Sometimes it's hard to get started!
Just finished reading a blog post by one of the more inspirational writers about Internet Marketing.
The subject of the post was article writing.
Why is it so hard for so many people?
Think about speech class in high school or college. I can remember getting so anxious when it was my turn to stand in front of a few of my peers and give a speech on a subject that I was not that familiar with. I froze… totally! Couldn’t get a word out, couldn’t even remember the title of the speech.
I had done so much research to prepare, but when it came time to deliver, I froze.
It was pointed out that writing articles is similar for some, if not a majority of folks.
You get the research done; you have great intentions; you sit down to write, and… freeze.
What’s that all about? And how can we fix it? After all, we need to write those articles if we are to accomplish our goal of making money online, right?
The problem for me, and for many of the commenters on the blog, is that we want the article to be perfect. We are self conscious of how it will look to others. Some of us over-analyze the spelling and grammar. Others want to sound totally professional, like we know what we are talking about – after all, we are an “expert” on the subject.
Well, here is the gist of the blog. Write as if you are speaking to someone. You know, have a conversation. In fact, the style of writing is termed “conversational writing”.
It wasn’t what our high school English teacher was looking for, but it works pretty well when you are trying to build a relationship with your audience. Just talk to them as if you are their friend.
And, by all means, do not.. I repeat DO NOT try to sell them anything. Your goal is to help them to make a decision that they are already contemplating.
You probably don’t appreciate it when someone puts the pressure on you to buy something. Don’t do the same thing to your web page visitors.
By the way, if you want to read Jennifer’s post, it is at www.wealthyaffiliate.com/blog. Jennifer is the publisher of the program that I highly recommend on these pages called One Week Marketing.
What about you?
Below are some of the comments from the blog post that I thought were probably common among us who have difficulty getting started with an article. Can you identify with any of these:
“I call myself a newbie, even though I’ve been at it for almost 2 years. I’ve made a whopping $65 on the net, and I don’t even know how that happened. My computer is full of downloads, videos, ebooks, you name it on How to do this and that. It becomes total overwhelm. Some say do this, others say that’s wrong do this instead. You just don’t know what the right way is anymore.”
“As I’m writing this to you regarding your thought provoking article above, I realize I am actually “doing it”, so it’s not knowing what to write, it’s more a worry that’s what I will write may not be good enough. A confidence/self-esteem thing I guess. All these ‘gurus’ seem to know so much more than this ‘technophobic newbie’. I think this is a big problem for a lot of others out there too..”
“I remember when I first started writing articles how hard they were. I was thinking it too hard and getting myself all worked up.”
“Decide who you are writing too and the end result you are after. Nobody has to be shakespeare and also I think many people try to be a perfectionist. Taking weeks or even months over articles, emails or even blog post’s is not going to get your words on the net.”
“Just get it out there. Once you are writing and posting to the net it will get easier and start to come more natural. If you are taking ages because this article is going to be the best piece of writing on the net and everyone is going to be blown away by it and then I am going to take over the world HAAA HAAA!”
“I find myself trying to write the perfect article the first time. Worrying about keywords, density and the length of the article.”
“Sometimes I just find article writing so boring and tedious and even I find reading my own articles boring….lol”
“Hmmm Blank page…I’m staring at one right now! Gosh I hope I don’t “choke”.”
That’s it. Don’t spend time over-analyzing. Just start writing as if you were having a conversation with a friend.
It’s actually fun writing that way, Friend.
