Six mistakes which online authors make while writing articles

Sunday, November 1, 2009

We all love to read and write articles, unfortunately our mindset has been distorted by so called SEO techniques. Influenced by these rules, most of us have actually lost our natural style of writing. These are some of the biggest mistakes which online writers make:

1. Using complex terminology:
If you want to prove that you know some pretty difficulty English words, then do not prove it in your articles. Articles should be written for general audience and usage of complex terms or vocabulary can ward of people from your work. Articles written in plain and simple English are most read and appreciated.

2. Excessively following SEO techniques:
These days so called SEO experts tell you hundreds of techniques to follow while writing articles. Recently I read an article which had about 50 such rules. This distorts our natural writing style. Always write articles for humans and not search engines. This will also help you to write better articles. Even search engines are more and more focusing on articles which are well written and not necessarily follow SEO techniques. Most tricks described in SEO techniques are for better article writing, therefore simply take it easy and follow those rules to a point that you yourself feel comfortable with them.

3. Drifting away from the core topic:
I see people starting with one thing and ending with something completely different. It is important to follow your core topic while writing articles. Giving examples and going slightly off the topic to back your own idea is fine, but swaying too much off the topic is not advisable.

4. Zero Presentation:
Again, some authors write the entire article in just one or two paragraphs. Always use short paragraphs, bullet points, numbers and bold tags for headings. This will not force the reader to read your entire article. Let user a chance to quickly surf the article by glancing at your headings only. Forcing the user to read your entire article is not considered a good practice for online writing.

5. Writing forcefully:
You can never write a good article if you are not in the mood to write. Honestly, you can write 5 article on a day when you are willing to write, on the other hand you may force yourself to write an article and feel irritated at the end of it. Follow your instincts, write when you want and what you want.

6. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes:
Articles which are full of errors give a very bad impression to the reader. Run a spell check and go back and revise your article at least once before publishing it. You will likely find lot of mistakes.