I would like to have a go at writing an article to submit. Does anyone know of any guides for beginners? Not sure how long they should be, should they use paragraphs, third or first person etc so any tips appreciated. Thanks.
It's really going to depend on the client, the subject and the result you are trying to get from the piece. Is it a call to action to buy a product or service? Is it a testimonial or review? Is it just an informational article? Is it content for a new website? All depends. Also, if you've got a client who is requesting the work or if you have an end buyer in mind that you'd like to sell it to, you want to take their style needs and buying history into account. I don't know of any guides, but I would start reading articles and websites to see all the different styles there are and go from there.
Begin by spelling 'Beginners' correct in your post title LoL Always proof read and spell check your work Ha Ha Regarding article length etc. I would recommend keeping articles to around 400-600 words in length if you are going to try and sell them in the Content for Sale section on DP. That length of article seems best for my purposes and is a good length for a content page on a website, a blog post on a blog or to submit to an article submission site.
Look up some articles on your chosen subject on sites like ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. Look at how they are structured and how long they are. Don't, however, assume that they are all quality articles. Read them. That's the only way to decide for yourself if the article is quality or not. If you think it's a quality article then look at how it's written. If you're just starting article marketing, map out your strategy BEFORE you start.
Thanks for the info. My initial purpose for writing articles will be to submit them in the hope they get used and then bring some traffic back to my sites. They will be information based ones. After that I will look into writing sales type ones for my own blogs.
I suggest you find out what you want to write about first. Try to see if anybody's interested in reading things about the topic as well (you can do this by doing keyword research). From there, you can come up with topics that your target audience would like to read based on the research you did. Good luck!