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Quotes
“Teaching should be such that what is offered is percieved as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.” Albert Einstein
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You don’t have to be a wordsmith or a descendant of William Shakespeare
to write an interesting article for your web site. There are however a
couple of key elements that you should consider that will make your
article more appealing and informative to the reader.
Title:
3 -4 words in length and describing what the article is about. As an example see the title I’ve used for this article. It pretty much sums up what to expect. The article title will also show up under the menu sections of your site and can ease navigation for site visitors.
Main Points to Remember
The body of the article.
Use of paragraph spacing is helpful in reducing eye strain. It also keeps the page uncluttered.
The screen that you see when a web page loads is generally referred to as the “first fold” This is the first impression that a reader gets of your article. Use this wisely and structure it to create an impact. (Not too much, OK?). Don’t blow them out of the water with a gazillion things happening at the one time.
Use of bold highlighting of keywords and phrases works well to reinforce that the reader has landed on the correct page they were looking for. Careful and tasteful use of images here can also be a plus.
When including images and graphics try to keep the image relative and in context to the section of text it coincides with and align the image to the left or right of the text. Remember, we read from left to right so go with the flow. Also avoid excessive use of images (unless your article requires diagrams or step by step instructions). Your readers are there for the content.
Animations were all the rage a few years ago but nowadays most people agree that they are distracting.
Fine for advertisements on your site, but not so fine in articles. You be the judge.
When it comes to fonts, don’t get too ahead of yourself and pick something exotic. Most web browsers only display a handful of fonts and besides, the font styles, colours, etc are all handled automatically by the CMS.
3 Simple Tips to Remember For Article Structure
There are quite a few styles and layouts used over the web, but most writers of web based articles tend to agree on the following basic structure;
1) Tell your readers what you’re going to tell them.
2) Tell your readers what you promised to tell them.
3) Tell your readers what you just told them.
Are you still with me? Sounds a bit whacky at first glance but when it finally sinks in it’ll make perfect sense to you. Still not sure? OK. Let’s break it down and have a look.
1) Tell your readers what you’re going to tell them.
This is your introduction. For example:
o This article explains how to create a PowerPoint slide presentation. It covers the following information: choosing a theme, creating a title slide, and creating topic slides.
o The information in this article is written for a beginner. The author assumes that you have never used PowerPoint.
2) Tell your readers what you promised to tell them.
In this section you tell them how to choose a theme, create a title slide, and how to create topic slides.
3) Tell your readers what you just told them.
For example:
o This article taught you how to create a PowerPoint slide presentation. You learned how to choose a template, how to create a title slide, and how to create topic slides.
How long should the article be? As long as you need it to be. Just ensure that it makes sense from start to finish by proof reading it a couple of times or even better, get someone else to proof read it for you.
Quite often a fresh pair of eyes can look at something from a different level and pick up on an element that you’ve possibly overlooked.
You may discover that long articles can be broken down into separate sub articles. For example our PowerPoint slide presentation article could lead us to write more articles like “Common Mistakes People Make With PowerPoint” or “PowerPoint For Business Presentations” or “PowerPoint Secrets Revealed!”
The points we’ve discussed here regarding writing articles are extremely brief but should provide you with enough ammo to develop and present meaningful articles that your site visitors can enjoy and understand. The more you write, the better you’ll get at it and the easier you’ll develop articles.
Peter V
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