Edward Weiss writes:

But Chris,

If we “…leave all sales & marketing hype language out of your articles” as you suggest, the article may not be as compelling as it could be.

I agree that too much hype is distracting but a little dash of it can go a long way.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Edward,

A dash of pepper or salt never hurt anything… but lately I’ve seen a lot of full hype articles where they promise the moon and back in the article title and fail to deliver any eggs or bacon in the article body.

Our readers are HUNGRY!

:-)

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Lance Winslow writes:

There are indeed a lot of “Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I Am” articles out there, no doubt. “Games People Play in The Middle of The Day,” no less.

I believe that an Internet Article writer often walks a fine line between keeping the Internet “Clicker” crowd happy and delivering on the promise. Most articles here attempt to get the reader to do something;

Click on Link
Buy Something
Think About Something
Change the Reader’s Opinion
Vote for or against an initiative or person

Without a compelling reason to do something, one has to wonder why write the article in the first place. Even those who do not market anything, really are marketing in a way; Marketing their information, ideas, concepts for instance.

A little hunger can be good, but starvation sucks.

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Chris!

I adored your article! Especially when you said: ‚¬“Write your article to be visually appealing for easy eye text scanning‚¬. Most people read the way you described. If we want to capture their interest we have to be easy to follow and say everything in only a few words.

The essential very objectively first of all, and then we can develop the subject until a certain point.

I agree also with what you said about not trying to sell anything in the article body.
I personally only buy something from someone if I feel I can trust this person.
We have to give a lot first of all in order to deserve the reader’s confidence and only then expect to sell him something.

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Edward Weiss writes:

So what you’re saying is:

In order to attain true article creaminess, one must forego the chewy chunks of hype filled degradation.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Edward,

Right, unless they melt in your mouth like a Krispe Kreme donut hot off the conveyor belt.

—-

The real issue is that not everyone gets this clue:

You GIVE in the Article Body;
You TAKE in the Resource Box.

-Amen.

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Christina Sponias writes:

An article is not an ad. It’s something you write to show what you know about certain matter, so that the reader may be interested on learning more about what you are saying, see which your solution is, care for your offer, etc.

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Dina at Wordfeeder.com writes:

Good advice, Chris. Ed, you make a good point. But now I’m tempted to say, “Define hype.” The web is teeming with sales pages where the author is declaring to the world, “I can show you how to write hype-free copy!” And yet their whole sales letter is TOTAL HYPE as far as I’m concerned.

I agree, we all recognize when we’re being “hyped” and yet how to be persuasive without getting all hypey on people?

I’m completely intrigued and I think this is going to be a topic for my article collection in the near future. Maybe a blog post… thanks for the inspiration, all!

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Kun Song writes:

Hi everybody,

Chris, I have another tip to add to your six. In order for an article to be compelling, it has to challenge the readers’ existing beliefs or invoke new ones. Instead of elaborating through lengthy arguments, isn’t it much better to ask questions?

Rhetorical questions can easily direct readers towards your argument. Example, “If you truely support environmental-friendliness, will you still stubbornly think that the Live Earth Concert is the best solution for carbon emission?”

Open-ended questions will invite readers to open their hearts. If you can anticipate their thoughts and plan your articles accordingly, your content will struck a cord in them.

Would you agree with me? ^^

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Christina Sponias writes:

Good suggestion Kun! This is an interesting style!

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Lance Winslow writes:

I say, let your passion flow and do not worry about it. If others call it hype, so be it. If your competition cries foul, cry out in laughter. The point is as Dina states, yes, we may not be able to get an exact definition, but we know it when we see it. If you focus your passion, the hype disappears and you are left with a visionary piece that is fully compelling. At least in my humble opinion, approaching 5 Million Article views! EzineArticles works and that’s no hype, I am certain we all agree on that.

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Ashok Kumar writes:

Definitions provided and points cleared by the author are OK but he should have elaborated his views further by giving examples of an article which has non compelling content and then rewriting the same article with compelling content. This would have made the concept more understandable to a layman and a new learner.

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