Are You An Article Zombie?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 27th, 2010

You are sick of duplicate content? Welcome to the club. What should you do different than 95% of article writers on the net?

Article directories and the web in general have been flooded by a tsunami of junk content on just about any topic you can imagine.

However, a great deal of this content does not contain anything useful and is pure advertisement or keyword stuffing. This type of content will hardly get read by anyone.

The people that produce this type of content I call article zombies. Their content does not have a soul. It does not inspire you or give you anything useful. They just bore you to death.

Before you start writing about a topic please make sure that you:

Have something meaningful to share

This does not need to be insider knowledge about a certain topic, but maybe an interesting opinion, a different view - some aspects not everyone already knows.

Know your target population

Before writing an article, know who your audience will be. Would you go on stage with your eyes shut? You need to know who you speak to. What are the interests of your audience? What pain or problem do they try to avoid?

Write for people - not search engines

SEO may be your initial motivation. But remember: There are more humans than search engines. Real people will read your article. If they don't like what they see do you think they will click on the link in your resource box?

Read your own words aloud before sending or submitting it somewhere

Too often you write something, but when you start reading it aloud in your own voice - it sounds stupid. If that's the case it probably is. When you make the transition from words in a computer to spoken voice - this is the first reality check for your train of thoughts and your narrative style.

Do not recycle existing articles

I know everybody tells you to take private label articles and rewrite them. My advice: Don't do it. If you start rewriting somebody else's article it will lose its own voice without getting your personal style into it. What you end up with is just a piece of text without a soul.

Have a strong feeling about what your are writing

This feeling does not always have to be positive. If you are mad at something - write it down. If you disagree with somebody else's article - great - write down your view. If you feel fascination - your words will be fascinating, if you are sad - so your words will be.

But if you feel nothing your words also won't have emotions.

So now let's get into the right mood and produce some really good content for your website - but first of all - for your visitor. Your visitor are human beings. Offer them what you would offer to a visitor in your home: The best you have to offer.