The 7-step formula for writing web articles fast

Now that you know the type of article you want to write, and have generated a few article ideas, it’s time to get those fingers moving and start writing outstanding articles and blog posts. Here is an easy-to-follow 7-step formula you can apply today.

In fact, fire up that word processor and follow along. You’ll have an article ready to be published on your website or blog by the time you finish reading this post.

Step 1) Title your article.
Write a benefit-driven headline for your new article. Readers should know what the article is going to be about and what they’ll learn just by reading its headline. This headline will most likely be changed later (while you’re editing), but write one for now to keep you focused.

Step 2) Craft the lead.
Write one or two paragraphs to introduce the article’s main idea. The following questions will help you figure it out: What is the article about? What is the pain or problem you’ve detected that made you write this article? What will the reader get from reading this?

Step 3) Jot down the key points.
Create a bulleted list of 3-10 key points you want to cover in the article. These should all be related to each other and to the article topic. Compare each bullet to your headline to make sure you’re not straying away from the main idea.

Step 4) Elaborate.
Write one or two paragraphs going into detail and explaining each key point. If possible, support some of your key ideas with relevant hard facts, anecdotes, graphs, stats or quotes you have gathered.

Step 5) Conclude.
Write a short conclusion paragraph (3-5 sentences will do fine). Mention why the information you shared helps solve the initial problem or pain you detected. This takes the reader back to their FMI (first mental image) and makes your article more memorable.

Step 6) Edit ruthlessly.
Now take off your writer’s cap and put aside your ego for a while. Be ruthless when editing. Cut out anything that doesn’t help you communicate your main idea. Get rid of redundant sentences or phrases. Replace long or complex words with shorter ones. Replace repeating words with synonyms.

Step 7) Polish and embellish.
Let go of superfluous and vague words like “that” or “get”. Replace any weak adverbs with vibrant verbs and nouns. Use bullets and lists to tighten your writing and making it more readable on the web. And finally, liven up your article by replacing ho-hum adjectives with more descriptive ones.

There you go. You now have a quick guide to follow for writing web articles quickly and easily. It’s time to take action and start updating your website or blog with some fresh content. As an additional step, you’ll also want to optimize your article for the web, both for search engines and for social media. I’ll be talking about that later this week… but for now, give the formula a try and comment this post with your results.