Content Creation Series: Write How To Articles

As you can probably tell the How to post is one of my favorites, I use it over and over here on this blog. It’s one of the easiest types of posts for me to write. I have all this information in my head, all I have to do is write it down and share it. Writing a how to article in a product niche can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it. Here are some ways to get ideas for how to articles.

(look out this is turning into a list post.)

Google keyword tool.

This is one of my favorites. Go in and put your keyword and the word how in the keyword tool and see what you get.

How’s that for some ideas on what to write about? This is a great way to come up with ideas for articles as well. This way you can write about something related that isn’t directly one of your main buying keywords. A great way to point people back to your site. With that being said it’s a great way to get ideas for posts as well.

How to buy a mountain bike ~ that’s a good one.  I could talk about the different ways to buy a mountain bike ~ used, online, through a bike shop, from craigslist. I could also go a different route and talk about the different things you want to look at when you are looking at a mountain bike. The questions you need to ask when looking at a used mountain bike. All great how to articles.

I would probably end my article talking about how to buy a mountain bike using the way I am monetizing the site. If I ended up saying ~ buying a bike at ebay is a great way to get a good deal and a quality bike ~ then I could link to ebay from there or show some ebay bike auctions right on the site.

Forums:

This is a FANTASTIC way to see what your market is looking for. Now you may have to get creative and really look at what/who your market is to find a related forum ~ but that’s a good thing. The better you understand your market the more you are going to be able to write content that is relatable and will serve them.

Here’s some examples.

Niche: hand tools  forums: DIY, building stuff, construction etc

Niche: dollhouses forums: mom forums, miniatures forums, dollhouse forums

Niche: mountain bikes forums: biking, outdoor adventure, triathalon

Niche: birthday parties forums: mom forums/communities

Niche: inversion tables forums: chiropractor, back pain, exercise

How do you find these forums?

Good question ~ go to google and search for your topic + forum, or try your keyword + forum and see what comes up. It won’t be hard to find related forums.

Once you get there you want to look around. Do NOT jump in and start telling everyone about your site. This is an information gathering mission, we’re just trying to find some questions people are asking that will relate to the products you are promoting.

So look through the threads, see what’s got a lot of pageviews, what’s got a lot of answers. Look at the sticky threads those are usually really important to the community. It won’t be hard to look around and figure out what questions your market is asking. Grab them, put them somewhere where you can find them again (word doc, spreadsheet, notebook ~ whatever). This will be an excellent resource if and when you face a little writer’s block down the road.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to write specifically about your product in every post. You can use your product as a solution to the problem people have and/ or the  question people are asking.

Ezinearticles.com

Next stop on the idea train is EZA. Yep. This can be a super place to come up with ideas. I can bet that no matter what topic/product/niche you’ve decided to write about somebody out there has thought of it before you ~ and there are articles written about it on ezinearticles.com.

Again ~ we’re not publishing other people’s articles, we’re not plagarizing people’s articles we are going on a mission to find out what questions people are asking! The people publishing at EZA have probably already gone to forums and looked at their market, so go look at see what they are writing about, what questions are they answering, what topics are they focusing on? Write down the questions. Read the articles there, google the topic if you need more information about it, then write a blog post in your own voice using your own words that answer those questions.

Twitter:

If you are at a loss for what to write about a given topic ~ take it to twitter. Twitter will give you real time information about what people are talking about/asking right now, this very minute.  You don’t even need a twitter account to do this.

Go to twitter search. Put in your topic/keyword and see what comes back. It’s a great way to look at what the market is talking about. It’s also a fantastic way to find breaking news in your market. Breaking news can be a fast way to get traffic to your site.

I just searched twitter for how mountain bike and here’s part of what came up.

This gives me a very good idea to do some research and figure out what mountain bike I would recommend for using in snow. ~ then link to the mountain bike so people can buy it.

See how that works? Twitter is your friend in more ways than one!!

ehow:

This is another type of article directory. It’s all “how to” articles. If you are looking for some ideas on what to write for a how to article, ehow is a good bet. We are not putting their articles on our site, nor are we copying what they have written in our articles, but we are going to go there and look around and get some ideas.

Simply go to E How, and type in your topic/niche/product and see what happens. Here’s what I found for mountain bike:

Now there are some pretty good ideas I could run with there! If your niche is really compatable with how to articles you can even submit your own articles to e-how. You get paid for article views and it can be another way to create not only authority in your niche, but another stream of income as well. You can also include a “resources” link in your articles, and link back to your site, which will be a anchor text backlink from an authority site (but we’ll get into that much more later.) if you’re interested in writing for e-how, let me know and I’ll share the ebook that taught me everything I needed to know to make money with e-how.

So there you have it. The “how to” post and 5 ways to find ideas for things to write about. These tactics will work in any niche and around every product. You may have to be a little creative. Step into your reader/market’s shoes and walk around for a bit. Get to know what they are talking about, what they are doing, the problems they are having and you will never be at a loss for blog content.

I know we started this whole process off by creating a keyword list ~ and believe me ~ keywords are important, but it’s also important to give good content and weave your keywords in. We are creating a quality resource here, not a thin affiliate site. Just keep your reader’s needs in the forefront of your mind, do whatever it is you can do to help them and you’ll be fine!

Any questions or need for brainstorming feel free to ask in the comments area below or start a new discussion at the Facebook fan page.