How to Write Quality Articles Even While Under Pressure

Hi, I want to just share this technique of mine to those of you newbie or oldie article writers out there. You know, and if you don’t know I am now telling you this – that writing an article for online clients means you are able to think and write quality articles quickly. There is no ‘but’ about this rule. And admittedly, as some of my dear clients are probably reading this, I am remiss on both accounts of late as I transition from being an article writer to a VA. And again, this is not an excuse. That is why I am writing this article for all of us, for you to let you know how important it is to provide quality articles and for me, to remind myself how important QUALITY SERVICE is. I have just become an advocate of that so I have to stand by it and do my best to provide the quality my clients deserve.

Before giving out the tips how to write quality articles quickly (I can write in average, a blog within 30 minutes and a quality well researched article for an hour) I would like to share the importance of the following:

1. Online reputation. You know, we are providing service to people around the world. We are not only building an online reputation for ourselves but for Filipinos as a whole. If you are just starting to be an online writer or a VA right now, don’t do it out of trying this career online. Do it as you treat a day job – with sense of responsibility. If you take it for granted that there are a lot of job offers as a writer out there, you can be all wrong. While the demand is high for article writers, the clients would like to have a writer who can really deliver with less work on their part. They would like to work with somebody who is able to provide the quality they need and trust this person to do just that all the time.
2.  Don’t be greedy. As I have mentioned, there are a lot of job offers for article writers. Don’t accept if you have your hands full with other gigs or personal stuff to do. I can say this is my situation for the past three months – well, for the past two years as I juggle a day job and a part time job as a writer. But now that I have decided to build on a career online and really invest all my time, effort and even cash for it, I have learned to block my schedule and only accept clients where I can truly serve. I am also determine to serve my clients (one on writing and one as a VA) better and better as I learn how to be a better online professional.
3. Enroll yourself to a system of following a career online. This is the system that I am actually developing right now that I will share to you soon. Basically, this is a system where you start to learn blocking your time, both personal and working time, to fully enjoy your lifestyle. I just learned that time is the most important commodity in life and that you don’t just squander it on doing things that are pointless in life or in your growth as a person. So check it out later on my professional website.
4. Take time to rest. You can’t serve well or write quality articles if you are too tired to do it. So take a rest. No use getting sick on a job that won’t pay you for sick leaves. So rest.

Now that I have said all of that, let us go back to the main topic, just how to write quality articles quickly?  I have learned this from a client too so read up:

1. Turn off all distractions. You have to cover your ears from noise, logout from your facebook and turn the internet off. Yes, you have read it right, you have to turn everything off and just write.
2. Use the internet only for research. I find it easier to write if I just put everything in a draft first. I will research on a topic; paste all the interesting stuff on the draft and just save it for later. Later is the time to just write, write and write (this time, rule 1 should be applied).
3. Use your own words. Don’t just rephrase a sentence or a paragraph as much as possible. Get the juice out and the write it.
4. If you don’t have any idea about a topic, go to a forum about that. Copy and paste interesting stuff and then just rephrase them the way you understand them. Just be sure you understand the context.
5. Use paperrater.com or word built-in grammar check to see if you have all the spellings and grammar taken care of. Of course, you might miss some so you might have to read it and proofread it a bit. If your client is rushing you to pass, as long as your article passed paperrater, then you are good to go too.
6. Develop your personal touch. You know, as a writer, you have to be able to develop your own flow of words; your word play signature so to speak. This will not only endear you to a client to a point where they will come back for more, you will also enjoy writing more. Why? Because you will have something to look up to while writing thinking “Hmmm, just how am I going to play around this topic?” This will not only keep the boredom out you won’t think of procrastinating a task you love doing.

So that’s it for now. I was supposed to write something like how to be a VA, but hey, this is me, always spontaneous on what I write. See, I can share a lot more information if I let hard earned lessons kicked in and be shared to the world.

