7 Mistakes in Article Writing

The most important thing to remember about article marketing is building trust between you and your potential customers. Your primary concern is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche so every word, sentence and paragraph of your articles should subtly communicate this to your readers through quality writing.

Unfortunately, too many authors think it's all right to bang out article after article hoping that quantity will override quality. The opposite is true. If you cannot avoid the following 7 mistakes in your article writing, you will sabotage your own efforts at article marketing.

Article Writing Mistake #1: Poor title

This is your headline and it needs to catch your reader's attention as well as potential publishers. Try to work in keywords but don't overdo it. Of all places, don't misspell or have a grammatical error here as it only makes you look as if you don't care. If that's true, why should readers care to read any more of the article. Make sure the title accurately reflects what the article is about.

Article Writing Mistake #2: Badly written summary

Most article directories allow for a summary of your article but this is not the place to stuff your keywords or repeat a keyword phrase ten times. You would be surprised how many authors think this will help when all it does is get their article immediately rejected. Create a summary that expands upon the title and draws in the reader with a little more information and a possible tease that makes them think, "Yes, I need to read more about this." One to three sentences is all it takes. I tend to write my entire article first before coming back to the summary to make sure it's the best it can be.

Article Writing Mistake #3: Failure to edit

The following was the opening of an article submitted to my site:

"Instantly, let's start at the very starting out, what's the first thing you have to do before starting a..."

The author obviously wants to stress the importance of what is to come but failing to correct this rhetorical abuse through editing defeats the purpose entirely. Remember: First drafts never make good reading. Editing is what makes good writing.

Article Writing Mistake #4: If you hire a ghost writer, check their work

I see way too many articles where a ghost writer is hired and English is not their native language. There's nothing wrong with hiring someone to write articles for you but if you don't review and approve the results, then I have no sympathy for you. Turning over the entire process of writing and submitting articles on your behalf is a sure way to make your company look stupid.

Article Writing Mistake #5: Use the preview button

Article directories don't have any time to format your articles for you. If you can't take the time to properly format your article into paragraphs with spacing, don't count on getting your articles published very much. After pasting your article into the submission form, use the preview button to see if its properly formatted. If not, go back and make the corrections.

Article Writing Mistake #6: Writing in the passive voice

What separates great writing from the rest is writing in the active voice.

Passive: The boy was bitten by the dog.

Active: The dog bit the boy.

Eliminate words such as was, were, been, have, has, and had. Replace them with an active verb or direct voice. Your articles will stand out head and shoulders above the rest if you edit with this in mind.

Article Writing Mistake #7: Failure to deliver

Perhaps the most common, this mistake is surely the deadliest of all. Each part of a submitted article is designed to pull the reader further along a path of information that eventually leads to your website. The title grabs, the summary teases and the article body delivers. But if it doesn't, what makes you think the reader will click for more information? They won't if you fail to deliver on what was promised.

If you ignore the advice given in this article, I can guarantee mediocre results from your article marketing efforts. Will you take this article to heart and eliminate these mistakes from your article submissions? If so, you can be sure that your article marketing will achieve maximum results.

Charles Gregory is a freelance writer and owner of Ezine Article Exchange where submitting quality articles means free website advertising for you.