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Stop Boring People With Your Articles

by Steven Wagenheim
14 replies
This is an article I just wrote and submitted. I normally don't do this but I
want to share this with people here. You don't have to write an article on a
dry topic and have it be dry.

Title - Article Writing Tips - Woo Me Or Lose Me

Some articles are a nightmare to get through. I mean a
downright painful experience the likes of which only root
canal can top. I sometimes wonder where these people learn
to write. Or maybe they didn't. Hey, anybody can sit at a
PC and type away. It takes some intelligence to actually say
something. Well, if you plan on writing articles and don't
want to put your reader into a coma, you better learn how to
spice up your writing a bit. Otherwise, your readers are
going to tune you out like a noisy police siren. No offense
to those brave men in blue.

Okay, to start off with, how about coming up with a title
that doesn't sound like it came out of the dictionary? Did
you notice the title of THIS article? Woo me or lose me. Now
that's got kind of a catchy ring to it. Okay, I'm not the
greatest poet in the world but it's better than half the
garbage I see floating around the Internet. You'd think
this stuff was written by some guy just off the turnip
truck. Look, if your title isn't captivating, nobody is
going to bother reading the article itself. So the first
step in writing a good article is coming up with a title
that gets people excited. Okay, not that excited.

After you've conquered your title blues, the next thing is
the content of the article. Look, I know some subjects are
drier than others, but hey, article writing isn't exactly
talking about having a party in Chinatown. And yet, look at
all the flowery prose I've managed to dump all over this
thing. It may have even gotten you to chuckle a few times.
If nothing else, it's not bland and boring. It's not
drudgery to get through it. As a matter of fact, I bet you
don't even realize that you're getting close to the end of
this article. See, and you thought I was going to put you to
sleep.

Articles don't have to be a hell hole to get through. You
can say what you have to say and still keep people
interested. So throw away your dictionary and use some
creativity.

Your readers will thank you for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim


It's only 380 words but it makes the point and does it (I hope) in an
interesting way.

Now, you article writers out there...put some feeling into it for crying out
loud.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled yawn fest.
#articles #boring #people #stop
  • Profile picture of the author ebooks4u
    You're so right on the spot, Steven.

    When I read an article myself, and I don't have the feeling that I'm being entertained after the first 3 lines, I also get bored, and usually skip the rest of the article.

    When you write something, make sure people will stay with you by being entertaining and you will get them to your bio :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author Brad Spencer
      I think being boring is one of the biggest issues that nobody talks about in internet marketing.

      To be honest, I find it amazing that people subscribe to a lot of lists or stay subscribed to certain ones. Usually I unsubscriber after a while if all I'm getting are rehashed "make x dollars using clickbank and blah blah blah."

      Where is the fun in that? I don't think there's enough fun and personality in this. I notice that I buy things off of people who have pizazz and some flair and then deliver me a filet mignon for a rump roast price. I will be their customer for life.

      So, in relation to articles, deliver filet mignon at rump roast prices and you'll get traffic and a loyal base of readers and customers.

      Cheers,


      Brad Spencer
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
        Oops!

        When I read the subject line, "Stop Boring People With Your Articles" I thought you meant that we should use our articles to stop people who are boring.

        But I like your point better.

        ~Michael
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        "Ich bin en fuego!"
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        • Profile picture of the author Ricter
          Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

          Oops!

          When I read the subject line, "Stop Boring People With Your Articles" I thought you meant that we should use our articles to stop people who are boring.

          But I like your point better.

          ~Michael
          LOL, nice. Reminds me of fun with dangling modifiers. (No, I'm straight.)
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          • Profile picture of the author Akogo
            So throw away your dictionary and use some
            creativity.
            Where can I find those creativity dictionaries?
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            • Profile picture of the author Jason Fladlien
              The best way NOT be boring in articles is to use action verbs and write in a "it's just you and me" tone.

              Did you "talk" to the crowd. Or did you rant? Mumble? Testify? Plead?

              Are you "feeling good"? Or are you "juiced with positive energy"?

              People just need to stop using the same old, dry non-descript verbs and add some spice to their writing with action verbs. Also, write like you're talking to them over a cold one at a bar -- like one friend to another.

              If you do just those two things, you won't have to worry about whether or not your articles are boring.

              -Jason
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              • Profile picture of the author KenJ
                Steve

                I think that your point is bang on. I have been writing articles for a while now and the ones that get the BEST attention are the fluid ones written when I was coming up with good ideas and wrote them in a human and interesting way. People will not read robot like writing and will never get to the click
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            • Profile picture of the author Chri5123
              This is a very good point and I have to admit I have been guilty of just banging out articles for Bum Marketing that are focused around a keyword and are not saying too much!