So good luck guys on your career online and let me know what’s up. You can visit me on my blogsite too at http://sunnyjeanblogging.com.

Article Writing Lesson 2: Let your articles really FLOW

Hello, I am actually writing loads of articles right now but I can’t help myself from writing this blog right here and now. You see, I have observed how new online article writers, as I have been, jumped from one exiting thought to another.  I have been told by my editors back in the days when I was a newbie how incoherent my sentences were.

Yes, I was kind of hurt. I mean, from my point of view, the article I wrote was the best I can write. So being told it was not good enough was like telling me I was not good.

I got past through the pain.

This is because I know my editor just want the best from me because our clients deserve to have the best. She was also telling me I can improve and lots of room to spare for it.

So what should you do to IMPROVE your article writing? Here are the things I did:

1.  Let go of the pain and embrace the thought of improving.
2. Review your English. When I was told I have to improve my grammar, I went to youtube and reviewed my part of the speech and sentence structures.
3. Write more and more. Quitting can never bring you anywhere.

But, this article is not about the things you need so you can improve your writing – this is about how you keep your article in the proper coherence so that your reader can understand it. So let us go to the specifics and here they are.

Understand an article’s basic, universal structure: INTRODUCTION – BODY – CONCLUSION.

We writers, newbie or weathered alike, know that an article always begin with a form of introduction. We also know that there is what we call the article’s body where we pour out all its content. And to sum it all up, we have to write a brief conclusion. This is also my way of checking if I got all the info I want to share in the article. I also put in some after thoughts pointers in the conclusion or the paragraph before it.

Now, this is very easy to understand, right? And supposed to be, this is also not hard to do, especially if you have a knack of writing and the passion to fuel it up. However, some newbie writers can’t dig into it right away. This is because writing something we chose to write and writing for our clients cannot be one and the same at all times.

We have to write things that we have no idea what it is all about. This causes us to write incoherently and blindly. As a result, we just put in one interesting fact unto another. And we can’t be a better judge if we make sense or not because the subject matter does not make sense to us as well.

So what should you do if you find yourself in this situation? Well, first, you can make a draft of your article.

A draft is very important. It maintains the flow of your entire article from the beginning to end. There are many writing draft tutorial online and you can choose which serves you best. But I begin mine by writing the introduction.

Writing the Introduction

What? Writing the introduction? Why?

Well, you see, the introduction is like the eye opener. You write there what you need to point out in the whole article. However, this can be tricky. An introduction must be, at all times, the following:

1. Witty, engaging, enticing or interesting to catch a reader’s attention. And introduction backs up the title. If you have a catchy title but your introduction lacks the drive to capture your prospect reader, the article will sound lousy.
2. An introduction must be short and sweet. In short, we don’t write too long introductions. My mentor used to say “3 sentences minimum and 5 sentences max…”.
3. Easy to understand.

So how do we write a short, catchy, understandable and engaging introduction?

Let me explain this with an example. These are two introductions from my newbie friend writers who wrote a 250-word article entitled health is wealth.

First one –

 

“Health is the conditions or state of one’s physical or body while wealth is social and economic state of an individual.”

Second one –

“The saying, “Health is Wealth”, speaks for itself. A healthy individual can perform efficiently with quality and thus, will produce wealth. Still asking how? For instance, a man who is physically and mentally fit can do his job accurately with no trouble. As a result, he will earn money from his work and commissions if he gets lucky. On the other hand, a man who is unhealthy cannot perform well which results to missing a work, spending a lot of money for medicine, doctors and worst, hospitalization.”

The first introduction is too short. What it does is ‘defining’ health. I really don’t put the definitions in the introduction as I have the whole content to write it in. Often, introductions are for hanging questions, idea sparker and some words that would make a reader wonder.

I like the second introduction better. It made the reader wonder what ‘health is wealth’ means. However, it is kind of long and already give out all the information you need. It would have been alright if this is just a very short, 150-word article wherein we have to fit all the info in.

