What Makes A Good Quality Article, A Good Quality Article?

by Broyde
27 replies
As a person who either buys or sells articles or other sales content, what in your opinion are the biggest needs that an article supplies?

Also as a buyer what needs to be included in this service for you to honestly feel as if you are getting superior value from a writer or writing service?

The reason I ask is because there are discussions always available on price, but how is quality defined?

Broyde
#article #good #makes #quality
  • Profile picture of the author Melanie Crouse
    I could probably go on forever on this, but to keep it short I would say that good quality means that the article reads smoothly - if you read it aloud it will sound like natural speech; it has interesting content that your readers will actually want to read, not just a keyword-stuffed jumble of fluff; and it is written intelligently and maturely. Of course, spelling and proper grammar are essential as well.
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  • In my view, it should read like a mini version of an essay that you'd in to a teacher for marking. Excellent quality of writing. A clear set of points which are made in enough detail to show that you know your show, but not so much that would give away the information in your paid products. It's that last bit that's the hardest part of the balancing act.

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    • Profile picture of the author Justin Jordan
      At a bare minimum, you're looking for readability and factual accuracy. Readability encompasses good grammarm good spelling a structure that keeps the reader, well, reading. Factual accuracy speaks for itself.

      Beyond that, it's going to depend on what you want the article for. If you want an article that gets the person to click on the link at the end, then a good quality article is going to be written so that it guides and encourages that click.

      On the other hand, if you're having articles written to establish yourself as an expert and an authority, articles demand a different structure, and more complete information. And it's different again if what you're trying to do is get people to link to and talk about the article.

      So, once you get past the basics, what makes for a good quality article varies, and so does the number of writers that can actually give you what you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    I'm glad you asked. I'll be looking forward to more answers. It's so easy to write an article I feel I'm missing something when It comes to writing a "good" article. Maybe not.

    George Wright
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    • Profile picture of the author Melanie Crouse
      Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

      Someone above should quickly run spell check.

      On topic, I'm glad you asked. I'll be looking forward to more answers.

      George Wright
      Yes, indeed, that was me. Very embarrassing and rather ironic, considering the point I made about spelling and grammar being essential.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        As a marketer, a good, quality article is one that does the job it was intended to do - generate clicks, comments, good vibes, whatever.

        As a reader, the minimum standard is finishing the article and NOT telling myself, "damn, there's five minutes of my life I'll never get back "

        For me, even a little bit of craftsmanship goes a long way.
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    • Profile picture of the author Gail_Curran
      Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

      I'm glad you asked. I'll be looking forward to more answers. It's so easy to write an article I feel I'm missing something when It comes to writing a "good" article. Maybe not.
      It would be interesting and useful to see examples of "good quality." Or if that is too subjective, is there a consensus among marketers here as to what a $5 dollar article looks like? A $10 article? A $25 article?
      -
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  • Profile picture of the author MrDay
    A good quality article provides value to the reader, originality, facts and references, solves a problem or answers a question and good keyword placement.
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    • Profile picture of the author jaystar
      Originally Posted by MrDay View Post

      A good quality article provides value to the reader, originality, facts and references, solves a problem or answers a question and good keyword placement.
      Well said. All the points are right on target.

      The kinds of searches that I make online are mostly "how to" and "what is" and "review this".

      When I click through a "how to" keyword, I am looking for bullet points or illustrations (or some visual indication that the content is presented in a step by step manner) that alone inspires a sense of confidence that this person knows I am clueless and is going to use plain English (not technospeak or gobbledegook) to walk me through the steps of doing the thing.

      For the "what is" kind of search, I usually decide by the end of the first paragraph whether or not I am going to read the rest. The quality of the content, the structure, and the voice are usually the deciding factors here. I find it very upsetting when the content doesn't live up to the title that drew me in in the first place. Don't promise to tell me stuff, then tell me a whole lot of nothing, then ask me to click through to your affiliate product or your blog. That is disrespectful of my time. Give me some substance (read relevant facts that you substantiate with references or even anecdotal evidence) I am more likely to want to read more of your stuff or buy the product you recommend.

