How to Write Engaging Articles: My Personal Guide
Okay, so Imma write down some notes for myself to guide me next time I write an article. This is a personal guide, and I know it’s missing a lot of things, or even wrong. But yea, if you have any suggestions or advices, please let me know, I ain’t perfect I tryna learn tho.
Table of Contents
- 1. Keywords - What you are writing about
- 2. High value content - Write something nice
- 3. The authentic voice - Be yourself while you write
- 4. The UIUX - Your appearance online
- 5. How I structure my articles
1. Keywords - What you are writing about
First, keywords. Keywords can be a long phrase, like “how to write an article”, or a single word, like “writing”. Keywords are important because they help people find your article when they search for something related.
Long-tail vs Short keywords
A long phrase usually more specific and easier to get found, but the con is that it is too specific and not everyone is looking up the same thing.
A single keyword is more general, like just “writing”, but it will have more competition as these words are easy to thought of, and search for. So there will be tons of articles with the same keyword, and harder to get found in a sea of it.
My approach
I don’t really choose between either of them, I use both! A phrase with keywords & specifics, and a single keyword that is general. This way, I am covering both specific searches and general ones.
And lastly, having your authentic organic keywords, hitting the right angle.
Example from this article
For me, I have a “How Keyyard writes an article” as a phrase keyword here, and “writing” as a tag keyword. This way, people can find this article when they search for “how Keyyard writes an article” or “writing”. Where, “Keyyard” is my personal brand, and “writing” is a general keyword that people might search for.
Personal note: The hardest thing is finding high quality keywords that are not too competitive, but still have a good search volume. Well, that is theoretically, I don’t really know how to do that yet, but I will figure it out later. For now, I just use the keywords that I think are relevant to the article.
2. High value content - Write something nice
Next, high value content. This is the most important part of the article. You want to provide value to your readers, something that they can learn from or use in their own lives.
The more value you provide, the more likely people will share your article and come back for more. This connects to my thoughts on developing overall life skills - writing is just one skill in a broader ecosystem.
These values can be like tips & tricks, cool experiences that they can relate to, or just something that makes them wow-ed, this is cool I gotta save this.
The algorithms of search engines will prioritize high quality content, like:
- Time people spend reading your article
- How many people share it
- How many people come back to read it again
Key insight: If you provide high value content, people will spend more time reading your article, and the algorithms will see that as a good sign.
3. The authentic voice - Be yourself while you write
Okay, so this is where you shows your personality. Like, having your personal input in the articles, your style, your stories, your experiences…
This is how you make your readers feel connected, close, familiar with you. They will feel like talking to a friend instead of reading a news article.
Personal example: Notice how I say “Okay, so” and “imma” in my writing? That’s my authentic voice coming through.
4. The UIUX - Your appearance online
UIUX means User Interface and User Experience. I think I’m getting too technical again. But yea, let’s break it down.
The UI
The UI means the way how things look. But except from making them readable, you should make it comfortable to read, for example here I make the website minimalism, with soft colors and nice fonts.
The UX
The UX means how we gonna make people feels comfortable to reach your articles, read them, and come back later. The article should be scannable, easy to read, easy to navigate. Like, they can find the exact section they want to read, or the exact point they want to know and not having to read the whole things.
This also includes optimizing your medias, making the page loads faster, people are impatient.
That’s all I know for now, I will update this page as I learn more about writing. And please let me know if you can help me with this! I would be really appreciated and surely credit you in the article.
For more insights on personal development and skill building, check out my thoughts on The Money Scale, where I explore how different skills contribute to overall success.
5. How I structure my articles
Here’s my current approach to organizing articles:
Basic structure
- A Title - enough to describe the article, but not too long
- A Brief description - sets expectations
- Split into sections - with headings like questions, and contents answering them
Why questions work
I feel like questions are easier to read and understand, and also easier to scan. People can jump to exactly what they want to know.
Personal note: This is just my current method, and it’s not perfect. Having said, I am not a writer or so, this is just my approach to write. I will be updating this later as I learn more about writing a blog, articles,.. etc. Hit me up with your advices, suggestions, what you feel missing here, or what you think I should add, I would love to hear them!