We can actually write a simple, engaging short introduction for this topic. You can try this…

— “Health is Wealth”, a famous liner don’t you think? But did you take the time to ponder what this phrase truly means in your life? You will have a full appreciation of Health and regard it as wealth by contrasting a healthy and sick person’s life. —

The following paragraphs will do just that.  Well, of course, the introduction can be improved more and more. But I guess you dig what I mean by these examples.

Now, once I did the introduction, I can now write a draft for my content.

Filling out the content

The content is the life force of your article. This is where you share what you know and learned. This is what your reader need. That is why, you have to make it clear. If you are writing an article rich with information, facts and how to do things, you have to make use of the following:

1. Sub headings or titles

You have to subdivide your content in sub headings. Just like when I have to write an article about ‘dental emergency’. After I was through with the introduction, I began asking myself about these things (something I realized while writing the introduction)

“The main point of the article is dental emergency, why does it happen, when would it happen or can we prevent it and if so, how? Also, we need to emphasize when emergency happens, what we can do to prepare ourselves for it.”

Hmmm, okay, just like talking to myself…

But with these thoughts, I came up with these subheadings:

• What is Dental Emergency?
• Why Dental Emergency Happens?
• What to Do in an Actual Dental Emergency?
• How to Prevent Dental Emergency?

Sometimes, I write in a question format at the beginning but when I am done, I often replace it with some fun title. Now, this would depend on how the article is to be used. Just like by client here, she wants this to be informative and formal so I really can’t say “Dental Emergency 101: When your Tooth Hurts Call the Tooth Fairy…” or something, this can well bring misconceptions.

2. Bulleted pointers

I have clients who love bullets or numbers. Bulleted paragraphs or pointers will highlight and simplify an audience’s reading experience. Remember that our aim in writing informative articles is to provide information and to ensure that we write it in a very understandable way. Below are some pointers on how to make an article easy to read.

1. Keep the sentences short
2. Use conversational sentences and vocabulary (use the right jargon for the right audience). Most often, our articles are informative and for general audience so we use simple words.
3. Use connectors or conjunctions. Don’t jump from one thought to another. Keep your sentences and paragraph connected.

Okay, so can a draft make the article flow? Not yet. I have to emphasize pointer number 3. This was my weakness and I think I have become quite an adept (can’t say master yet) to it.

The use of connectors!

What connectors? Let me list down my favorites:

AND, ALTHOUGH, HOWEVER, ALSO, THEREFORE, THAT IS WHY, FOR THIS REASON, WHICH, ERGO, ALBEIT (I like this but I can’t use them too often – sad), IN LINE WITH, SO, BUT, IF SO, THEN, ETC…

Okay, can’t really list them all. I make use of connectors to make my sentences make sense.

When you want to share information, your sentence will tend to run too long. This is because short sentences will never be able to provide all the details you need to share. But the thing is that, if you write complex and compound sentences, the object, subject and predicate of your sentences might not totally agree with each other. Or your complex sentence ‘flow of thought’ might not match your next simpler statements. Their ‘disagreement’ will end up confusing the reader. (Are you confused now?)

So what we do is to make short, simple sentences and connect them by using connectors.

But let me, once again, do this by example. Which of the following can you understand better?

This –

Teeth disorder or diseases commonly stem from bacterial infections and result of infection or tooth decay leads to common number of diseases in babies. That why It is important for 6 months infants and children aged 16 needs to be exposed to fluoride this is the timeframe for primary and permanent teeth come in.

Or this—

Teeth disorder or diseases commonly stem from bacterial infection. This, in turn, will result to tooth decay if not treated right away. The condition is most common to children. That is why it is very important to expose children ages 6 months to 16 years to fluoride. This is because this age is just about the timeframe in which children grow their primary and permanent teeth.

Or this—

The age in which children develop their primary and permanent teeth is around 6 months to 16 years. This is also the time in which they are prone to bacterial infections that causes enamel damages or tooth decay. That is why fluoride is highly recommended for this age group to keep their teeth strong and healthy.

