Well, I changed the title from guide to checklist and did some rewriting of the content, as you suggested, and think your suggestions made my article much more effective with more power for the reader, I suspect.

Thanks,

John McLaughlin, Stock Trader – Consultant / Coach

DayTradersWin.com

I am a huge fan of checklists and share them often with my clients. And of course most of us start our days with a to do checklist – we’re familiar and comfortable with them as a way of tracking our successes/our accomplishments.

Also if you are an educator or trainer, sometimes you thing in terms of checklists—how something is done, what has to be included for a successful outcome– so this template would be a great guide for getting that information out of your head and out into the world.

The goal of my articles is to teach and hopefully to spur people into action. Checklists and simple how to lists, help me do just that.

Thank you again, Chris

Maiya
@MaiyaRose

Providing quick and useful information is refreshing. So many times I have read articles that drone on and on not REALLY adding value. Because I have a short attention span, checklists are easier for me to read and absorb.

A checklist is more appropriate for some set of actions you are asking your reader to take.

As to fortunes made on tips, well, maybe ask the FlyLady.

I agree, it’s not the knowledge, it is the real experience. I must admit that I am still “surprised” to say the least about the content of many articles I see. And about the copy on the web in general.

Especially about “Earning money in minutes” etc.

Regarding using “tip-articles” and articles to build you business. I have created a simple tool called “tiparticlecreator” including google and amazon and a tell-your-friend function. And that works prety well.

In any case it forces people to structure their thoughts and think. That’s also the way of course you would start writing in general.

Regards,
Tony de Bree

You’ve caught the essence of checklisting. However, this is far from the whole story on how to write good articles.

Many times a writer will hold himself or herself out as an expert and then crank out checklists that are far less than credible. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to support your assertions with good rhetoric — believable facts, statistics, logical reasons, and the like. You need enough discourse to fully engage the reader and bring them forward with you. And your list items have to be absolutely lucid and understandable. One slip and you’re toast.

It’s simply not enough to crank out trite lists. If you want to build reputation, what you say must be relevant, practical, and credible. The internet is crawling with wannabe gurus all trying to get rich quick. And they’re all writing to people who think as they do.

How many fortunes have been built on collections of tips?

You have to be different by making a big promise and then delivering on it. By giving someone the steering wheel instead of just the road map.

Don’t fall prey to this trap — believing that your readers are dumb enough to think they can conquer the world if they can manage to surf fast and compile enough shallow tips. The 5 best of this and the 11 worst of that, plus the 15 big mistakes, and so on. We’re getting sick of this.

At some point, we need to transition from knowledge to wisdom. To connect the dots. This takes greater depth, and longer prose.

People read long copy when it’s good copy. Sure, it’s great to have a few quickie lists but these are like tidbits. Eventually, the hungry want banquets. Tip lists are just the soup and dinner mints.

Don’t forget to go deep and share something truly valuable — the background principles from which tips arise — in some of your articles. Maybe in most.

Otherwise you’ll build a brand as someone shallow who deals only in trivia.

So far my longer articles are doing just fine. Getting page hits and publications. My site traffic is steadily rising. And I haven’t sent out any tip lists.

So, here’s my idea for a tip list article: “Beyond Tips and Trivia: 15 reasons why you need true depth in your articles.” Coming soon.

JR,w