Melody Campbell, The Small Business Guru writes:

Another great template – I especially like how you broke it down into “before, during, & after”. Also the factiod re: positive spin vs negative spin is a useful nugget of wisdom I will add to my “Virtual Buzz Tool Kit.”

Enjoy following you on Twitter.

@SmBizGuru

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Kathy writes:

I agree with Melody. Thank you for these templates and writing tips. They are incredibly helpful.

Kathy

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Pearls writes:

Thanks for a such great template. It is very clear when you use OL & LI to highlight the TO DO and NOT TO DO list.

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Avril Harper writes:

I love the ‘X Ways’ article type which until now I have created as ‘X things you didn’t know about (Subject)’. What I find particularly useful is to specify in the resource box that the reader can discover ‘X more things they didn’t know about (subject)’ by visiting a specific url. Thanks so much for putting this article type into such close perspective. I love it.

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Gary writes:

Thanks for this great tip. I haven’t used it before but will be soon. I have used something similar with the “Do you make these X mistakes?” template.

Avril, the “X more things” in the resource box is a fantastic idea. Thanks for sharing it.

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Phillip writes:

WoW wOw Wow … Thanks a bundle for this excellent vision version of “How to” … what an excellent way to share show how to ‚¬“Things You Must Do‚¬ and ‚¬“Things To Avoid.‚¬ it might have the key word fun in the beginning but this is serious insiders information I love this way of explaining how it should be done in my book the best yet!

All my best to you and your learned curve
Phillip Skinner

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James writes:

thanks for this. It will be very helpful in enhancing my writing skills.

regards. more power!

James

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Audrey writes:

Those “negative” words are huge when readers are choosing an article to read.

I recently saw 2 articles

One was “How to Scare Folks Away From Your Website” the other title was “5 Things You Can Do To Keep Visitors On Your Site”

The two articles were almost identical in content yet the one with the negative title had a fraction of the views.

My vote is really with the postive. In the above, one example is not put music on your site. There are a few ways to say this:

1. Do not put music on your site
2. Keep your site music free

The first has a negative feel to it. The 2nd sentence can be a way to keep folks on your site.

Chris, I wonder if you’ve looked at stats on the articles with the “negative” in the titles?

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Laurence Meier writes:

Hi
i know i have yet to write for this site, but i thought i would do a little scouting before i began. One way to get a good feel for the arena one is entering is to hear what others are either unhappy about or happy about so i read the posts of others who have been around for a while.
This one grabbed my attention as it is one of my soapbox topics. I have to agree with Audrey, i would like to extend her observation and suggest one can actually takes the negative, and in most instances, through careful thought make it a positive statement.
i.e.
The phrase ‘Keep your site music free” has a negative connotation in that is is a command.
Yet is phrased as a question illicits a response or piques the interest
i.e.
‘How to keep your site music free…”
the Audience once captured is almost negative free… well that’s i see it anyway thanks for all the great ‘stuff’ makes for really good reading

March 22, 2012 at 4:17 AM

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Mark Singh writes:

Great article / tips, Chris. Helpful as always.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Audrey,

I’ve thought about doing a study on negative titles vs. positive titles to see how much traffic each attracts… but it’s so subjective that it’s hard to get a big group of articles together with keywords alone.

It’s safe to say POSITIVE tone articles outperform NEGATIVE tone articles.

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Susan writes:

I have been procrastinating at writing my first article, as I get writers block at how to write rather than what to write. This is excellent!

Positive tones are great. I would much prefer to write like this, but didn’t realize the benefits as outlined here.

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Annie B Lawrence writes:

Love this article and the great templates Chris. Guess I am a little confuse though. I thought I remembered being warned against using templates? But these suggestions look great can’t wait to get my ebook and ecourses done so I can get back to article writing.

Hope you and the EzineArticles community are all having a great summer!

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pamela strange writes:

Attracting more visitors to my site is the aim.
Writing for me is a must – not a game
It’s a plus is to have such a very odd name
Historical, nostalgic, wartime madness is Strange.
With Christophers tips and everything to gain
Daddy’s Little Spy will shoot to Amazon fame.

http://www.pamela strange.com

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Ntathu Allen writes:

Excellent. I decided to try and follow your templates on my latest article. I focused on what my yoga students fedback to me re the breathing exercises they find most useful to reduce stress. It made the article feel more alive and relevant to everyday life. Template also gave me a structure on which to base rest of article. Thx. Nx

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Annie,

Who warned you against using templates to help structure your original article writings?