You can be the judge and improve it to make a better flowing, more understandable article.

Now, with this thought, and as I have written more than what I intend to, let me conclude by saying… “Let me get back to work now”. J

LESSON 1: The Basics on How to Write an Article Online

Hello there! I am back after a month of silence. I have been very busy writing for my clients and for their blogs that I have neglected to write for mine. But this is not a blog for my forgotten blogs so let’s get on with what I intend to write (or not intend to for this site but I have to).

Okay, I have mentioned that I have been writing online to earn fulltime income. And yes, I am happy to say that I am earning here as much as I am earning while working as a college instructor with a potential to earn more – that is if I have people to help me with my LOADS of work.

This one is for my friends and writers who are still learning the ropes of writing online. I have been writing these instructions over and over again that I just realize, hey, why not post it in my blog? This way, I will just have to refer to this each time a writer will inquire about article writing.

So here goes my instruction….

Base from my experience, there are just about 5 key points in which all of my clients ask from me. First, have my articles written grammatically correct with the right punctuations. Second, my articles should never be copied from other sites. The rule is that I should never just get more that THREE CONSECUTIVE words from other site and just paste it on my article. Copyscape will find it and judge my article as nothing but a “second hand trying hard copycat!” That is why if you want to remain within your client’s good grace, never copy and have your article checked at copyscape (you will need to invest for this). I have copyscape and I always check my articles for plagiarism even if I know I did not copy from any site. I might have used some famous phrase and plagiarized without me knowing it.

Third, count the words. If the client says 500, it is really 500+ but not reaching 1000. Some would say a boundary like one client of mine who specifically say that I should write an article a 500 to 550 words article, no more than 550 and no less than 500. Boy that was a challenge as I have to be mindful of the word count. Fortunately, MS Word, especially 2007, have a word count information showing at its status bar so I can always see what word number I am at every moment.

Fourth thing you need to see while writing are the personal writing guidelines or format of a client. Some would like their article justified, in a .doc format, saved in a specific filename format and so on and so forth. Font would either be Times New Roman or Calibri for 2007 default. Of course, font size twelve is standard. But let us not go into details about this as I have mentioned, each client have their own preference, you just watch out for it. If there are no instructions about this, just choose the default and save your file.

Fifth, I save this best for the last, keywords. The articles that I often write circulate around specific keywords that I have to repeat at a certain number of times in the article. Clients are very keen of this. If the client say to repeat the keyword twice, once in the first sentence of the article and once at the last then you do so.

In case you are not familiar with keywords, keywords are words or phrases a client will give you to start your writing. Instructions for article writing are often like this:

–          500 word article

–          Keyword ‘clogged sink’

–          key density 2%

I have not been receiving key density instruction for quite some time now, maybe because of Google algorithm (too technical for me so let us not dig deeper into it yet). Key density is actually the number of times you have to repeat the keywords. Like if you have 500 words, key density at 1%, this means you have to repeat the keywords 5 times. Now, if you don’t have any idea how many times to repeat the keywords at a given density, you can use this free key density checker online:  http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/.

Did I say five? Well, I have forgotten to include this: DEADLINE. There might not be a very specific set of instructions for deadlines but you can have to follow deadlines. Just like what I have said with my CSAT blog here: https://earnfulltimeincomeonline.wordpress.com/ you just have to meet the deadlines. Some will say specific time and some will just say to finish the task within specific days. But in the end, you just have to see to it that you submitted the articles on time with a quality that is worth reading.

Yes, writing an article is filled with instructions and the things you have to remember above are just but icing to the cake. All basics are like that. Some clients will really dig into more instructions coupled with content guidelines.

For me, the more instructions a client give the easier for me to write the articles.

Now, there are, of course, more to article writing than this. But I guess I have to write LESSON 2 for it. They are more to tips and advices really than an academic like LESSON instructions. So stay tuned for more, even if I have to write it next month. But I always see to it that I write each month so that I can be of more help with my fellow writers online.

