers who link to your ebook because they find it to be a valuable resource.
28. Write a review: As you know, affiliate sales are a great way to monetize a blog. In order to get those clicks, it is wise to write a great review for that product and attract as much attention to it as possible. You can also review a website or some other product/service that you really can put your reputation behind. Writing reviews of fellow bloggers is a great way to gain some free promotion because they tend to link to positive reviews about them. It will also make you a new friend.

I wanted to make this a much bigger list, but I felt it important to let my readers get a word in edge-wise here. Do you have any tips to write the perfect article?

About the author

Brandon Connell wrote 393 articles on this blog.

I am an author, blogger, investor, musician, and internet marketer among other things. I believe that one person can do many things in life. Check out my local search marketing company at Leads2LocalSearch.com when you are done browsing here.

• Blog
• Twitter
• Facebook