That’s nonsense. :)

The templates job is to help focus your mind in a particulate direction… a way of freeing your mind to not worry about structure so you can focus on delivering solid new content in original ways only your unique mind can deliver based on your expertise.

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

WOW! (I like that word today – did you know that when you turn it over it spells MOM! – just thought I’d share that.)

Templates are a great way to “sing up” people for your website. They bring attention to the right items, capture the audience, and give you a methodology for writing.

Some people look for specific article templates when reposting articles, because they’re effective in their ezines. Consider for a moment if you have a column that always offers “Ten ways to…” you can have a real variety of topics and still stay on target with your column.

These templates WOW the audience and drive traffic – I’m in.

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Jim Kesel writes:

We occasionally use a different tactic of combining both positive and negative aspects of a subject such as:

Title: The positives and negatives of selling your own house.

We use two sets of bullets and it seems to work well. So there may be a 3rd template.

cheapsaunasales.com

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Nenad writes:

Many thanks for sharing this with us.

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Steve Shaw writes:

Using this kind of template certainly helps to get an article written – you have a ready structure in place to use before you even write, rather than trying to structure it in a meaningful way after you’ve written it. Any kind of numbered list type article – 3 Tips on…, 20 Ways to …, etc. – works well, and is also good at attracting readers.

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Roylan writes:

Great article! Will use the tips in my writing.
Thanks for sharing with us.

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Ron Spallone D.C. writes:

Just joined last night, this is a great resource to systematize projects, thanks!

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bet (Elizabeth) writes:

Thanks for this template. All help is much appreciated.

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Jon the Business Plan Guy writes:

The economy is in such a rut that we’ve got to keep things positive. People are feeling down on their own. They need a cheerleader in their corner. So we write articles like “6 Things you CAN do now … “. I like it better, even if my readers don’t.

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Wayne Hollwoay writes:

Hello Chris,

Great article that inspires more article writing! I find it curious, yet, understandable why people prefer to read about positive matters, as opposed to negative subjects.

However, in business, I find that people are more often guided by their desire to avoid pain, than to enjoy the pleasure.

Again, thanks for the suggestions.

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jitendra bharai writes:

Hello,

Very useful and great tips for effective article writing.

Thanks

jitendra

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Ruth Bonnemare writes:

This is a good tip, I’ll definitely come up with some articles using this template.

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Tom Cosgrove writes:

Great article especially the discussion of the “how to avoid” vs. the “how to get” headers ratio being 5-1. Goes to prove you can’t outhink the market, but you can read the scat droppings and learn in what direction to go.

– Tom Cosgrove

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Maiya Rose, Meaningful Streams of Income Coach writes:

Thank you for another straightforward, user-friendly template.

Re: the Please vs Pain angle – of course, most folks would say they like a positive spin to an article, yet how many will read an article titled, “25 Things You Do to Sabotage Your Success Every Day” because unfortunately they are afraid they really are sabotaging themselves.

Work to do for us coaches and healers!
Maiya

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bet (Elizabeth) writes:

Thanks, this will really help as I have a massive attack of writer’s block.

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Motown Terri writes:

‘Avoid’ and ‘Fail’ are great words to use in article titles.
Good tips for a template when creating articles.

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Olga O'Mara writes:

Thanks Chris,

Your caring, thoughtful suggestions and guidance clearly indicate your sincere desire to help us to get organized, “templatized” :) and get started or to continue on the right track.

Thank you so much! The above projects the supportive and concerned attitude for the “family/ coworkers/ members”. of a concerned “father/benefactor/leader”-YOU, Mr. Christopher M. Knight!

I greatly appreciate it. Thanks again.

(I have difficulty to get around: is there a ” Bank-File” for these Templates? When I click on “Article Templates” it brings me to this section. ?)

Speaking of the letter “W” vs. “M”.

If you were to substitute the letter “M’ for “W” in the word “CHRISTMASLOVE” you will read:
“CHRIST WAS LOVE”. :)

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Marc writes:

Olga,

Eventually we plan to release all of the article templates in a package, but there are still many more in the hopper to be created. For the time being, the quickest way to find all of the existing templates is to click on the Article Templates link in the right navigation bar of the blog. This will filter out everything but the blog posts which contain or discuss article templates.

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Isaac Bertoud writes:

Thank you for this excellent tips and guide. This is a great help to make quality content.

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