The difference between amateur writers and professionals is that amateurs churn out copious amounts of irrelevant content that does nothing to promote or improve their business.
Professional writers use the many benefits of article marketing to entice readers to their sites and to encourage them to take action (to purchase a product or download a freebie).
Professional writers keep the end in mind, they seek to transform their audience, to convince their readers, to change, even for a moment, the ways readers interpret and interact with the world.
Anyone can throw words together (believe me when I say this - as a college writing professor, I am continually surprised at the way words can be strung together into nonsense ramblings) into a sentence and convince themselves that they are "marketing" effectively.
For anyone who wants to make a very good living online, writing well is a must.
It is not enough to simply post self-aggrandizing pieces (of garbage).
It is necessary to transport your audience, to win them to your side, to seduce them into reading your writing and into taking action.
Professional writers take the time to choose the best words, to capture a feeling, a moment, or an argument.
This is the difference between throwing words on a page and employing persuasive, transformational writing.
The three steps to improving your article writing are 1) to write to a specific, target audience, 2) to choose the best venue to publish your writing to, and, 3) to determine the type of transformation you want to occur in your readers, as this precedes them taking the right action.
  1.
Understand Your Target Audience If you want to reach your audience, it is crucial that you identify and understand them.
You have to write, not from your own perspective, but from theirs.
Yes, easier said than done.
To get into your readers' minds, first identify them.
Figure out their general age, gender, ethnicity, income level, location.
Depending upon your subject matter, this is not as difficult as it seems.
If, for instance, your eBook/blog/website is about Medicare Part D, it is more than likely that the majority of your audience is older, can be of either gender, any ethnicity, probably is on a budget, and resides somewhere in the United States.
More difficult to point down is your target audience's buying habits, interests, hobbies, etc.
Over the weeks and months as you build your eBusiness, this will become more evident to you, so you should be keeping track.
As you better understand your audience, your writing should conform to their comfort level.
Injecting words such as "killer", "epic" and "domination" into your writing will likely turn older readers off.
More than likely, they prefer words such as "proven", "guaranteed" and "doctor endorsed.
"  2.
Find Your Perfect Venue Posting your Medicare Part D article to an ezine that caters to a younger, hipper crowd will do nothing for your article marketing campaign other than confuse and turn off your readers (if your article is even accepted, that is).
It is important, then, to find the best venue for your articles and to post there.
You discover your best venues by finding out where your target audience goes for their information.
If I were to be writing about Medicare Part D, I'd research online ezines that cater to older Americans.
I would write to the editor and ask for submission guidelines.
I would also look into high-traffic blogs and ezines that cater to that audience and offer to supply content to them.
  3.
Choose a Transformation-to-Action There are three ways to transform your readers - to get them to know something, to feel something, or to do something.
Online marketers generally want their audience to do something (to buy an eBook, to sign up for a webinar, to continue reading).
Getting a reader to "do" often means you first have to get them to "know" or to "feel" first.
How do you do this? The short answer is, by writing good content.
There are people who surf the web because they have nothing else to do.
More so, people go online to find information.
By providing good, valuable information, you can easily transform your audience.
How do you create good, valuable information? By researching your subject and delivering it in a new, fresh way.
Or, by breaking down difficult-to-understand information into easily understood bites.
Or, by providing clear, step-by-step instructions.
If you can make the difficult easy, your audience will learn from you and you will quickly build your reputation as an expert in your field.
Getting your audience to feel something is a little more difficult.
Getting them to understand something often uses logic.
Getting them to feel something plays on emotion.
There are instances when transforming (OK, manipulating) your audience's emotions can be effective.
In our Medicare Part D example, for instance, you could tailor your articles to increase readers' fear ("If Catastrophe Strikes, Are You Willing To Choose Between Paying Your Mortgage and Buying Medicine?").
Figuring out the action you want your readers to take is key to deciding whether you want to write from a logical or an emotional point of view.
If your purpose is to solely educate, then logic wins out.
If you want them to "BUY NOW!!!" then creating an emotional transformation is probably more effective.
Professional writers write with a direction in mind.
Amateurs simply put it all out there and hope for the best.
Happily, moving from amateur to professional status is simply a matter of writing to your target audience, choosing the best venue for your articles, and deciding how you want your writing to transform your audience