Article Marketing: How to Write Articles People Want to Read

If you want to improve your clout level, which gets you higher offers from AC, try the following:

1. Use Sources: Many times I will click on an article, read it, and want to know more about the subject. Usually, I have to go searching for myself because there are no sources cited.

Using sources does three things: i) it gives your article more validity; ii) it gives the reader some place to start investigating if they want to know more; and iii) it makes your piece appear more professional.

If you've cited sources (eg, quotes, statistics - even if it's only one), it shows the reader that you've really thought about them, not just hastily threw something together off the top of your head (which IS okay sometimes).

Finding Sources: How to Do It

Your favorite search engine is an excellent place to find a quote, a stat and/or a companion article to refute or support whatever you may be working on.

For example, what would be an interesting stat for this article? I thought answering the question of how many pages are on the web. Why? Because this article is about how to write articles people want to read.

This is really about the competition of being found on the web. So, in the interest of letting readers know just how hard this is, finding a statistic of how many pages are on the web can give them an idea of what they're up against.

FYI, according to the 2004 Google press release, "Google Achieves Search Milestone With Immediate Access To More Than 6 Billion Items," they indexed more than 6 billion items, eg, "Google's collection of 6 billion items comprises 4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages."

Now, this gives you a place to start investigating. While researching can be time-consuming, doing this on even a semi-regular basis will give you a body of work you can be proud of.

NOTE: Most professional outlets, eg, magazines, newspapers, major publishers, etc., look for well-researched topics. Before submitting, for example, a 750-word piece, most will want one to two verifiable sources.