Article Marketing - How To Format For The Web

When you are writing for the purpose of being published on the web you have to do things a little differently. The internet is a different sort of place and it has its own set of rules. There is much to learn but if you follow these simple steps you will be well on your way to writing articles that are appropriate for publishing on the web.

1. Make it Easy to Scan
People who are looking for information online know what they are looking for. Make it easy for them to find it. Utilize subheadings, lists, bullet points, etc. to make the text in your article easier to skim and easier to understand.

2. Get to the Point
In short…make it short. Keep your sentences brief and conversational. Break up your text into short paragraphs. A huge block of text is intimidating. No one wants to read a novel when they are just looking for a little information. You don't have to cut parts out of your article, just separate it out into more manageable bits of text for your readers to digest.

Keep your overall article length fairly short as well. There is debate over whether long or short articles are best. Obviously in a longer article you can cover a topic more thoroughly and give your reader a more comprehensive experience.

However, think of the type of articles you read when you are looking for information. When you see a huge article, unless you are searching for an in depth examination of the topic, you will probably pass on to the next one. Most of the time people are going to be looking for who can give them the information they need the fastest. EzineArticles.com says the ideal article length is between 400 and 750 words. That's a good target to shoot for.

3. Be Original
You do not want to plagiarize your articles. Don't go for those box set article packages that give you X number of pre-written articles for a fee. Chances are you won't be able to use them anyway. Many of the more respected article directories (the ones you want your articles to show up on) have ways of determining if your articles are original or not. Don't waste your time and money. Write your articles yourself so you can make sure you are putting your name on an original, quality product.

4. Use Notepad
Pasting your articles into a program like notepad and then submitting them online from there will save you a lot of time and frustration in dealing with formatting issues. When you paste text from Microsoft Word onto the internet there are a lot of things that can go wrong. It is just better to be safe than sorry and it only takes a minute.

5. Do Not Use Smart Quotes
Microsoft Word by default uses curly quotes or smart quotes whenever you type out an apostrophe or a set of quotation marks. These do not transfer to the web well at all and may leave your article riddled with out of place question marks or other characters. To fix this simply go into Microsoft Word's auto formatting options and turn smart quotes off. Here is a link to a video from Microsoft Online that explains exactly how to do this.

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