      This structure works pretty fine for me: briefly tell me what you are about to tell me, give me the details, then briefly tell me what you just told me.

      The voice is not too important to me if you are giving me the info I want, but in truth you will hold my attention better if your article is written in a "snap pop crackle" ( to quote a sig I've seen around) kind of way.

      For the review article, I like to at least get the impression that you bought the product and used it. Then I like to hear little details about how it worked for you, what problems you came across and how you solved them.

      That's pretty much what makes a good quality article to me.
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      • Profile picture of the author jaystar
        Originally Posted by jaystar View Post


        The voice is not too important to me if you are giving me the info I want, but in truth you will hold my attention better if your article is written in a "snap pop crackle" ( to quote a sig I've seen around) kind of way.
        Oh, ok the sig belongs to Alexa, nice sig!
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  • Profile picture of the author Goatboy
    Readability first. Too many articles look like they have come directly from Babble Fish.

    Useful information second. I'm unhappy when I read a crummy article that parrots old information and adds nothing new. Those articles don't entice me to click links other than one that sends me to another article or back to my search engine.

    I think good grammar is important, but when reading, I will overlook small issues if the content is good and the overall quality is good enough. There is a point where the grammar issues become so great that they draw my attention away from the article.
    For the internet, the article doesn't have to be perfect, just minimally flawed. For offline, I much higher expectations.
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    • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
      What Makes A Good Quality Article, A Good Quality Article?

      The answer to that question is subjective. It really depends on the reader, and her expectations and standards of quality. Me? I judge articles on readability and coherency. After that, does the article do what it was intended to do? In other words, if it was intended to inform and it achieves that goal, in my eyes, it's a good article. And if it was intended to entertain and it achieves that goal, again, in my eyes, it's a good article.

      "Quality articles, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder." - David Jackson
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew23
    I like an article to just get to the point. Under 300 words would be great but needs to be very informative.

    It needs to show some real proof of it's claims, not that phony crap you see now. A money back guarantee also makes me happy
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    • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
      Originally Posted by Andrew23 View Post

      It needs to show some real proof of it's claims, not that phony crap you see now. A money back guarantee also makes me happy
      Are you talking about articles or sales letters?

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      • Profile picture of the author Andrew23
        Originally Posted by David Jackson View Post

        Are you talking about articles or sales letters?

        David Jackson
        Yea, as you can tell I've been reading a lot about IM products lately. A lot of those articles being a sales pitch.
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        • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
          Originally Posted by Andrew23 View Post

          Yea, as you can tell I've been reading a lot about IM products lately. A lot of those articles being a sales pitch.
          Those aren't articles. Those are sales letters.

          David Jackson
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    • Profile picture of the author mrmanpower
      Originally Posted by Andrew23 View Post

      I like an article to just get to the point. Under 300 words would be great but needs to be very informative.

      It needs to show some real proof of it's claims, not that phony crap you see now. A money back guarantee also makes me happy
      I think the statement 'good quality article' is subjective as people say and for me it's more of being straight to the point and just outright discussing your article title. it shouldn't be like '6 ways to play baseball' and suddenly discuss what baseball equipment you need in detail.

      Lastly, a good quality article for me as a marketer is one that gets alot of views and helps me get clicks, customers and traffic to my sites. that's a good quality article! most of the time, it can't be crap or else they won't go to your sites or they might but never convert into subscribers and customers.
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  • Profile picture of the author cpace32
    Well, to me what makes or breaks a good quality article is the tone. If the article doesn't entice others to read it (with a casual tone), it isn't worth anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author daddyfather
    To me what makes a good article is the actual truth coming from the writer. You can always sense a scrapper you know something scrap together just for the purpose of that.. I hate it.. Even if you notice a grammatical error, you can over look it if the words and meaning fit the topic.
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlesThatRock
    A good article is one that refrains from making beginner mistakes, the most common being excess words. As William Strunk wrote in 1918, "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

    See The Elements of Style III.13 for examples. A good writer avoids wasting the time of her readers, so she spends as much time removing words as writing words.
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  • Originally Posted by Broyde View Post

    As a person who either buys or sells articles or other sales content, what in your opinion are the biggest needs that an article supplies?

