Freelance Article Writing 101: Basic Tips for Article Writing

Posted In: Featured, Freelancing on Dec, 15 2011 | 1 Comment

I always recommend that freelancers from Bangladesh, Philippines and India may start their freelancing career with freelance article writing. In this basic freelance article writing training I will try to go through each important topic that you may require to develop your career as an article writer also known as SEO Article Writer. This post will cover basic terminologies, tips and word of advice about article writing.

You can also purchase this book from Amazon, which will give you a detailed guide about how to write article as an online freelancer. Easy Articles – How To Write Articles Quickly, Easily and Almost Automatically (Kindle Edition)

My Personal Experience

For the last one and a half years I have been working as a web designer, working with html, css and wordpress. But before that, when I was just starting my freelancing career, I worked on two article writing projects. The feedback score and feedback from those two projects helped me a lot to get jobs later on. Where did I learn the basics of article writing? Before I was a freelancer, I was a blogger and I have been blogging since 2008. That played a big role and I learnt from my mistakes and personal experience.

Terminology

First let’s get introduced with some of the common terminologies that relate to writing good SEO articles. If you have previous experience with article writing or blogging, you may skip this part.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization. This is a very common technique used to help websites get high ranking in the search engines. For example, the site which is properly Search engine optimized has the higher chance of appearing the the first page of google search than the website who hasn’t optimized itself for the search engines. Google is your friend. You can search “SEO” on google to find out more.

SEO Article. One of the many aspects of SEO, and probably the most important one, is SEO Articles. Articles which are search engine friendly and also reader friendly are called SEO articles. Try searching for SEO for Articles on Google to find out more.

Keywords. Keywords are the main or key terms, around which the total article establishes itself. Keywords are very important for SEO Articles. SEO articles are supposed to have a certain number of specific keywords in them. For example, if you write an article about “How to Get Your First Job on oDesk” the keyword or key-phrase “First Job on oDesk” may come up 3-6 times in the article. This is good NOT TO overuse the keywords or otherwise search engines may think that you are trying to spam! Google hates spammers… so does the client. A normal 500 work article has 1 main keyword and one or two secondary keywords. For the above example, secondary keywords may be “Bangladeshi Freelancers” and “get hired for the first time” etc.

How to write a SEO article

The first rule about writing SEO article is to forget about SEO and the Search Engine! Keep in mind that basically you are writing the article for human eyes and if your article is appealing to the humans than definitely it will be appealing for the search engines as well. Search engines are very intelligent softwares who know what is appealing or not. So I’d advise that you

Put a lot of emphasis on your writing style. Try to develop your own style, add your own characteristics.
Don’t copy-paste stuff. Rewrite if needed.
Don’t overdo anything.
Keep it nice and simple.
Don’t use hard to understand English.
Divide your article into paragraphs and paragraphs into bullet points IF POSSIBLE (not necessarily. Its your wish. What ever goes with the flow, do it!).
Put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Would you feel interested to read the article you are writing?
Try to engage the reader.
Be lively.
If applicable, when writing about a specific issue, analyze the case from a neutral position, rather than taking a side.

Structure and Some Other Important Reminders

If you can do these things properly, your article should be GREAT! But just to make sure that your article comes up in the search results, you will need to pay attention to some of the following things as well.

Make sure the title of the article has the keyword in it.
Target a specific area to write an article rather than a broad section. For example, “Countries of the World” is a bad topic for an article. But “10 richest countries of the world” is much better.
NEVER COPYPASTE! Rewrite if needed.
Divide your article in atleast 3 paragraphs. First introduction, then body (body 1, body 2 etc if needed) and then conclusion.
Introduction will have the basic info about the article. Remember that, both search engines and humans read the first paragraph first and they continue ONLY IF THEY LIKE IT. If your first paragraph sucks, readers will not read the rest of the article, same goes for search engines. Try to use the keyword/s atleast once in the first para. First para can be upto 3-8 lines depending on the length of the article.
The body of the article will have the main discussion. Keywords will be used 2-4 times here. But make sure that the use of keywords dont cut the flow of the article. Best is to write a spontaneous article which has just enough keywords in it. Don’t overuse keywords.
Conclusion is nothing but drawing a simple conclusion to the article. It can be as small as 1 line. But better to write 2 or more lines for the conclusion, you will understand what needs to be done. It is not necessary to use keywords in the conclusion, but personally I think that its better to use!
Long articles are boring! Would you read a 3 page article on “Emission of Carbon Di Oxide”? Chances are you won’t. Rather there is a greater chance for you to read a 500 word article on “How CaronDiOxide help us”. Got the picture? 500-600 words an article is more than enough. Some clients will even ask you to write 200-350 words articles.

I hope these tips for article writing was helpful to you and it will help you to become a better freelance article writer. Let me know if you need any further assistance regarding article writing. Happy to help.