Informational articles are one of the most popular article types you can write on your website and they are also one of the simplest to create. By following these guidelines, you will learn how to pick a topic, write engaging content, and position yourself as an expert in your field while driving more traffic to your site. With all that on the line, it doesn’t get much easier than this!
When Do I Write an Informational Article?
When do you write an informational article? When there’s something in your niche or area of expertise that doesn’t yet exist. Perhaps you’ve spotted a gap in a market, or come across an issue your readers are struggling with and aren’t getting a good answer from elsewhere. In these cases, it can be worth considering whether you could fill a need by writing an informational piece on it. But how would you go about actually doing so? Here’s what you need to know.
How Long Should your Informational Article Be?
While there are no hard-and-fast rules about how long an informational piece should be, you must know what your target audience needs. If you want your readers to read all of your content, then keep it short and sweet. Keep in mind that shorter pieces also need more visual elements images, videos, etc. To hold the reader's attention.
Our recommendation is to aim for at least 1,000 words; anything less than 600 words is not going to give you enough space to get everything across effectively. As a general rule of thumb: aim high with word count but don’t worry too much if you fall a little bit below or above 1,000 words when you are ready to publish.
Writing Tips and Tricks for Informational Article
There are plenty of specific tips and tricks you can use while writing an informational or how-to piece. For example, if you are writing a long post, like a tutorial on, say, home renovations, it may help to work in subheadings and bullet points. Readers might skim your writing if it’s too wordy; breaking things down into digestible chunks could help get your information across without overwhelming them.
Keep things interesting by including images, videos, graphs, and more! The idea here is that readers will continue reading (and learning) as they scroll through your post. With informational articles being so popular online these days, don’t make yours boring and definitely not just a bunch of text copied and pasted from another website! No one wants to read that unless it's original content (or at least original enough where people won't realize it's copied). The bottom line?
Editing Tips for writing Informative Article
While it might not be apparent at first, editing is one of the most important steps in writing a professional informational or how-to piece. That’s because few things are more off-putting than careless language and spelling mistakes. If you plan on selling your informational content to customers, remember that small errors can reflect poorly on your brand as a whole. To avoid these kinds of problems, proofread each draft carefully and make sure that every sentence is clear and accurate before moving on to the next section.
Create Different Sections with Headings
When writing an informational piece, such as website content, it’s important to structure your content with headings. Headings help guide visitors through your information and make it easier for people to skim over what they don’t want or need to read. If you want readers of your informational piece to really absorb your information, use strong subheadings.
Furthermore, It will help break up walls of text and allow you to make complex points by giving yourself short breaks between paragraphs. Break up your main points into bullet points: Sometimes longer pieces can get confusing, especially if there are a lot of ideas floating around in one paragraph without any clear distinction from one point to another. Bullet points provide effective separation between different parts of one idea that helps readers digest information better.
More importantly, you should say exactly what you mean: Readers are more likely to understand your topic if you explain difficult concepts in simpler terms and avoid overly technical language when there is an easier way to convey meaning.
Why Pictures Are Important
The human brain processes visual information is 60,000 times faster than text. That’s why having a strong image strategy is key for any website.
In fact, it’s becoming harder and harder for many people to tell you what brand or model they use because they simply don’t care! What they do care about is how fast a page loads on their devices, so it’s in your best interest to optimize images for any mobile device that might be viewing your site. Here are 5 tips that will help you get your image ready for all digital eyes.
Formate Your Informative Article for Search Engines: SEO
One of your main goals, when you create an informational piece, is getting people to see it, which means it needs to be found by search engines like Google. Remember that search engines can’t read images or videos they only read text. So, make sure that you include plenty of keyword-rich text in your piece so that both humans and robots will notice it.
Try to Optimize titles, headings, bullet points, and subheadings for search engines to entice users with relevant keywords. Also consider how often a user would need to come back for your information and how often it changes (such as news updates), if you want to maximize SEO potential.
Creating an Outline for Each Section of Your Content
One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating an informational piece is that they just jump right into writing. When you do that, it’s all too easy to forget what you were supposed to be talking about or confuse yourself on key points.
Outlining your content upfront will help keep your train of thought and provide a guide for what’s coming next in your content. Use Heading Tags (H1-H6): H1-H6 tags are more than fancy decoration; they make each section easily identifiable to readers who might land on your page looking for specific information.
It makes information stand out from other surrounding text, adding importance and giving weight to your content.
BONUS TIP - Use Existing Content as an Inspiration for New Content!
Believe it or not, you’re already in possession of a great deal of content that can serve as valuable inspiration for new posts. Look through older posts, edit and expand on them, and republish. Take something you’ve already created and make it even better by adding more depth and detail. Here are several ideas for repurposing existing content.
Informational Articles Should not be opinion-based
Informational writing is not an opinion-based one. It has a tone of objectivity, it is precise and detailed in its description of facts, processes, or data. The purpose of informational writing is not to convince readers but rather to inform them about something that might be interesting for them or help them out with the information they were looking for.
For example, you would write an informative essay on water filters comparing different types of water filters by providing technical details about each type. An informative post should not express strong emotions. It does not go beyond descriptions and explanation; there are no arguments in it either. Instead, arguments should be addressed separately since informative posts do get comments from your audience which could then lead to debate on certain issues.
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