An avalanche of articles is flooding the internet, and the majority of them are bad. Why is this? Why do people publish articles that are second rate when it can do them more harm than good?

It is well known that articles can bring a ton of visitors to your website, and everybody seems to want to get on the bandwagon. Too many, however, are making a bad job of it and harming, rather than enhancing, their reputation. What are they doing wrong? What can they do improve their chances of having their article accepted by the directories, and generating traffic for their websites?

The first part of this two-part article explains the importance of knowing why you are writing the article, and staying on topic. These are possibly the most basic faults that separate the good author from the bad, and make all the difference between an article being accepted and rejected. Part 2 will give examples of several other basic errors from spelling mistakes to incorrect use of the resource box.

Spelling and Grammar Matter

Don't believe those that tell you spelling and grammar don't matter. They do! It's OK to write as you speak, but you must at least seem to have a grasp of your language. Many potentially good writers have let themselves down by listening too much to those who claim that readers prefer you to write in a loose ungrammatical style. Good colloquial writing as an alternative to the text book approach is fine, but the overuse of slang terms and loose grammar is not.

By all means find your own style, and you do not have to write an article like a medical textbook, but your use of words must be correct and the way you spell them must be correct. Writing is not rocket science, and you can write as you would speak about your subject, but make sure you can be understood and people do not distrust your knowledge due to the loose way in which you write. Many readers, quite wrongly sometimes, associate poor grammar and overuse of slang or idiom as an indication of lack of knowledge.

It's generally not the case, so try to get it right by avoiding some of the common errors or omissions I write about below and in the second part of this article which will be published in a few days time.

What Is the Purpose of Your Article?

Many people start writing without having a clear idea of the purpose of their article. Generally, an article should provide information. That is what people use the internet for - to get information. It usually doesn't matter how it is presented as long as your article provides the information people want. You might approach each article differently but keep in mind the following four major reasons for writing articles.

As content for your website. In this case the article is there for your visitors to read, so it must be relevant to the page it is situated on and interesting to the reader. It should provide real information on the subject, and not just fill up space.

For submission to article directories. In this case your article should be interesting enough to persuade others who read it to click on the link in your resource box for more information. You then get visitors to your website, but you must make sure they are directed to the page most relevant to the topic of the article, or they will just click away. If you are writing for directory submission, your spelling must be correct and your grammar must be good to avoid rejection. You could even be downgraded as an author, having to wait longer than others to have your article cleared for submission.

As content for somebody else's website. There are many people who for one reason or another prefer to copy an article from a directory rather than write their own. That is what the directories are for, and your resource box must stay with the article. Not only might you get traffic through your resource box link, but you also get a one-way link back to your website. This helps your page ranking and position in the search engine indices.

The article could be intended as content for an Adsense page. The article is a stocking filler to provide the initial attraction through the title, and persuade the visitor to click on an advert. If the information is too interesting, the visitor might decide to stay on your site and click to more of your web pages, which is not your objective. Keep these articles short and sweet and try to direct the visitor to the adverts for more information. You can't do this directly with Adsense so you have to be clever with your page design and Adsense block placements.

A professional writer might approach each of these possibilities in a different way, but for the average writer it is sufficient that you are aware of them. As your writing improves, you will find it easier to tweak your work towards one or other of them.

Choose the Right Topic and Stay on It

You must take time to choose your topic and it should be relevant to your own website. If you have a website on cats, there's not much point in writing about dogs. This may seem fundamental, but many people write about topics that are irrelevant to their website, and then wonder why the article doesn't provide them with visitors. They might even be writing on a subject that is completely relevant, but their URL, or link text, does not appear to be connected with the article.

Don't direct visitors who are reading an article on cat baskets to a site on pet training. If your pet training site has a page on cat baskets you can direct them to that, preferably through a text link. Stay on topic, and don't let your emphasis switch from cat blankets to training pets. Otherwise your readers may not stay long.

So far you have found that a bad article is not written with the visitor in mind. It is not sufficiently interesting and does not draw the visitor to click on your website link. If they do click it might lead them to part of your website irrelevant to what they are interested in, and a bad article may also drift off the main topic.

The second part will introduce some common spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, so until then, enjoy your writing. It could be your quickest way to success!