See ya!

Earn Fulltime Income Online: A CSAT Tips and Advices

The thing is that if you get better at writing, you can get a lot of clients. You can pick your choice or you can just get all of them at once. I did this not too long ago too. It is exciting to have all the clients you can get and sometimes you forget that in this business, CSAT is very important. This is how we earn fulltime income online.

What is CSAT?

CSAT is just a shortcut for Customer Satisfaction. One thing in giving service in all aspect of business is that you need to do your best to make your customer satisfied. Customer satisfaction for our clients means you can deliver their needed articles (this means quality articles) as many as you can write (at least 5 articles a day) as soon as possible (within 24 hours). You have to do this daily. But if you accept more clients than you can deal with, it will be hard to beat deadlines and provide quality articles that you use to write when you have just few clients up your sleeves.

That is why, if you want to satisfy your clients, you need to ensure you do the following:

1. Focus. If you have to submit five or ten articles daily, do it. Keep distractions at bay and focus on delivering what is expected.
2. Stick to your timetable. In this business, you have to be organized. Prepare timetable for writing and for your other activities. This is a setback when working at home. Your home activities get to be mixed with your writing time. You have to set your schedule and stick with it. If you are to write, let say, 8 am to 5 pm, then write. And unless there is an emergency, you stick with your writing and finish your tasks for the day.
3. Only get projects that you know you can handle. If you fear to accept only a single client who will only pay ones a month, then get two or three clients who can pay you weekly or bi-monthly. But be sure you can provide them quality articles on time.
4. Create a blog. What can your personal blog do with CSAT? If you are good with what you do, you can provide quality service, and in our case, articles. And as with anything else that you want to do well, you need to practice. Blogging is a perfect way to hone your writing skills. Aside from blog, you can join forums as well. It will help a lot too if you go through ‘how to’ articles or videos on writing. This way, you will get some tips and advices to improve your writing.
5. Take revisions well. If your client wants you to revise what you have written, don’t take it badly. Listen and learn from what your client wants. This will help you improve your writing capabilities as well. And of course, if you revise something, you have to do it right away.
6. Unless specified not to, ask questions if there is something you are not sure about. This will not be interpreted as incompetency in your part. Asking will save a lot of time in revising articles.

Your clients would appreciate it if you communicate with them. Don’t be afraid of not pleasing them. Your aim is not to just please the client but please them by giving the quality articles they want at the time they need it. That is why you need to improve as a writer and always see to it that you communicate.

This might not be a foolproof set of advices for CSAT but you can start from here as a professional online article writer and earn fulltime income online.

Earn Fulltime Income Online: Step by Step Guide How to Make Money Writing Articles Online

Writing has always been a part of me. I could say I came from a family of writers (a frustrated bunch of writers – I have to say). As a young girl, I kept a journal; I write poem; I draw manga and wrote fiction stories; a write love stories in which my classmates had to pay for them to read it. Writing was something I love doing but I never thought I could do it as a job.

In fact, if internet did not come to be a part of today’s lifestyle, I doubt if I will think of writing making me earn fulltime income online. That is the reason why I never tried to learn my English well (I didn’t pay attention to my English teacher before) and never had any training as to how to write articles. But here I am right now, a full time blogger and an online article writer. And the most amazing part of it is that I earn full time income from it.

So how did I start to earn fulltime income online writing articles?

