Writing an article seems like a daunting task, and if you do it for the first time you might feel like standing in front of an unsurmountable sleek wall that does not provide footholds to climb up and over it to reach your goal. But it's quite easy, if you approach article writing in a systematic, step by step way. Let's look at these steps and find out how you can write an article in a few minutes, once you have mastered this 6 step system:

The Six Step System For Article Writing

This is the most efficient and, in my experience, fastest way to write about any subject:

- define what your goal is for the article

- do research if necessary

- prepare an outline

- start writing any part of the article

- organize the article into headline, lead, body, conclusion

- proof read three times at least

Who Will Read The Article - What Is The Article About?

Before you start writing, you need to define what you want to communicate with your article, and what purpose the article will serve. Ask yourself these questions: Who is the reader you want to reach, what knowledge of the subject does this reader have allready? What exactly do you want the reader to know once he's read your article?

Best use a list with keywords to jot down your ideas. Dont' worry about organizing these keywords yet. Once you have a bunch of keywords, start putting them in a logical sequence, the way you want to organize your story. When you have decided how your article will appraoch the subject, prepare an outline how you want to pass on this knowledge and / or information. Then start giving your article a structure.

Structure means divide the article into the four sections: headline, lead or teaser, body and conclusion. Here is the secret to effective writing that will make writing your own articles fast and painless: You don't have to write these in the order I just mentioned them! Because it can be really difficult to come up with a good headline or teaser, if you have not written the article itself. Also don't necessarily write the article body in the sequence that it will have once it's ready for publishing.

It is a lot easier to first start off with a few bullet points for the body of the article. Developing these bullet points into sentences and paragraphs often, all of a sudden, leads to a great headline, or you will think of the best reason why this article provides benefit to the reader. That way you let your thoughts flow freely and don't get writers block.

The Headline

It's allways good to start writing a first headline for your article. The headline may change as you write. But start off with the best headline that comes to mind now. Headlines should be catchy and induce curiosity in the readers mind. Best keep your headline short, seven words or less is good. Also make it strong and affirmative: "Write your Article in 10 minutes" is better than "How to Write an Article in a short time".

The Lead or Teaser

To get the readers attention, it's important to start off with a lead paragraph that very briefly describes what you are going to tell the reader and why. You must grab the readers attention and give him a very good reason why reading your article is worth his time.

A great way to write an article is to start the lead paragraph with a statement, then go through the explanations and information that you want to pass on and, in your conclusion, draw a line back to the initial statement you made. This neatly wraps up everything and in the mind of the reader 'encapsulates' the article.

A good lead is short and to the point. It doesn't try to compact every fact you write about in the article body into two or three sentences. Just provide enough information to get the story moving, but leave the reader wanting to know more.

The Body

In the body you go into detail and cover the points that you have written down in your outline. Here you provide the hard facts, the information and the instructions. You answer the reader's questions and you show different angles of the subject.

Organizing this information in a logical way is the most important thing. Think of the flow of the article and make sure you have a thread that leads smoothly from one point to the next. Make sure you don't use jargon or spcific words that are only known in an industry or trade and not used by the public. If you need to use these words, explain the meaning. Put the reader at ease.

Explain your points in short paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier for the reader to follow. No one likes to look at a long block of solid text. Three, four or five sentences are enough for one paragraph.

If you are writing to create interest for your business, spill all the beans! Tell your trade secrets! This may sound a bit wild, but the more you tell, the more demand will be created for your goods and services.

Provide personal examples of the points you make, or create a ficticious case and show how in practice such a solution would work well. Illustrating your explanations with an example makes understanding what you say a lot easier for the reader and your text gains credibility.

The Conclusion

Remember your favourite teacher at school, the one that at the end of class would quickly summarize what was covered in the last 45 minutes? That's what you are going to do now to finish off your article and make it a finished and polished piece. Reread your lead, where you started the circular loop that you now want to bring together by writing the conclusion.

For this article the conclusion could read like this: "Writing the wrong way round and mixing body, title, tease and conclusion whilst writing does lead to faster writing and better results, because you let your thoughts flow free and avoid writers block. When you'll be writing your next article, footholds will magically appear on that wall that earlier used to block your writing. Go and try it!"

It's allmost allways possible to draw the circle closed, and if it does not seem to be doable with the teaser that you have, read the entire article once more and maybe change the teaser to be able to draw that circle.

Proofreading

The best way to destroy credibility is poor grammar and spelling. Your content may be brilliant, but if there are mistakes, people will tend to dismiss what you have to say. So use the tools that are available to spell check and have a friend, or better, a few friends proofread your article before you submit it or publish it yourself. Best leave the article for a day or two and then reread it yourself. Often you'll come up with even better formulations and the article will gain in quality. Don't overdo this, thouhg. Once is enough for your own rereading, then go out and publish. You've done a great job and spent time and effort to write, now others want to read what you have to say!

... and even though I've written the conclusion allready as an example, here's it true spot, so here we go again, this time reworded just slightly:

You see, writing the wrong way round and mixing body, title, tease and conclusion whilst writing does lead to faster writing and better results. This writing style allows your thoughts to flow free, lets your creativity develop thoughts and associations. Because you avoid writers block that way, you'll be writing your next article fast and without pain. Footholds will magically appear on that wall that earlier used to block your writing. Go and try it!