Article Marketing: 3 Tips For Getting Past Writer’s Block

I was working with one of my coaching clients today and it was time for me to check on her article writing progress. With her permission (name withheld), I have included a portion of our recent session…

Coach Lisa: “So when I checked in with you two weeks ago, you work working on adding an article to your blog. I see that you haven’t written or published anything yet. So that’s about 30 days with no new content on your site. The search engines are not going to like that:)”

The Client: “I know. I know. Actually I have started writing about four different articles, but I can’t finish any of them.”

Coach Lisa: “Why do you think that is?”

The Client: “Well they aren’t profound enough. I don’t have anything interesting to say.”

This is where a lot of writers get stuck. Especially if you have a perfectionist personality. Trying to write the PERFECT article is what can essentially cripple you from ever getting your writing out there. Without publishing your writing – your message isn’t out there and of course that means no new clients, customers, and/or traffic.

So it’s important that you understand a couple of things to get past this perfectionist thing:

1. You are more of an expert than you believe that you are. While you may have a 100 or more competitors, there are literally millions of people out there who have no idea about your niche. They are starting from ground zero. So even the simplest article on what you do, how you do it, frequently asked questions, how-to questions answered will seem very profound to the newbies in your marketplace. So you have a lot of articles in you — you just have to step outside of the “niche bubble” you are living in and realize that not everyone knows all about your topic the way that you do.

2. People crave solutions. If you can write an article that answers a question or solves a problem then you could misspell words, you could use horrible grammar, and you could possibly even in type in all capitals (okay I’m exaggerating), but you understand what I’m saying. At the end of the day, people just want answers and the aren’t as concerned in how those solutions are packaged. In fact, the simpler the better.

3. There is plenty of time to grow. There are naturally talented singers, actors, musicians, painters, etc. AND then there are those you can learn those things through steps, a method, a process AND time. So you have  plenty of time to grow into a really good article marketer. What you lack in natural talent, you can learn as you go. All of us article marketers can easily tell which articles we started with versus the more current ones. You will learn to write faster, produce more, and how to pick article topics that folks in your niche want to read — and of course you can speed this process up when you use a method or a system to learn how to master the core elements of article writing and marketing.

*One Last Tip
This is a writing tip that I have used since I was about 13 years old. I just write. Let my ideas flow. Get the thoughts out. And I do NOT read it over until I’ve let all of those thoughts out. After I’m about 3/4 finished with the article, I read it. Fix typos and cut out the fluff. Then I finish with my closing tip, thought, or paragraph. This isn’t the only way to do it – but it’s how I do it and it helps me get an article finished without scrutinizing every sentence along the way.