1. I Read. As I have mentioned, I love writing. But if I don’t have anything to write about, I will not be able to write anything at all. As an internet user, being able to browse the net means massive source of information. I read about how to articles from how to draw manga, how to write fiction stories and the lot. Until I came with the word blogging; which, in turn, brought me to the next thing that I did.
2. I blogged. What did I write in my blogs? Well, my interest of course which was manga. Well, actually, I write fan fiction and published it online (which is entirely another topic so I am not going to talk about it here). But as I read and blog on topics I like, I came to the word ‘monetization’. Most often this term comes in with blogging. So I read about how to earn online blogging (another topic I want to talk about in my next articles). But I did not get into blogging right away. Oh no, because I did number 3 first.
3. I went into freelance article writing. So how I came to be in freelancing when I heard about blogs first? Well, blogging often need to have some investment involve if you want to be successful earning money from it. What I want was a JOB not a BUSINESS online (I eventually started an online business but again, not part of this story here). So I joined freelancing sites like Elance, oDesk, Freelancer and vWorker. I flourished as a freelancer using freelancing site (you can find and join on these sites for free) and did a lot of writing jobs there. Did I earn fulltime income online then? Well, nope. But I did earn a good amount of extra money. Through freelancing, I was able to have my debit card and verified my paypal.

I supposed I should say that the rest is history and that I am now satisfied earning my fulltime income. But that is just not the situation. When I got used of all the keywords, its key density and learned about writing web content articles from product reviews, press releases and the now defunct BMR, I joined fiverr.com .

Here, I had my fun. I opened a gig about writing an article for 5 dollars. I was amazed with how clients came. Some even hired me to be their fulltime writer. Now, I am earning my fulltime income as an article writer. But of course, I have no plan stopping there. I am currently developing a site for my business online. I do not plan to just earn a fulltime income; not when I can earn for extra more. And I believe that you too can earn fulltime income online and more.

Earn fulltime income online: Where to Start?

I want to remind you first that I am a freelance article writer online. What I do is to write articles for my clients about any niches. I write press releases, product reviews and general, informative and presell articles. What I don’t do is to blog for my own niche in my own website (not yet anyway).

I started learning the ropes of an online career since 2009 and I began earning 2011. This means that it took me two years before I realized what I can do to earn online.

Yes, I mean DO and not WHERE to earn online. But I am saving this information for later.

My previous blog sites (http://sunnyjeanhomejobs.wordpress.com/) are all about general topic that has nothing to do with what I have experienced working and earning online (because I was not earning online back then). But I am not that anymore. I have reached the state where I used to have no inkling before of achieving.

NO, I am not earning millions. But I am hopeful about it.

What I am right now is earning a sustainable income that allows me to invest more for my future online business. And to think that I started paying nothing out, which means that I am basically earning online INVESTING NOTHING except my time and effort to hone my skills.

Alright, I admit that my blog right now is sounding more and more like some sales pitch I often read about on some internet networking sites (which I have no plan joining now or in the future). So let me share to you what I DID to start earning fulltime income online while at home.

What I did to earn full income online?

1. Started a Hub. If you are not familiar with hubpages, then you might not know what a hub is. A hub is like a blog. It is called hubs at hubpages like lens to squidoolens. I started writing there to see if I can write an article as I had no experience writing article of any kind before that. I EVEN HATED WRITING ESSAYS at school before so I really don’t have any idea if my hub was okay. Well, to make a short story even shorter, someone commented on my hub and I was very happy that is why I did the next step.
2. I sought a mentor. The truth is that I only read the word ‘keyword’ and ‘earning’ online but I didn’t know where to start. So I sought a mentor and he showed me what to do. So WHERE CAN YOU FIND MENTORS? Join a forum community online. There are many forum communities for SEO, article writers and a lot more. I joined smallbusinessbrief.com. This is a very nice community for those who are seeking advice about online business and careers so you can try it and find a mentor.
3. Read stuff about keywords, key density and types of articles. There are so many types of articles like press releases, product reviews, general articles about any niche and a lot more. That is why you need to know what they are and hone your skills in writing at least three types of articles.

If you are able to do these things, you can do the next steps I am about to share with you in my next blog. I have to keep things one step at a time so that I won’t overload you with information.

Just remember that being an article writer to earn full income online needs dedication and loads of interest verging to passion of writing and researching (another topic for me to write in the future).

So stay tuned!