The anatomy of a great article
How do you write a great article? Here are some steps that you can take which will improve your article which are above and beyond the writing tips we talk about on our Write/Share/Engage courses.
- Come up with a thought leadership article idea
- See what has already been written on it (yes, look on Google)
- Define your audience. Who do you want to read your article?
- Check to see what your readers would want you to write about (using tools or actually asking clients)
- Refine your original article idea by thinking of a new or different angle – perhaps a hook based on a sector approach/ a news event
- What action should your target audience take when they have read it? Consider where the reader is in the journey to making a buying decision – are they just finding out about an issue (awareness), asking probing questions (consideration) or considering which firm to instruct (decision). This will massively affect what you write and when and where you share it.
- Look at your existing website and search engine data to see what you might do differently/better than prior articles you or others at your firm have written
- Produce your article in a timely fashion or make sure that they are genuinely innovative
- Use terms that real people search for and understand
- Make sure that it is both distributed well…
- … and shared at the right time for the target audience
- Write content that is evergreen/update-able/campaign-able
- Write a great headline and first paragraph
- Make sure it has a great (and clear) call to action
- Analyse the results What can you learn? Do you need to tweak it?
- Tweak the article
- Go again
