An Article on Articles

A Three-part Article on:

1. Blog: Blogging and Bloggers 
2. An Article on Articles 
3. And other things... 

Part 2. An Article on Articles 

Article. (noun) 

a particular item or object. 

a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication. 

What is an Article in the context of Blogging? 

An Article is that part of a Blog which is meant to engage the readers and viewers. It is basically a post. Where a post is defined as; 

 Post. (noun) 

a piece of writing, image, or other items of content published online, typically on a blog or social media website or application. 

 Post. (verb) 

to display (a notice) in a public place. 

Technically speaking an article is the written part of a post but it is used interchangeably with the term post, with one actually being considered as the part of another. 

For your blog, an article could be the final stuff you post to your web page after conducting exhaustive research or time fine-tuning your content. Which would attract viewers, readers, subscribers and most importantly patrons/matrons to purchase your products and/ or services. 

 Who can write Articles? 

 These days the internet holds a very important place in our lives and our social media holds a very special place in our heart, especially so after the end of yet another tiring day in our busy and/ or mundane life. To then read an article from a blog about your field of interest or passion, with poor structure, sources, information or just bad language in general- in my opinion- is a borderline crime. A crime on part of the author to produce something with such low quality, a crime on part of ourselves to have wasted time and investment on shabby content, and crime on part of the blog. With the punishment most usually being an unsubscribe/ an unfollow/ a bad comment/ poor rating/ or in the worst case scenario a direct report. 

 So how do we go about from here? Can anyone really just write an article? 

Well technically and theoretically yes. After all, even the pros start off somewhere in the beginning. And the worst-case scenario could only be as bad as above. Still, for formal blogs, companies usually pay a person designated as a Content Writer to write their articles, and even bigger places have entire Editorial Boards in place to curate whatever is going to be posted on their blogs or official webpage. For those of us with humble beginnings, it would do well to use language correction apps from google like Grammarly for Scrivener to write good quality pieces and of course to put in even more efforts into research and fact-checking to ensure delivering of high-quality content on the Internet. 

 How can you ensure consistency of growth in your content quality? 

 Like all things in life, Consistency really does produce astonishing results over time. Just one improvement a day over a year can make your skills improve by more than 350 different aspects! For this Improving your content becomes your primary goal and everything else as your secondary goal or even your tertiary goal. 

Practice as a proven method of improvement. Practice is your best friend and Feedback is your guru. You can learn more from failing than succeeding after all. To do this, find and breakdown good content on the internet and absorb them. Search for all those things which make it great and try to learn them. Look for everything in how you did it that made it go wrong. Make a circle of your like-minded people and invest in jam sessions and curate each other’s content. This is not to say to abandon your own style. By all means, develop your own style. Nobody likes mere copy paste work. 

The different areas that makeup content could be: 

• Facts as a means of sources, to what you’re trying to say. Facts can be derived from experimental data and user ratings or reviews. Use Wikipedia and Quora. 
• Supporting data can give you wings. Graphs always make your work look more thorough and well versed. How this is different from providing facts is you’d need more hands-on stuff to corroborate your work than mere links from Wikipedia to vouch for what you have to say. Use personal experience. You can even have other writers co-author a part of your article to add more flavour to it. Use Researchgate. 
• Media and Journalism are your limbs. Everyone likes a good quote. Quote different people who share your thoughts and opinion to influence viewer engagement. The deeper a reader is engaged the more likely they are to subscribe to your page and visit again. Use Reddit and Tumblr. 
• A picture is worth a thousand words. Using pictures helps you convey things on a more visual level and better grab attention to what you are selling. Use Pinterest.
• #hashtag. Picture and symbols always help start riots after all. You never know which post of yours can start a trend, its wise to always be in control for what you have to say. Hence using guided hashtags can help all your readers be on the same page at the end. Use Google. 
• Labelling is bad, but only, if you shame someone. Use your post tags wisely. Using misleading tags and labels in your work can not only not get you traffic to your website but even get you mass reported. Use common sense. =P 
• I don’t make the rules. Don’t trust me to go and do all your research for you. Ultimately there’s only so far you can reach with mere tips and tricks… 

What to articulate in an article?

Always remember to stick to the theme of your blog, the title of your article and most importantly what you have to say. Having random content on your blog, regardless of its high quality, will not fetch you anything. A major part of consistency in your blog comes by writing about ‘what you say you write about’ and titling your articles properly, among other things. Also, you’ll need to watch out for more technical aspects of what you need to mention in your articles and how to mention it. These are just some rules that apply to the search engine philosophy of the Great Internet Ocean. 

Also as you might have noticed I like attaching a lot of links in my articles. This is to allow those readers that read laterally to feel much more engaged while also not to make others sense an unnecessary Info dump, For example, here’s a good post on The Perils of Info Dumps and How to Avoid Them 

Information dumps can be as obvious as an entire paragraph describing someone's look or backstory; they can also be as subtle as a single line in dialogue. At its core, an information dump is when a writer puts it all out there, so to speak. All the information that's in their head has to go onto the paper somehow—or so they think. 

When to post a Post? 

As in a traditional post, You never know when the reader is going to read, what you have to say! Hence, trying to time your post for a certain hour of the day may not necessarily work in your favour. On the other hand, timing your work for certain seasons or holiday times could do your work wonders. You can notice the trend of how and when the dates of release of certain movies are decided! 

What you should instead be paying attention to is how to make your post culturally appropriate and time relevant. You never know who is going to view your work. Still trying to make a shoe that fits all will most likely fit no one. Hence, retain your style and, at the same time, ensure dignity for all. 

Additionally, Mr Obama if you are reading this I’m a fan! 

Lastly and most importantly know, How and when to end your Article!? 

Most people need a sense of closure when they finish with something. To leave them hanging after they’ve spent the last 5-10 minutes reading your blog leaves a bad aftertaste. What you should do instead, is make a clear flow throughout your post on “why you are saying ‘whatever you are saying’?” “Who you are saying it to?” “How can they use whatever you’ve just said?” This gives a sense of coordination throughout the entire affair and will more likely make them want to come for more! Everyone loves a curtain fall and a mic drop. Remember ‘Nice guys… always finish’. 

Also leaving with something motivational always gives a good impression. So buy your Xyz vacuum cleaner now! 

PS: now that you know about blogging and have simplified know-how of an Article. See you- On the Safer Side.

End of Part 2/3