Using Word Choice and Style to Write Articles That Sell

You’ve done your research, picked out your keywords, and now all that is left to do is actually write the article. Rather than just cranking it out and sending it on its way, however, make sure that you pay attention to style and word choice as you’re writing. Paying attention to detail and writing up your content in a more compelling style could make the difference between a quick sell and an article that takes months to sell. Write with Your Keywords in Mind Gone are the days of overly plush prose and titles with no clear connection the content. If you’re a web writing pro then this isn’t news to you, but if you have a penchant for hyperbole, pay attention. Since search queries rely on keywords to scroll content, it’s important to use your keywords throughout the article, especially in prominent places like the title, subheadings, and topic sentences. Keeping the keywords in mind lets webmasters know that you’ve considered SEO and integrated its best practices into your writing process so that the article will be easier to find on the web. Don’t Get Too Repetitive While it’s important to use keywords in your web writing, don’t overdo it. If your sentences start to seem repetitive, or if the article’s readability degrades due to â€Å"keyword stuffing,† then you’ve gone too far and need to figure out how to add a bit more variety to the piece. Website owners know that keyword stuffing is a â€Å"black hat† SEO practice, but even if you’re not committing one of the cardinal sins of SEO, relying too much on the same words and turns of phrase can become redundant to the reader, causing him to lose interest. Try to incorporate a number of transitional words and phrases so that your writing flows seamlessly from one point to the next, and write with a thesaurus so that you’re not using the same words over and over again. If your article reads well, then it’s more likely to sell. Keep It Short and Sweet Although some of history’s greatest writers wrote pages and pages of prose with hardly a period between it all, when most of us try to do the same we end up confusing both the reader and ourselves. Long sentences made up of several independent clauses run the risk of losing their internal logic or contradicting themselves. Also, writing lots of unusually long sentences increases the threat of sentence structure errors since these sentences tend to rely on several commas and conjunctions to tie clauses together. Even if you manage to avoid grammar mistakes, too many long sentences tend to weigh down a piece on the whole. Aim for a fresh, clear style of writing and you’ll have a greater chance of convincing content seekers that they just have to buy your article. Don’t Forget about Grammar Good writing usually follows the rules of grammar, and writing an error-free article could make all the difference between a compelling read and one that is hard to follow. Avoiding sentence fragments and respecting subject-verb agreement are two strategies that you should bear in mind during the writing process. Most native English speakers have an intuitive sense of subject-verb agreement, although it’s easy to mess it up occasionally, especially when the subject is separated from the verb. Take this sentence for example: â€Å"That guy who was wearing the corduroy sweater and bumped into us when we were in line to meet the Knicks was kind of a jerk.† In this example, â€Å"That guy† is the subject and â€Å"was† is the verb that agreed with it, but you could have lost track of this when reading the sentence due to the â€Å"who† clause between the subject and the verb. Since â€Å"Knicks† is a plural noun, you might think that â€Å"wasâ €  should be plural as well if you forgot which noun is the subject of the sentence. There are many other grammar and sentence structure standards that are essential to good writing, including parallelism, avoiding typos, and pronoun-antecedent agreement. By paying attention to the details and thinking creatively, you could separate yourself from the pack and become a writer who sells almost as soon as he hits â€Å"Submit.†