              However that was a while ago and found that when I stopped writing articles for the search engines and started writing them to address an issue i got better conversions anyway.

              Of course the search engine results are still nice.

              Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author topeyinka
    Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

    This is an article I just wrote and submitted. I normally don't do this but I
    want to share this with people here. You don't have to write an article on a
    dry topic and have it be dry.

    Title - Article Writing Tips - Woo Me Or Lose Me

    Some articles are a nightmare to get through. I mean a
    downright painful experience the likes of which only root
    canal can top. I sometimes wonder where these people learn
    to write. Or maybe they didn't. Hey, anybody can sit at a
    PC and type away. It takes some intelligence to actually say
    something. Well, if you plan on writing articles and don't
    want to put your reader into a coma, you better learn how to
    spice up your writing a bit. Otherwise, your readers are
    going to tune you out like a noisy police siren. No offense
    to those brave men in blue.

    Okay, to start off with, how about coming up with a title
    that doesn't sound like it came out of the dictionary? Did
    you notice the title of THIS article? Woo me or lose me. Now
    that's got kind of a catchy ring to it. Okay, I'm not the
    greatest poet in the world but it's better than half the
    garbage I see floating around the Internet. You'd think
    this stuff was written by some guy just off the turnip
    truck. Look, if your title isn't captivating, nobody is
    going to bother reading the article itself. So the first
    step in writing a good article is coming up with a title
    that gets people excited. Okay, not that excited.

    After you've conquered your title blues, the next thing is
    the content of the article. Look, I know some subjects are
    drier than others, but hey, article writing isn't exactly
    talking about having a party in Chinatown. And yet, look at
    all the flowery prose I've managed to dump all over this
    thing. It may have even gotten you to chuckle a few times.
    If nothing else, it's not bland and boring. It's not
    drudgery to get through it. As a matter of fact, I bet you
    don't even realize that you're getting close to the end of
    this article. See, and you thought I was going to put you to
    sleep.

    Articles don't have to be a hell hole to get through. You
    can say what you have to say and still keep people
    interested. So throw away your dictionary and use some
    creativity.

    Your readers will thank you for it.

    To YOUR Success,

    Steven Wagenheim


    It's only 380 words but it makes the point and does it (I hope) in an
    interesting way.

    Now, you article writers out there...put some feeling into it for crying out
    loud.

    We now return you to your regularly scheduled yawn fest.
    topeyinka-this is a great piece,it going to help beginner like me who have just started article writing.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeCollins
      Good point Steven. It doesn't matter if you write 10,000 articles...no one's following your call to action if they doze off halfway through your article.
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      • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
        Now, what did you go and do that for, Steven? Don't you want your competitors' articles to be dry and boring?
        Signature
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        • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
          Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards View Post

          Now, what did you go and do that for, Steven? Don't you want your competitors' articles to be dry and boring?
          I can't speak for Steven (he's got 9,000+ posts to prove he can handle that little chore himself), but I want my competition's articles to be almost as good as mine...

          It's a very short leap from 'most of the articles on this are crap' to 'all of the articles on this are crap.' And when that leap is made, my breathless prose will be ignored right along with the crap.

          I wouldn't worry about it happening, though. It seems like, for every instructive article like this there are a dozen asking about the latest or best article spinner.

          For a lot of us, Steven is preaching to the choir.

          For the people who really need to read it, I'm going to paraphrase Forrest Gump's mama - lazy is as lazy does.
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          • Profile picture of the author paul65
            Great point Steve! I say the same thing. When coaching many people with their article writing I always tell them to just sit down and write. Forget about keywords, spelling and all of the other stuff, just get writing. Then if you are concerned about keywords place them in the first and last paragraph and some where in the middle. For an article of 380 words three times is plenty. Then they can run their article through spell checker and such.

            Focus on what kind of answers the visitor would be looking based for, on the keyword phrase and then give them some quality information and answers. Don’t give all the answers but enough to impress the visitor. Now you have gained their trust and you have a better chance that they will click onto your site for more information.

            I think there are some people out there that think there is some kind of magic that happens if they just throw some words and links together around a set of keywords. If you do not have good content your success will be zero. Some people need to learn that a real human will be reading your article and so then keep it interesting :--)

            You can also read this thread on Article Marketing

            Cheers and To Your Success,

            Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Jim B.
    Hi Steven,

    Your article is definately NOT boring.

    Fully agree with your statement. However, there seems to be a new wave of interest for making money with articles at the moment (reading everywhere about it) so I fear there's lots more of the same boring articles headed our way...

    In a way that's good news for us though. Our articles will look even better.


    Take care,
    Jim B.
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