The 5 Essential Steps for Producing an Unforgettable Article

The 5 Essential Steps for Producing an Unforgettable Article

There’s no shortage of bad writing on the internet.

Many writers don’t seem willing to put in the time necessary to work through the entire writing production process.

As such, they publish ignorant, messy, and ridiculous pieces of writing that make them and their overall brand look really bad.

This not only leads to sluggish movement up the ladder of success, it can also very literally cost a business money.

Here’s an example:

I saw a Facebook “Sponsored Post” for an international company in the personal development niche selling a course about ‘how to better yourself’.

This ad was FILLED with typos, grammatical errors, and half-baked thoughts that didn’t make sense.

There was even a quote with a typo. A quote had a typo… SMH!

Worse yet, the copywriter simply copied parts of the first ad and pasted them into another ad, typos and all.

Around half of the comments on both Facebook posts were about how unprofessional these ads looked and how no self-respecting person would take personal development tips from a company that doesn’t even proofread their own ad copy.

And here’s the craziest part:

Facebook is charging this company for each one of those comments!

Every time someone says “You guys need to proofread” and 25 people ‘like’ that comment, they’re paying huge chunks of money to Facebook for allowing them to accrue negative social proof.

Fun fact: 

As of this writing, that company is STILL running both of those two ads.

While this post is not about writing ad copy specifically, the same principles I’m about to lay out here apply to all kinds of writing.

Because had that company followed this 5-step process necessary for producing great writing, they would’ve avoided looking like amateurs on social media, they would’ve saved tons of money from people commenting about their unprofessionalism, and their enrollment for that course probably would’ve gone up dramatically.

Completely original ideas. This is when you are the only one to have come up with this idea and are offering the world things it has never seen before. Here is an example.

Completely non-original ideas that have a unique twist. This is taking an old idea and either finding a creative way to approach the topic or just doing it better (e.g. the Skyscraper technique). Here is an example.

Completely unique ideas that have a non-original twist. This is exploring an original idea with a typical literary trope or easy to understand way of giving out information. Here is an example.

It’s your job to find one of those three kinds of ideas so that you set yourself up with the best chance of churning out a highly engaging piece of content.

How To Brainstorm For An Article

There are a few ways to go about this.

First, make sure your mind is calm and collected. If it isn’t, do something else until you’re in a healthy mental state before proceeding. Take a walk, watch some TV, meditate, eat some food, sleep, or do whatever it is that helps you relax.

Second, take your niche and highlight some common pain points.

Finally, make a list of ways you can either explore or solve those pain pointHere’s a tip: Keep a file on your computer with a list of topics that you come up with when doing each brainstorm session. This way, when you’re ready to write, you can simply pick one of those ideas to develop.

I should mention that two crucial aspects of brainstorming for content marketers are keyword research and SEO. I’m no expert in these topics but they should be taken into consideration when creating a content marketing strategy.

The Importance of Keywords in SEO: A Beginner’s Guide

Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO

How To Write Perfect SEO-Optimized Articles in WordPress

Step 2. Outline

Many online articles are hard to read. They’re sloppy, they’re ill-informed, and they’re incoherent.

It’s kind of like the writer just decided to write out their brainstorm session. While there may be a few good ideas in there somewhere, they’re organized in such a way that those good ideas never get to see the light of day.

And there’s an easy solution to this problem:

Before you start writing, create an outline.

Some copywriters think they can overlook this crucial step and just jump to the writing part. But writing without an outline is like building a house without first laying out the foundation.

The outline serves as the backbone of the piece. It is the ground from which the entire piece comes. You can’t build a body without building a skeleton; likewise, you can’t build an effective article without building an outline.

An outline allows you to collect your random and crazy thoughts and put them into a coherent and meaningful arrangement.

Many pieces of writing suffer from something as simple as bad structuring.

This means that the author is making points in an illogical way.

Here’s an example:

5 Ways To Eat A Hotdog

1) With Ketchup And Sauerkraut

2) Hotdogs Are Not Real Dogs

3) Read A Book About Hotdogs

4) Cheese Doesn’t Belong There

Only one of those things is a “way to eat a hotdog”, and there are only 4 things in that list.

Here’s another example:

Street Food in Thailand

I was reading the latest edition of Travel + Leisure and decided to go to Bangkok. I looked around on all the popular websites for the best priced plane ticket. I found one for $400 but thought I could find one cheaper if I waited. So I waited for 2 weeks and found one for $350 but from an airline company I’d never heard of before. I decided to buy it and take a chance. Who knows? Maybe they’ll have good in-flight movies!

The body text is not referencing the heading. Nothing about that paragraph was about food, let alone street food in Thailand. The heading should’ve been something like “Buying a Plane Ticket to Thailand”.