    Also as a buyer what needs to be included in this service for you to honestly feel as if you are getting superior value from a writer or writing service?

    The reason I ask is because there are discussions always available on price, but how is quality defined?

    Broyde

    Hi!

    Well, it should nicely satisfy its purpose.

    For the author or buyer, it should provide them with the best benefits.

    Same with the target readers.

    And, it should satisfy these 4 fundamental requirements:

    1) AIDA (Attention Interest Desire Action)

    2) KISS (Keep It Short and Simple, simplified further)

    3) Inverse Pyramid (most specific and useful to least specific yet still useful)

    4) Softsell Marketing Writing

    Tone, writing style, content richness and content outlining are dependent on the benefits it should provide authors/buyers and target readers.

    This is also the main reason why pricing varies = required benefits also vary.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
    For someone to be reading your article, they need to be looking for something.

    With that in mind - A good article is one that answers your readers questions.

    Regardless of length, content,,,, or anything else, if it answers the question, its a good article.

    Lets say that someone is looking for the answer to this - what does 2+2=?

    A good answer is 2+2=4

    But things are not always that simple. This is where you need to step inside the mind of the reader, and ask yourself - "if someone is reading this article, what kind of information would they be looking for?"
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  • Profile picture of the author Rough Outline
    A good article is an article that answers all the questions you have, persuades you to do what the article intends and leaves you feeling more knowledgeable.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    A quality article leaves the reader feeling like they've actually learned something new - in a way that's compelling, to the point, and genuine.

    Quality articles are chock full of research (not written off the top of your head, no matter how much you know about the subject).

    Quality articles leave the reader feeling like they've really tapped into the knowledge of an expert - not a salesman who just wants you to think he knows what he's talking about, so that you'll open your wallet.

    Quality articles are written conversationally - keep the SAT vocabulary out of it. No one likes to feel intimidated by big words. That'll make readers head for the 'back' button awfully quickly.

    Quality articles get to the point. They deliver on promises in your title. They deliver on questions raised in your title.

    Quality articles don't just re-hash the same 'ol points. They provide new information that genuinely helps readers solve a problem or answer a question.
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  • Profile picture of the author JonAlfredsson
    For me, the article must be informative with a bit of conversational tone. It must contain all important details about the topic. Also, it must have a catchy headline to attract readers to read it.
    It must be written with correct English grammar. =)
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    • Profile picture of the author ArticlesThatRock
      How Does an Article Snap, Crackle, and Pop?

      The best articles are the product of research, such as the synthesis of seemingly unrelated topics with many links to other sites, or which translate scientific jargon into English that ordinary people can understand. Unfortunately, Google and other search engines reward a site that receives links, but not a site that provides links to pages of other sites. And, quantity of pages is emphasized over quality.

      Incentives are important and the inevitable result is that a large portion of the blog posts and other articles provide fewer links than desired by readers. Many articles are written with little or no research, or merely regurgitate information described adequately elsewhere. The major exception is Wikipedia, which is popular because it is the King of Links.

      Some people claim that big words with many syllables such as "regurgitate" should be omitted when shorter suitable synonyms can be used such as "repeat", "rehash", or "vomit" that sound like natural speech. I'd avoid long words when writing Rocket Science for Dummies, but used "regurgitate" in the previous paragraph because it is an onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like what it describes. Intelligent readers enjoy occasionally learning a new word, even a long one. An onomatopoeia can surprise or arouse curiosity in the reader with a "snap, crackle and pop". The effect is similar to the humor or joy stimulated by a television laugh track or a whinnying horse. Hi-yo, Silver, away!

      An article written for the web is usually short (250-500 words) because reading a screen for an extended time is uncomfortable, which forces the writer to make a strong effort to create an enticing title. It encourages a user who is "just browsing" to start reading. Short articles also encourage the use of inverted pyramid style where other than the the title, the opening sentence is the most important part, and less important information comes later.

      If you are buying articles, it is useful to propose a group of titles for the writer to choose, and this practice can avoid production of excessively general articles and repetitive themes.
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